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ConfiguratorTool error: Missing library

Posted by Robert on December 3, 2010 at 1:05am
Hi guys!

This is my first post, so please take it easy on me. I received my ArduCopter this week and assembling went smoothly. I have been flying a MikroKopter Quad and a MikroKopter Octo for two year, so I'm not entirely new to the field. I'm an embedded software engineer (mostly Linux) by profession, with a heavy background in electronics. So most problems I can fix myself, but not this one:

Yesterday I was trying to configure my ArduCopter, using the ConfiguratorTool. Unfortunately this tool depends on the Instruments LABView runtime library. This library, 160MB of it, comes in a wide variety of flavours and versions: minimum/standard, 32/64-bit and 2009/2010. Each one  takes ages to download and even longer to install, reboot try if it works and finally to uninstall.

I have found one version to 'work'. That is: With that version he ConfiguratorTool doesn't immediatly complain about the missing runtime library at launch. Not surprisingly that's the version mentioned in the Wiki (good job btw). But when trying to connect to the ArduCopter, it still produces an error about a missing library.

So I've been trying most combinations, until late last night: The Wiki link leads to a 32-bit version, but I've got a 64-bit machine and Windows 7 to match. So trying the 64-bit version seemed logical, but that version isn't detected at launch.

Any idea?
(I'm sorry for my verbosity ;-)

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Replies

  • Andrew Radford December 14, 2010 at 1:12am

    Sorry to resurrect this topic - but since it is where it all started I might as well.

    I've been tinkering with a new Configurator in .Net. The aim was simply to replace the critical functions of the current one, in something that does not require a half gigabyte download. Hopefully this may mean an alternative for people struggling to get their kit going.

    A secondary aim was to be cross platform. Therefore it targets .Net 2.0 and Winforms GUI library. This is present on pretty much every windows box out there, and is supported also by Mono, so should in theory work under Linux/OSX etc. (I have not tested it though on anything other than Windows)

     

    At the moment as you can see it is early early days - but it can read config and flight data, update PIDS etc, has realtime display - albiet using standard windows progress bars instead of the cool controls that the proper configurater has.

    I would say it is not far form being useful - although critical things like transmitter and sensor calibration wizards are missing.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ed Windham December 9, 2010 at 10:25am
    I purchased an ArduCopter kit from DIY and I am having problems with sensor readings in the configurator. The initialization of the EEPROM and calibration was very easy though a little frustrating until I found out that if position hold or altitude hold are on you cannot calibrate the throttle. My problem, if one exists, is that when I look at the sensor readings, I get nothing when I move the boards. Am I doing something wrong or do I have bad gryos/ac?
  • Mark Curry December 5, 2010 at 1:26pm
    On my system (Windows 7 64bit XP-VM) I have to attatch the USB device to the XP Virtual Machine. Only then can the Configurator use it.

    I also have LPT1, but also USB devices.....

    Are you using Arduino to compile in the VM or on the Mac? If in the VM, is it detecting the USB port?
  • Developer
    Sandro Benigno December 5, 2010 at 11:58am
    Richard, when you're using Arduino IDE, everything is OK? What port you use there?
  • Mark Curry December 5, 2010 at 3:33am
    Hi Robert,

    I am also using 64bit Windows 7. I tried for days and just could not get it to work. In the end I created a Windows VM for XP on my 64 bit system, and installed everything there. It now works perfectly. It may seem like a pain, but in the end it is worth it to set it up this way...

    Mark
  • Robert December 4, 2010 at 10:19am
    Thanks for al the answers, guys! What eventually worked for me was to first uninstall all the NI stuff and then to install the AeroQuad configuration tool. The installer contains the proper NI runtime library and with the AeroQuad configuration tool installed, the ConfiguratorTool works properly too.

    And in it's defense: It works really well! I've got no problem connecting, not even with the default timeout. It shows all the info I need and there's even some help included.
  • Andrew Radford December 3, 2010 at 2:24am
    Yeah the tool is better than nothing, or config'ing through the command line or something like that, however a new tool that is more like a wizard that could guide noobs building a kit through the process would be good, remove barriers and all that. Generally I think successuful projects like this one need 80% noobs following a prescribed and well beaten path (i.e the 'Users') and 20% advanced/hackers that innovate etc. That way it becomes so much more than a few people's hacked together project. However the progress to date with the kit and the manual etc are encouraging and in the right direction.
  • Andrew Radford December 3, 2010 at 1:30am
    I can't remember the details but I had the same issue - turns out I had installed the wrong thing, and the correct one was something like 250Mb+. I don't look foreward to my internet bill.
    To be honest I like the look of the configurator but this library is a HUGE pain of a dependency, I don't know what it is apart from a massive piece of bloat-ware. Who knows what else is installed on my machine now.
    I know someone was promising a new .NET config tool - which would be awesome. I don't think it amounted to anything, not even one line of code.
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