Servos Not Available After Upgrade to 4.0

[jbeaver]

I recently upgraded to 4.0, and my autopilot servo (pitch only at the moment as my wings aren't attached) is no longer listed under the attached network devices. It's definitely powered on, and drawing power according to the VP-X page. It as working fine in all previous SkyView releases, and I haven't touched the wiring. I assume this must be related to the redundant network changes, but I would have expected an error since the A network has clearly been working up until now. Instead, the servo is simply missing with no error given.

 

[dabear]

Sounds like the servo didn't get upgraded when SV was upgraded.

Is the servo powered up while/before the SV is booting? SV screen will boot up and find items on the network that need to be upgraded.

Also did you do a network discovery?

 

[preid]

You need to do a network discovery. Mine was not found either, once I did a "network status" and "update" they were updated and working fine.

 

[Edwardoc]

Had same issue. I did not have the servo's powered on when I upgraded as I didn't know to do that. Do now. Did a Network detect with servos on on one of the menus and it will say "firmware out of date" or something like that. Just up date and all will be fine

 

[jbeaver]

Nope. The servo is powered up during the boot. I tried running the network configuration as well as forcing a network load. I even tried reloading the 4.0 software, and it still won't find the servo. Any other thoughts?

 

[jakej]

Jason

Hope you don't mind me giving input here but did you have the servos powered up when you did the upgrade to v4.0 ? if not then maybe that's the problem ? From your post I think this isn't quite clear

Jake J

 

[Edwardoc]

Jason:  I also would ask if the servo's were on when you did the 4.0 update?  Mine were not and I got the "Servos" warning and the AP would not engage.  When I went to the network Configuration, it said to insure all components including servos were turned on and then press the "detect" menu button.  The two servos were then highlighted in RED and a "Firmware out of date" statement on each servo. Pressing the Update button loaded each servo update and then they were highlighted in blue with the firmware date noted and servo warning was gone when I exited the network.  It only comes on now when the servos are turned off. Just reread you initial post and this is something related to the VP-X, the new network warnings and 4.0 if the servo is not showing up on the detect process.

 

[dynonsupport]

If you've done all of the the above suggestions (which are right: make sure the servos are powered, connected, try a network detect, check the wiring to the servos, etc), and still no joy, then we might need to have a look at the servo here.

 

[jbeaver]

I don't recall if the servos were on during the initial upgrade to 4.0, but they were definitely on when I reloaded 4.0 and during all of the other things I tried (running a network configuration as well as forcing a network load).

I'll double check the wiring, but if it was working prior to 4.0, is that really a possibility?

 

[jakej]

Trust me, from experience, anything is possible

Jake J

 

[Edwardoc]

There was some discussion on the board that if you didn't use Dynon's wiring harness or you modified it in some way, since the system is now capable of detecting network failures, it was necessary to insure some pins that were not required before are required now.  Take a look at all the posts under 4.0 now available to see if any of that applies for your installation.  Just a suggestion and gives you something to do over the weekend.  Since it was working before and now the servo is not being detected, it doesn't know its there and either its not getting power now or there is a wiring issue now that 4.0 is installed. You might reinstall 3.3 and see if it works then.

 

[jbeaver]

I finally had the time to troubleshoot the wiring and I'm seeing some funny issues. I have wiring runs for two servos, but since my wings are currently off, the wiring run to the wing is just coiled up under the floor. Since the SkyView system couldn't see the pitch servo with the wiring run to the tail, I pulled the coiled up wiring run that should go out to the wing and ran it back to the tail. I reran the configure and low and behold, the servo showed up just fine. I confirmed this was repeatable by switching to the tail wiring run and confirming the SkyView couldn't see the pitch servo and then back to the wing wiring run and again the SkyView could see the servo. This seemed like an obvious wiring problem, so I checked continuity between every pin in the wing and tail wiring runs and all pins were correct. I confirmed that both wiring runs had power and ground, and the VP-X shows the servo drawing 0.1 amps regardless of which wiring run it was connected to.

The only difference between these two wiring runs was where in the plane they were located, so I thought that maybe there could be some interference from nearby coax wires, but I disconnected all of them and it made no difference.

I then tried to repeat the test to confirm that I was still seeing the same thing, but this time I got something new. When connected to the wing wiring run (the one that formerly worked), I now got the following error when configuring the network:

There was a problem configuring your system:

Network Error: 0 - No Error

I repeated the network configuration several times and received the same error each time.

Any new suggestions on what to try?

 

[jbeaver]

Now I'm seeing essentially random behavior. Regardless of which wiring run the servo is plugged into, the servo is sometimes there and sometimes not. If I do nothing more than cut and restore power to the servos without touching any wires, it can go from seeing the servo to not or vice versa. Twice I even got a "connection fault 1/6" error, but then turning the servos off and on would show the servo was ready. I'm at a loss for what to try next.

 

[bkthomps]

short of replacing the wires, was it working prior to the upgrade attempt? 4.0 does to integrity checking of the network cables from what i've read, so perhaps this is a flaw that was present prior to the code, but now this code enforces it

 

[jbeaver]

It was working perfectly prior to the upgrade attempt and I've checked continuity between all of the wires.

 

[dynonsupport]

Since we have you on email, I'll send you a note via that system so that we can track this issue there (it has better visibility inside our engineering system).

 

[Gagarin737]

I'm still building and updated the SkyView system from 3.3 to 5.1. I have exactly the same issues. Initially both servos were not visible. When I unplugged the pitch servo I was able to upgrade the roll servo firmware. I thereafter attached the pitch servo to the roll servo wiring -> Servo didn't show up. When I attached both I got the "connection fault : 1/6" message and both servos not visible.

How did you solve this back then?

Regards, Joeri

(Case 125225)