Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Peter Seddon on June 26, 2009 at 1:18pm

I sympathise as I have not been able to get the ATMega328 board and ver 2.2 to work with the Config Tool. I would like to see a solution to this problem as it is not possible to enter the waypoints manually as they are stored in EEPROM.

Could you explain your problem as to why the Config tool does not work - you have tried to write without any waypoint data to initialise the EEPROM have you (this writes 00 to some of the EEPROM locations and a couple of other bytes as well)?

Peter

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Permalink Reply by Paul Har on June 26, 2009 at 1:48pm

I have spent hours trying to solve this problem. I have put one waypoint in which was my home location, but write also it wont read, it just comes up and says something is wrong, I would like to try my setup out but can't


What confused me was I am sure Chris wrote in the manual that you could put the waypoints in manually,but looking for wp-lat in the program but I must have misunderstood what he meant

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Permalink Reply by Chris Anderson on June 26, 2009 at 2:31pm

I meant that you can input waypoints manually into the config utility, not the code.

Jordi and I are confused by why people are having trouble with the config utility, since it's working fine for our boards. There must be something different in the hardware setups (ftdi cables or drivers or something) but we can't figure out what.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Seddon on June 27, 2009 at 12:20pm

Chris,

I am not sure exactly what is supposed to happen when I use the Config Tool. I know the result is that on the first write it sets about 128bytes to 00 and certain other bytes to other values. Can you tell us the sequence of events and how the Config Tool achieves this so that we can try some fault finding - I had wanted to put an RS232 sniffer onto the port to try and find out what was going on but couldn't find a freeware sniffer.

If it works for you then it sounds like an FTDI driver or similar problem - such as the Config utility not being able to read back from the EEPROM - although there is a lot of LED activity fro me.

regards Peter
ps I still have one Ardupilot that has not been used and which I would like to use to solve this problem!

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Cuervo on June 27, 2009 at 12:37pm

Chris,
I also have the same issue. I've been following the manual step by step and I'm at the point to initialize the board by clicking on "write". This gives me "somethings wrong" every time. I plugged my ATmega 168 into the exact same setup in the plane, clicked write and read and it works just fine. Something is clearly wrong with the new board/shield setup. Have you and Jordi found anything yet or have any ideas on how we can diagnose this?
Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Mark Colwell on June 27, 2009 at 12:54pm

I experienced same behavior with AT168 & 2 AT368 boards, but my PC is having video crash problems, I am also having some problems with uBlox GPS setup.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Cuervo on June 27, 2009 at 12:55pm

I just removed the shield and plugged the FTDI directly into the board(GPS removed)---same problem. So it looks like the problem is localized to the ATmega 328 board.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Anderson on June 27, 2009 at 4:12pm

Guys, the only thing I can think of is that it's the FTDI cable. We're using the official DIY Drones one (same as the Adafruit one) but when I try the Sparkfun 3.3v board, I get the same problem you do.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on June 27, 2009 at 4:34pm

Chris,

I bought both the Sparkfun FTDI 3.3v board and the Adafruit FTDI cable so I guess that I will go the FTDI cable route to program the Ardupilot board based on your observations.

It sounds like Sparkfun must come up with an explanation as to why the FDTI 3.3v board will not work with the Ardupilot since they recommend it for programming the board.

Maybe Sparkfun will be big enough to refund us for the purchase of the 3.3v board if we send it back to them. Their 3.3v board has lead to a lot of frustration and disappointment. It is the least that they can do!

Just a thought.

Regards,
tCIII

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Permalink Reply by Fred Forbes on June 27, 2009 at 5:06pm

At the risk of telling you what you already know, there is an issue documenrted in another thread of problems with the Ardupilot usb connection when a gps is connected. My ATmeg168 version of Ardupilot works flawlessly with the config utility as long as my 406 gps is disconnected. Plugging in my gps results in "something is wrong" on every attempt to read or write.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Cuervo on June 27, 2009 at 5:17pm

I am using the Sparkfun FTDI cable. It works fine with the ATmega168 board so shouldn't it also work with the ATmega328? I don't think it's an issue Sparkfun has to address.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Cuervo on June 27, 2009 at 5:48pm

It’s a little disconcerting when Chris says, “when I try the Sparkfun 3.3v board, I get the same problem you do”. The manual shows the Sparkfun FTDI board being used. Here is the picture taken directly from the manual. Notice the small, red wire in the lower right corner of the board. Does anyone else have this wire on their Sparkfun boards? I don’t and I’m guessing someone had to add it to get the board to work with the ATmega 328.

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