UPDATE----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now I am having problems with the ground unit. I am able to connect the air unit to the mini apm, and the mini apm to Mission Planner. The program recgonises the radio version and its configuration.
But the ground unit, which uses mini-USB, is causing me some trouble. I try to connect it through USB to Mission Planner, as stated on Ardupilot web. The baud rate used is 115200 (I tried also 57600). Then the timeout starts counting till it reaches 0, then an error message pops up: "No heartbeat packages received" or something similar.
I don't know what's the problem, since the air unit seems to work fine.
Thanks.
EDIT: Here you have a video, what I am doing wrong. I am a little bit lost...
Link: https://youtu.be/Rh1DejhjPTM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi everyone. This is my first post.
Currently I am doing a subject (at college) which consists on buliding a drone (at least, try to know how works each part).
Well, I have to do the telemetry of the drone and we are using RFD868+. We are using a FTDI chip in order to convert the connector of the radio (UART I think) to USB and be able to connect it to the PC. The GROUND unit works correctly, I can upload the firmware with RFDtools without problems.
Here are the pics of the connections I made...
This is the error I get:
And here we the pins of the Radio.
Furthermore, recently our teacher (the owner of the equipment) received a mail from jDrones telling him that they had detected some faulty RFD868/900, specially on the air unit. I wonder if my antenna is faulty or I am doing something wrong.
Thanks!
Replies
Yes.
"The air unit is connected to the miniAPM, and the miniAPM to Mission Planner. And MP recognises the air unit.
The ground unit should be connected to MP not the miniAPM
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. But the 30 sec timeout reaches always the end and then the "heartbeat packets" error popus up.
I felt very stupid also the 1st time.....
I thought that the names of the FTDI chip pins would be related each one with the ones of the RFD. It's the first time I'm using this type of antennas. I also wonder another thing:
1) When I upload a firmware, I guess it remains saved on the antenna, or do I have to upload every time that I want to use it?
Hard to tell what you are trying to do, but why can't you upload the firmware on the air unit the same way as you did the ground unit? (suppose the 2 units are the same)
No, they aren't. The ground unit comes with a mini-usb connector and I only have to connect it to the PC and upload the firmware and it's done. The air unit is different, it comes with an adapter in order to connect it to the autopilot, but first I wanna check it works by connecting it to the PC. For this reason I am using a conversor to micro-usb, which uses an FTDI chip. Its name is "FT232R Breakout"; you can see it on the pics, its the red pcb.
This step is only to upload the firmware and check that the air unit is working and I am able to send a receive data. If it works, the next step would be to connect it to the autopilot.
The air unit turns on beacuse I can see a little gren led flashing when I connect the power line (3.3V).
In fact I only built a LEGO: GND with GND, VCC with the 3.3V line, TX with TX, RX with RX, CTS with CTS and RTS with RTS. Am I forgetting something?
Thanks!
you have to invert tx / rx, tx pin one side goes to rx other side and rx pin one side goes to tx other side
and by the way NING is a PINTA 2@ the moment
Well, you were right. It worked. Thanks!!!
It makes sense; next week (I don't have the antennas with me) I will check it, hope it works! Thank you!
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
of 4 Next