We've had dataflash card issues with one of our APM2's since day one, but our second APM2 worked fine until after a few rough landings (no repairs were needed, so they weren't that bad), we can't get the mission planner to identify logs or the APM2 to create them, not sure which.
We tried reformatting the card, removing it and reinstalling it, updating the firmware on the APM2 and the Mission Planner version, etc, but to no avail.
We're moving forward with FPV & Telemetry while we figure it out, but we'd really like to have it working... any suggestions?
Thanks!
Comments
Richie
I too have been struggling with the "no dataflash inserted" problem for some time. 3DR has indicated to me that some of the original card holders were not performing to spec. I finally decided to remount the GPS board because the board was not sitting flush on the 12 pin connector between the two boards. The 12 pin connector connects the GPS and the SD card slot to the motherboard. It also caries the card inserted notification signal. When I was dry fitting it all back together i noticed that this 12 pin connection fit together with the force required for one of the 3 pin connection to the radio. After mounting the board I removed the protective plastic cover and soldered the connections. Since this mod I have not has the "no dataflash inserted" problem. It worked for me It may not work for others and you must be aware the warranty goes up in smoke.(like your field repair) Your soldering skills need to be fairly good.
I'd like to suggest that, before you move on to FPV, telemetry and other expensive stuff extra on board, to replace your plastic control horns and those skinny looking clevises. Metal should not immediately be necessary for the speed of the platform and the size of the ailerons, but something higher quality should only be a couple of quid and this is probably the weakest thing you have in the loop right now. I would personally not have thrown the thing in the air again after that "fix" :).
The control horn also looked brown yellowish. Is that discolored "by hand", or is this UV-sensitive plastic that becomes brittle after exposure to the sun?
just to be sure, on next boards there will be no more external SD card. All high speed connections will be on main board so data can flow freely without any disruptions. Hopefully this will solve all problems on APM2 and we can get back to steadiness like in APM1
Eagle: We're referring to problems with erasing the dataflash and logs not showing up.
Hey Guys don't worry abought the data flash they will work it out. You guys need to woorry more about your hardware. Come on guys, hot glue for a linkage that's supposed to be threaded? Lady luck is gonna give up on you if you don't do it right. I don't want to see this stuff again from GeekShow.
What Jason means is that this will be fixed in the next public version of the code, out early next week.
Some chips were manf out of spec by Atmel and have erase problems when using the 'chip erase' function. The Git Trunk has a fix for this. It falls back to a slow, but more reliable manual erase.
Jason
My dataflash card had stopped working. This appeared to have happened during a regulator weekend of flying, without a crash, but I did have one crash a few weeks before that.
Upon close examination, one of the exposed resistors on the card was mechanically damaged. Check if that 's the case with yours. I contacted support at 3DR, and they helped me out.