I’m trying to setup my BlueROV2 and I had a few questions.
I’m not getting any video using Cockpit, but the video works fine in QGroundControl. Any idea what could cause this? UPDATE: Rafael helped me resolve this one. The stream had gotten marked as “ignored” somehow.
Sometimes when I “arm” the device, some of the thrusters start running without me giving it any command. What could cause this? I really only want it moving when I give it instruction.
I used the device today for like 20 minutes and the battery went from 100% to 82%. Is that normal? Also, how can you tell the battery percent while using the device? It just gives me overall voltage.
Does anyone sell an electric vacuum pump? Manually pumping this thing is killing my hand.
When I test the vacuum on the unit, I’ve noticed that over the course of maybe 30 minutes, the gauge goes from about 15 “inHg” to 14. Is that normal, or should I take everything apart and reseal everything?
I live in central Virginia. Is there anywhere in my area I can take my device to have someone train me on how to properly configure and use it?
Any help on any of these questions is greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Rafael. When I was checking the video streams, I saw that the stream was being “ignored”. I unchecked that and it fixed it. I thought I had already checked this, but apparently I had not. Thanks for the assist.
Sorry for the issues! For #2- If the vehicle is in any mode that isn’t manual mode when armed, the motors will run to try and hold the vehicle orientation - this is expected / normal behavior.
Predicting battery percent is very difficult! Generally, end your mission when it goes below 13V, and certainly stop at 12V. The discharge curve for lithium ion batteries voltage is very flat, so there is a fast initial drop, and then very little change as capacity is used up, before falling off a cliff at the end of the battery capacity.
The BR R&D team is cooking up a portable vacuum pump solution, in the meantime large AC powered devices are common and usable !
For your vacuum test, leakage of air through the main tether (internally) is expected, so the pressure drop you’re seeing seems expected.
You can check if any BR Distributors are local and provide those kinds of services, but generally the system is easy enough to use that no such training is required, just a few sessions to build confidence!
Oh, you have the wrong axis mapping for an ROV. You should have Axis Y instead of Axis T, and both Y and R should have a range of -1000 to +1000, not -500 to +500 (although this 1000 vs 500 thing won’t cause the automatic spins as the middle is zero for both cases).
Fortunately we just recently added a button to automatically import the default mapping for your vehicle type. Just click the button show in the picture below and accept all axis changes (the buttons are up to you).
I got rid of axis Y because I dont need to strafe. I needed my left thumb pad to ascend/descend (axis T) and roll left/right (axis Z). And I needed my right thumb pad to move forward/reverse (axis X) and turn left/right (axis R). These were the most important axes to me, and with only two thumbpads, there was no room for axis T.
As for the number ranges, what would changing them from 1000 to 500 do for me?
Which ArduSub version are you using, and have you adjusted the RCMAP parameters?
These are not the expected input axes for those motion outputs - Axis Z should be vertical, and Axis T should be pitch control.
Using half of the input range the firmware expects restricts the responsiveness of those motion axes, and (for some flight modes) reduces the total available thrust.
My ArduPilot is version 4.5.6. I haven’t changed any RCMAP parameters that I know of. All I’ve done is switched the joystick settings to ones that made sense to me. I’ve tried a bunch of different configurations and here is the one that has worked best for me:
Unfortunately, the water tank I have to test it in is very small. I’m hoping at the end of the summer to get a bigger water tank, so I can really move it around and make sure it can do what I need it to do.
