I am trying to connect an Arduino to our blueboat via USB and route that connection via VirtualHere to the PC, allowing me to quickly setup the Arduino in the BlueBoat and still interface with it easily from the Arduino IDE.
This results in some weird behavior:
- VirtualHere recognizes the Arduino only if it is already plugged in when powering the BlueBoat. (So no hot-plugging).
- If I turn on the BlueBoat with the Arduino plugged in, the BlueBoat never fully boots: It stops in the “always on” stage of the NavLight. This of course means that QGC can’t connect to the BlueBoat.
- I first suspected it was some weird serial configuration issue on the Arduino’s side. But this can be reproduced by plugging in an original UNO R3 running the Blink sketch.
If I ignore point 2, this configuration actually works. I can reprogram and talk to the Arduino via VirtualHere no problem. But of course, I cannot ignore point 2.
So, the solution for me was to manually select the Navigator as the Autopilot Board as BlueOS tried to start the Autopilot from the Arduino, which of course failed.
- Can anyone confirm that this selection is necessary and persists for further reboots?
- Is my approach with VirtualHere OK or will I run into problems later on?
