I just bought the APM1.4 from 3DR in kit form. I soldered it together, then attempted to connect it to my PC according to instructions. When the Mission Planner was installed, it loaded the device driver, but when I connect the APM via USB, the device is not recognized. I hear the audio tone when I connect it, but all I see under device manager "Ports (COM & LPT)" is "Communications Port (COM1)". I'm pretty sure that's just the default serial port. Under "Other devices", there is "FT232R USB UART" with a little yellow triangle and exclamation mark. I tried attaching the Arduino Mega 2560 driver to this device (this driver was apparently installed with the MP software), but it "fails to start". The Device Manager entry is now under "Ports (COM & LPT)" and reads "Arduino Mega 2560 (COM3)" Still has the yellow triangle error symbol on it. The APM has a solid blue, yellow and red light, and one flashing blue.
Tried uninstalling and re-installing Mission Planner. Same result. I'm running Win7-64(SP1) on Intel Core i7.
Spent quite a while combing the forums looking for clues, came up empty handed. I found one post which sounded like a similar problem, but he has APM2 so probably not the same issue.
Surely I'm not the only one who has seen this!
Gary
Replies
After poking around a bit, it dawned on me that this Win7 system already had the PX4 Toolchain installed on it. The PX4 toolchain has its own set of drivers, some of which may be conflicting.
So, I decided to try another system. I have another system running Windows Vista. Upon installing the APM planner, the boards came up on COM4 as described in the setup instructions. Once I set the APM Planner port to COM4, it downloaded and installed the firmware without any errors.
Case closed.
Gary