A2 compass and GPS calibration, and other issues

[Old Man]

Folks

I'm reaching out for any info I can get because I'm at a complete loss for ideas and DJI has fewer to work with that I do. They tried hard but no joy.

I'm in the final stages of setting up a new A2 controller and running into some problems. The initial software was v2.1 and the DJI Assistant recognized the controller, no problem. The next couple of items are when connected direct to the A2 via a laptop. I have not done the app install on my i phone. The Futaba TX and the controller have been linked successfully.

Today I tried the v2.2 upgrade and after exporting the parameters from the 2.1 version, when attempting to import to the v2.2 Assistant the Assistant fails to recognize the controller is present and rejects the import. However, it will enter, but not complete, the calibration mode in the "tools" menu. Due to this I reverted to the 2.1 software. For those wondering if the motors will arm, they will do so with either software release.

Earlier, using the 2.1 software, the A2 would not recognize the presence of a battery when attempting to set the voltage limits and fail safes. That eventually came together after reloading the A2 Assistant but the controller will not permit calibrating the compass and GPS. After establishing that the modes change accordingly in the Assistant when flipping the mode switch the most I have been able to get out of the LED indicator is a constant series of red flashes. Earlier, when I was having issues with battery recognition I would get a long series of yellow flashes, changing to a long series of red flashes, which combined with the inability to establish voltage limits led me to believe there was a battery recognition issue. Now the yellow flashes are no longer involved, the voltage limits are set, but I cannot calibrate any of the directional/positional hardware-software. The quad is set in the middle of a yard, no physical restrictions blocking the view of the sky/horizon, with no metal or electromagnetic items with 20 feet of the quad.

I've gone back through all the connections and found them good. Disconnected the 2.4Mhz data link with the thought there might be a frequency conflict with the 2.4 TX. Battery has at minimum been at 25v for all the attempts, and a volt meter confirms at least 24.9v is present at the controller XT-60 power input. Channel mapping is complete and verified via the A2 Assistant. I've tried calibration with the fail safe switch in both normal and "Go Home" positions with no joy. Even tried all the possible positions with the IOC switch involved in the process.

The DJI voice help line doesn't have a clue, and in as much said they know very little about the A2. They suggested contacting the selling vendor for a replacement. Hopefully the above is a good informational starting point for someone that knows the A2 to provide some thoughts with. Thanks.

 

[Old Man]

It appears I may have found the problem at the PMU but it would be great if someone that knew the A2 better could verify. Due to the different software releases on the various components I took some screen shots to more accurately relate that info.

It appears the system is not communicating completely with the IMU. I've checked electrical connections and voltages over and over, with the Controller providing just under 3v to the IMU when connected to the A2 Assistant via the laptop USB connection. The light on the IMU is illuminated, indicating it is receiving power. Unfortunately any attempt to calibrate the compass and GPS is met with a failure light indication.

Attached are screen shots taken from the device info page of the A2 Assistant. Everything identifies when highlighted with the cursor and clicked except the IMU. If anyone has any ideas I'm sure open to suggestions.
View attachment 18362View attachment 18363View attachment 18364View attachment 18365View attachment 18366

 

[soler]

That's the PMU not the IMU In the first picture and it is not upgrade able to my recollection. Your IMU is to the latest version.

make sure your doing the right chicken dance when trying to calibrate.

 

[Old Man]

My error, and thanks for catching that. Correcting in the earlier post for accuracy.

For the sake of discussion, let's say that the PMU is not upgradable. Are you also suggesting that the A2 Assistant should not identify the component when highlighting and clicking as it does with all the other components? As of now I am also receiving a PMU connection error message in the Assistant that had not been present in days previous. All wiring is correct per Assistant diagram, and the PMU indicator light does not illuminate.

As for the chicken dance, the unit will not enter a calibration mode, which IS the problem at this time. Flipping the mode switch 6 to 10 times only takes the LED into a continuous yellow flashing state, then into a continuous red flashing state. I leave the number of attempts to enter the calibration mode as "numerous" to no avail.

