I am building an ArduCopter. I've completed all the steps in the Arducopter manual up to the point where you connect the ArduCopter to the Configurator and I'm stuck there. Any clues or assistance would be appreciated.
Here is the behavior I'm getting…
When I connect the mini-USB cable to the USB jack (on the Oilpan) of the ArduCopter and press the Configurator's Connect button, the solid green light on the Oilpan goes off. The orange TX light (at the edge of the board, next to the Telemetry pins where the Xbee wires are connected) starts blinking orange.
The Configurator says… Connection Attempt #1, #2, #3… up to #30, and then says "Unable to connect to AeroQuad". It then repeats.
In case they are needed, here are the specifics of my situation:
Configurator: v1.2.2
Communication Port: COM6
Baud Rate: 115200
Timeout: 30 seconds
When I first started, the Configurator indicated that I needed to load the VISA driver, so I found the most recent driver for WIndows7, loaded it, and got past that issue.
The ArduCopter is loaded with the software: Alpha 1.0 Release. This loaded fine. When it's not connected to the USB the ArduCopter seems to boot OK: Power lights come on. The three colored LEDs flash and then go off and then the correct LED turns solid green like it's supposed to. I get an initial three-tone ascending startup tone, then a series of three quick tones (to indicate the 3-cell lip), then a single beep.
The Arducoputer has the standard electronics: APM, Oilpan, XtreamBee Board with XBee, Ublox GPS, Futaba RC Receiver, magnetometer. I'm using the typical 4 Turnigy ESCs with KDA-20-22L motors. I've tried the Configurator with the ESCs/motors powered by the lipo and not powered (doesn't work either way). When the USB is connected, the USB powers the APM/IMU/etc. (I have a switch that turns off the power that would normally come from the BEC on one of the ESCs.)
Computer: Windows 7 (with Windows 7 VISA driver, Labview 9, and Configurator). I normally work on a Mac, so my Arduino IDE is there, and that's where I loaded the ArduCopter software from. Since the Configurator is Windows only, I switched over to Windows 7 for that.
I'm using a standard mini-USB cable. When I plug in the USB (with the ArduCopter connected to it), the Windows status bar displays the USB symbol and connects, indicating "FT232R USB UART". The driver is FTDI 7/12/2010, version 2.8.2.0 (it came with Windows 7 and when I tried to update it, it said it's the most current).
Replies
Success! The Configurator is now connecting and reading flight data. Thank you for the tip. I can now move forward with my project. Onward and upward. :)
Here's what I did:
1. I re-installed LabView. This time I installed LabView 2010 64bit version, which I somehow missed before. I didn't realize that version existed. (My Windows 7 is 64bit).
2. I re-installed the Vista driver.
I'm not sure which step did the trick, but together they solved the problem, so you were right that the problem was in the LabView area rather than any of the areas that it might have been (my assembly/soldering effort, the electronics, the Arducopter software, the Configurator software, etc.).
By the way, I should have mentioned this before: I'm running my Windows 7 in a vmWare Fusion window on my Mac. So, assuming you didn't know this already, you'll be happy to hear that everything appears compatible with that approach (once you install the right version of Labview and driver).
You could also test how your general data stream works from Arduino IDE. Go in serial monitor, wait untill software has rebooted properly and then send 'S' to serial. You should start to see immediately a data feed coming out from it. Look if it's constant. It is then it's say that your only problem is with LV.
This all works perfectly on every machine I've tried, but I'm already using LabVIEW software on all of them, so they've all got the right drivers.