Just sharing a weird experience I had.
I had trouble connecting at times and not at others.
Using the Hotel.1.0 (H.1.0) Oilpan.
After extensive testing I worked out that if I connect a 3 inch wire to the pin opposite to "G2 (39)" on the Tx/Rx connector that it works far more contently.
Very strange, but it works.
This might help to resurrect some ardupilots which have been shelved.
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Other things I found useful were to make sure only position 2 of the microswitch is up (having it down causes all servos to stop moving), to have the CLI switch moved towards the header cable for testing the CLI (obviously). I had to upload the firmware using 57600 baud and use 115200 baud for everything else. I'm also now using the 1.2.57 Mav 1.0 Mission Planner (current version as at this date). Out of the box I could use the Mission Planner for everything with no adjustments. For those of us accustomed to the older Mission Planner you have to press enter 3 times in console for the new firmware to go to CLI mode.