 

[surfab]

just had a play with mine. the pmu does not highlight like the rest. and the pmu error means that you dont have a battery plugged in. try hook a battery up and see what happens. error should go away but the pmu still wont highlight. my advice is use the 1.2 software and use that to make all the firmware 2.1. I changed to 2.2 and had major issues. nearly lost my whole rig but got lucky. others havnt been so lucky. went strait back to 2.1 and no problems at all

 

[surfab]

I had issues trying to calibrate mine when i first got it, turns out i was just doing it wrong.. I was flicking mode switch as fast as I could trying to get blue calibration led to come on. turns out I was doing it to fast for to long lol. now I flick mode switch about 7-8 times then wait a couple of secs and goes into calibration mode every time now. not saying there is not anything wrong with your flight controller but they are temperamental little things and it pays to double tripple check everything before getting on the phone to a support line and making a fool out of yaself when there is actualy nothing wrong (speaking from experience...)

 

[Old Man]

Thanks for the info, I check those items out, again, and see what happens. Any idea what a repeating LED light sequence of green-red-red is supposed to be telling me? I cannot find that in the light guide or any of the manual pages anywhere.

Now, does anyone make a good auto pilot/controller that has decent installation and ops instructions, is reliable out of the box, has a good user interface, waypoint capability, in flight dashboard, good customer service, and not a beta release with each new software update, and insures that product is widely available? I'll be looking for more auto pilots soon and DJI won't be on the list. If you could purchase replacement parts there would be a lot more options but if one component fails it's off for many months of waiting to repair or buy a complete new system.

We'll see if this A2 will boot up and permit calibration tomorrow, again...

 

[surfab]

If you find such i flight controller let me know... cos I would love that to haha.

 

[surfab]

when are the green red red led flashing? while assistant is connected?

 

[Old Man]

No, that occurs with the system controlled by transmitter after system warm up. It has happened a few times before going into the attempts at calibrating the compass.

This situation is really a bit irritating. The system boots up fine, goes through self checks, counts down the satellite acquisitions, will arm and run the motors, but has thus far not permitted compass calibration. Oh, how does one set a particular stick position arrangement for motor arming and disarming? Right now just about any two stick position will arm the motors as long as they are the same or exact opposites at the bottom of the gimbals.

BTW, thanks for your willingness to help.

 

[surfab]

so still no luck with compass calibration? and the 3 pos mode switch is definitely shows that it is going through the 3 flight modes in the assistant? is the compass running off can 1 port? there is 4 different ways you can arm the motors from what I have seen you cant set a particular one to do it. do you have an iosd mk11? maybe if you could could give a log it might help. its pretty hard to say with out actually being there. im pretty new to it all my self so prob not the best person to be giving advice haha

 

[Old Man]

Just went through all the likely sequences again. I didn't say all possible sequences because I could have missed one or two. Here's what's happening.

My previously related light sequence was reversed. After going through satellite acquisition the system flashes red-green-green when powered up outside in the open.

Try to trigger the calibration mode and the system starts flashing a continuous red sequence about 30 seconds after the switch sequence is completed. Tried 6, 7, 8,9,and 10 flips of the switch with the same results. Bring it in the house and put in Attitude mode and the light sequence changes to yellow-green-green-red-red. We'll allow for GPS loss in that one. In the house in GPS mode and the light sequence runs red-green-green-red-red. In the house in Manual mode and the light sequence is single red.

Here's the clincher, periodically I get a red-red-red-red light sequence, which according to the manual denotes a system error. This usually occurs after attempting to calibrate the compass and going into a flight mode other than Manual.

Oh, thanks for the info about the PMU indicator light not functioning until it gets juice from a battery. That turned out to be solid info. Good info beats no info any day.

As for the rest, everything works as it should when viewed in the A2 Assistant. Flight modes change with switch position, failsafes occur when the Tx is switched off, voltages are noted when you calibrate the battery, stick motion shows everything going the right directions. I've checked the Can ports numerous times thinking I could have those swapped but that's not the case, they are correct per the documentation. Everything is plugged into the right places.

I'm getting pretty frustrated. I'm sitting here with a 1200mm heavy lift design quad with a $1,200.00 flight controller and when you add the pair together the sum equals zero.

 

[surfab]

well im out of ideas haha does sound like there is something wrong with it tho. the green red seems pretty unusual. do you have iosd mk 11? a log file from that might be able to show what is up with it

 

[Old Man]

Unfortunately, I do not. The up side of that is I haven't spent even more $$ on it. From what I've read, if I send the unit in for check up/repair I'm facing a long wait for the return.......

