Please Help! Flashed my pixhawk with updated APM Planner (2.1.15) firmware and now can no longer receive any Transmitter signal, when it worked perfectly previous to flashing I had just done a esc calibration with no issues what so ever...Using X8R with frsky SBus Cppm Converter, to a XJT module & Turing 9XR. I tried re-flashing the pixhawk with the firmware, also tried flashing with adruplane then back to copter also didn't work and even tried reformatting the micro sd card in the pixhawk and reloading the firmware and still no luck? This seems to occur each time I update firmware and it then takes me days to resolve the issue. Any one know where to access the previous versions perhaps? Maybe this will work. Thanks
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Replies
I'm a new user, and I've run into a similar problem as well. Did anyone have any success looking into this problem? Thank you.
Regards,
Jake Green
Hi Jake,
I could recommend several tests you could run which may or may not help determine where your problem is coming from, but unfortunately my only solution was to send it back to 3DR for replacement. However before it stopped working completely it did do this and then I did get it going again.
First, power your rx/tx and plug and esc/motor into input channel 3 on the rx and you should be able to control the motor with the throttle (you should also power the pdb (I just powered everything then with the cable into sbus for power I hooked up the ESC to channel 3 "in my case it was an X8R). If this works then you know your rx/tx works,
Secondly check for power the pixhawk or apm with a usb cable and check between the negative and signal pins on the rc slot on the pixhawk or apm depending (I use pixhawk and have never actually seen an apm so I can speak on behalf of that side). You should get 5v. If not then something isn't working and its probably a power issue.
Thirdly, sometimes factory soldering isn't perfect and there is the odd chance that a situation could arise where the soldering comes loose eventually, could be even from a simple move of the unit so that could also be worth checking.
Finally is all these check out then attempt to go back to the previous firmware version. This is done by flashing to plane the back to copter but select previous version (i've never used mission planner but i'm told it's an option in the menu,) with APM planner you need to select custom firmware and it'll give you chance to choose a file, this file you could find in the database of old firmware versions, I'm not certain which you'd be looking for, I guess that would depend on the version that last work, but I'd suggest general searching a bit to get an idea of the different versions (sorry I can't point in you in better direction for which to try I'm by no means familiar with each version),
And if all else fails I'd would highly recommend contacting 3DR they are usually pretty great and standing behind their products, but as for the speed of the process I can't say much because I'm still waiting.
If I can think of any thing else I'll definitely post it.
Hope this helps and you get it sorted out!
Thanks a lot, Craig! That's a very well-written and thorough reply. We figured out that the problem was actually linked to our constant changing from qgroundcontrol to APM Planner and back, which each time overwrote the previous firmware along with corresponding parameters each time. For this reason, the parameter FLTMODE_CH (in qgroundcontrol, I believe) was somehow set to 8, but we only had a 7 channel transmitter. I appreciate your help once again! I'm sure we'll have other issues later on, but now we'll know how to solve this one.
Hi Jake, thats great news you got it sorted it out!
I definitely know how it feels to have something go wrong and be at a loss on where to even begin. When I first started messing around with this type of tech I was a fish out of water, and got discouraged after a while, as it almost seems like there are all kinds of tidbits of troubleshooting info out there, but none of it really connected or came together as a whole, so it was simply a bunch of pieces to a puzzle that has no reference point. After a while though you start to get better with the help of others, so it's good to keep this going.
This also leads in to a possible idea...
Diydrones provides an amazing archive of discussions on problems past & present, which may or may not have resulted in successful conclusions through discussions, but are highly scattered in more than just one discussion thread, which results in solutions or tests or diagnosing becoming fragmented and more difficult to understand. I think a great way to help curve a lot of problems already would be to do an overhaul of all the little fragments of info on solutions, which have helped resolve or determine what issues are present resulting in success compiled into clear, detailed, on point, trouble shooting FAQ's or problems solved section. As in a section on loss of RC signal or RC signal errors (There are at least ten good posts I can think of on this exact topic each with great but very different solutions or tests). This could definitely save a lot of time for more advanced users to sort out lesser known or problems that have yet to be sorted out. Almost like a problem solving for dummies section (***not to imply any body is less smart than another), just sometimes we all make simple mistakes or are just missing that little bit of info (brain fart moment) to get through the problem.
But its just a thought...