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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on February 16, 2008 at 11:12am

You've gone to system settings in the Vista control panel, and confirmed which port the USB-to-serial cable was assigned to? The U-Nav software is terrible and will give you cascading errors until you get the port setttings right (on XP, at least)

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Permalink Reply by Bob Moulder on February 16, 2008 at 11:20am

Chris, yes the USB port is assigned to Comm1 and I am not getting the cascading error messages, so I am past that point. When I click on the Waypoint Editor serial icon, in the dialog box the "port" field is blank. Also, on page 10 in the manual it states that "the Program switch must be in the PROGRAM position" but damned if I can find any mention of the program switch or its location...

This is not the most user-friendly software, that's for sure. I am not a computer person at all, and I didn't count on having to jump through so many hoops to get this unit to work!

-- Bob

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Permalink Reply by Bob Moulder on February 17, 2008 at 7:45am

Okay, it took a couple of days of persistence and pulling out what little hair I have left , but I figured out how to get Picopilot to work with Windows Vista in my laptop, which is an HP Pavilion dv2000.

Here's what works:

In Windows Vista, right click on the PicoPilot icon, click "properties", tab for "compatibility" and then select Windows 2000, then apply.

I installed an iogear RS232-to-USB adapter with iogear driver software. It works without a null modem adapter, and will not work with a null modem adapter.

Go into Control Panel, then Hardware, then Devices, then Ports then the iogear adapter (ATEN) then Port Settings, then Advanced, and uncheck "Use FIFO buffers."

For PP Waypoint Editor, right click the serial icon and under "Handshaking" make sure all the options are "OFF"

I am not a computer person and have no idea why this combination works, but it does. I wish UNAV could have figured this out -- or, better yet, worked out the hardware/software issues to make the device USB plug-n-play -- but in the meantime this will suffice, at least for me.

-- Bob

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on February 17, 2008 at 11:44am

Jeepers. What an ordeal. Thanks for the figuring that out and shame on U-Nav for making you do it yourself...

-c

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Permalink Reply by Bob Moulder on February 18, 2008 at 7:41am

Thanks, Chris. I posted this every place I could so that somebody else may benefit. I also e-mailed U-Nav with my finding.

It was an ordeal, for sure, an exercise in brute-force trial-and-error. There may be other combinations that work -- and more logical and efficient ways to find them -- but I normally stop looking when I find something that works...

-- Bob

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Permalink Reply by Lucas Worthen on January 11, 2009 at 12:30pm

Thanks, I was having the same problem and unfortunately found this after I spent too much time trying to figure it out. Hopefully it can save some other people the trouble! I am really unhappy with their software.

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Permalink Reply by jonny on January 11, 2009 at 2:49pm

Ahllelujah, terribly sorry to hear about your ordeal all of you, but for me it is quite reassuring to find that I am not the only one to have experienced the UNAV Mafia. Tacky product, arrogant unwilling aftersales, shabby software, 800 bucks! When i read the threads posted by the likes of Chris here and Dean over on the other channel, I feel they have a true passion for their product and are absolutely unwilling to market them until they are happy with the function. If an autopilot requires computer skills to make it work then advertise it as so.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Moulder on January 11, 2009 at 5:03pm

jonny, IMHO the software works fine, IF you can ever get it installed, so the issues are really installation and compatibility.

My experience is that the unit itself is not tacky, and once you get it installed and adjusted it works quite well. Tweaking it to work with a particular plane also takes a lot of tweaking with the mechanical set-up and trimming of the plane, then methodically adjusting the gains of the PicoPilot. It is a process that requires stubborn persistence. However, I can say that once it's dialed in, it works very well, is very consistent, and very easy to program. But that happiness does not come easily!!

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