 

[surfab]

I would highly recommend having one, at least you could send a log in first and get an answer before parting with the whole flight controller

 

[Old Man]

There is that. However, considering the lack of DJI support in this country, an extremely severe lack of spare parts, which appears to be world wide, not just limited to the USA due to a law suit, the considerable numbers of DJI system failures/flip of death/fly aways, the latest failure with the A2 Assistant software release, I wonder if walking away from the A2 for and X-Aircraft controller might be the smarter idea. Not as many whistles and bells options yet but for cinema work it looks to be pretty good for large heavy lift stuff, and a helluva lot less $$ to invest per unit. APM and Pixhawk don't have it all together enough for big stuff yet. I suppose if one plans on using all DJI equipment like camera specific gimbals and pre-advertised but not yet released things like the Lightbridge it makes sense but way points and such don't make a lot of sense for large multirotors at this point in time. I mean, just how far are the batteries going to go when you have an all up weight 35lb-45lb machine?

Obviously I'm getting pretty discouraged and throwing more money to DJI just to get a possible look at the actual failure mode,with no guarantee of correcting the issue, doesn't make much sense to me, especially if that tool isn't programmed to record some types of data. If I did manage to find out absolutely there was a defect in a controller component I would still have to send it out for repair, which could take a great many months based upon reports from others in this and other forums. Call dealer to get their return authorization, package parts, send to dealer, wait for dealer to obtain return authorization from DJI, ship to China, and wait. Most of the DJI dealers I've made inquiries and purchases with DON'T answer or return phone calls. That does not build warm and fuzzies for me. For the task at hand it would be faster and cheaper in the long run to purchase another controller and start swapping parts. With over $10K into this project so far and a completion time to make, waiting indefinitely for DJI to respond or repair/return the product doesn't cut it.

Hopefully someone else has some ideas that I can consider. Right now I'm up against a wall with this thing.

Thanks for the help surfab. It's a real good start!

 

[surfab]

I feel your pain exactly! and totally agree. the only reason I am staying with the a2 is because I have already invested so much into it . a week ago I was ready to throw it in the rubbish but have calmed down a bit now and am going to stick with it (unless I have another unexplained crash...) the worst thing is like you say there just isnt much else out there that compares. to me returning the flight controller just isnt an option and you might like you say be better off buying a 2nd fc and swapping parts to find the issue. at least then you dont have the down time and when you do have the dud replaced you will be able to use it for a 2nd copter. having a backup rig is always handy or even spare parts...

 

[Old Man]

Need some idea folks. Against my my gut feelings I went ahead and upgraded to 2.3. Things are now worse than they were before. See the screen shots. The connection error message absolutely HAS to be in error. The manual references are precisely matched to the component installation. OTH, I have been unable to calibrate the compass from day one so at least there's a compass error message that makes some kind of sense. The problem is, the message states to calibrate the compass but the system will not enter the calibration mode. Every attempt, and there have been many, many attempts, has resulted in a long series of flashing red lights which I presume to indicate failure.

Tried calling the vendor last Tuesday but the "phone box is full and cannot accept any more messages". Sent a problem report e-mail through their contact and support feature of their website the same day but no response as yet. Thanks for the help UAV Products....

DJI actually responded to my help request e-mail almost 2 weeks after I sent it but all they did was ask a lot of questions, with some specifically related to how I had connected up to the X3 port. Ya know, the port marked as "reserved" in the manual and not used in any instruction notation I've been able to find. The DJI e-mail was Wednesday and no follow up from them with a response to my reply.

So right now I'm thinking I'm probably out a bit over $1,200.00 after purchasing what appears to be defective product.

 

[surfab]

Fu*$ dji. you are lucky that it hasn't let you get to the point that it has flown and then destroyed your rig. my dji caused bill is up to 3k and im sure there are many out there thats allot more then that.

I had a response from them asking for the info I already gave them, so I gave it to them again and then nothing... absolute joke

uav products inbox will be full from every other person wanting their money back from faulty dji products

 

[Old Man]

I definitely can appreciate what you're saying. I have almost $2,500.00 in the frame (custom 1200) alone. By the time you toss in some large pancake motors, ESC's, big batteries, and some 28" props into the mix you're looking back over your shoulder to see where $8k+ went. To get into the air to find your controller is defective would be very, very painful, especially if you had a payload package installed at that moment.

Sorry to hear you're down as much as you are, so far. That hurts.