Ping1D not communicating with computer via tether

Blue Robotics Software Ping Viewer
1

Hi there,
I have recently fitted the Ping1d to my BlueROV2 and am now trying to get pingviewer to work with ping1d device.
When I directly connect the ping viewer to my laptop I can get the depth sounding data feeding in. However, I have to manually connect to the device, it is not automatically detected. And when I try to update the firmware it freezes. Its current firmware is set to 3.26.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks

2

Hi @Leedy, welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

I’m not sure what you mean by this - if the Ping Sonar isn’t being detected when you connect it to your laptop how are you going about “manually connecting” it? I suspect I’m misunderstanding something here.

Is this when it’s directly connected to your laptop? Ping Viewer can only update firmware to direct USB connections. Do you know which version of Ping Viewer you’re running? It should be shown in the bar at the top of the window.

A couple of other things that are relevant,

  • which operating system are you using?
  • which version of the companion software are you running on your ROV?
3

Hi Eliot,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, I made a blunder with the ArduSub. Thought it was running the latest version but it wasn’t, since updating that I now have connectivity via the tether to my laptop. I still have to manually connect to it though but that’s not a huge issue.

The only issue I seem to have now is that the video feed is very laggy now with sometimes up to 5 seconds of delay in it? Is this typical when using the Ping1D or Ping360 sensors?

Thanks

4

I’m assuming you mean the companion software rather than the ArduSub firmware (which is unrelated to the sonars), but glad to hear it :slight_smile:

Still not sure what you mean by this. Are you just saying you need to click the device before it starts the profile display, or is there some other unexpected step you’re needing to do to get the connection to work?

That’s not expected behaviour, no. My guess would be your companion computer is either overheating or underpowered, or both. You can check the CPU status in the System page of the companion web interface - it will let you know if it’s low on voltage or throttling due to overheating.

Assuming you’re testing it in air, you may just need to let it vent and/or cool down for a while (the electronics enclosures are intended to be used in water - extended usage in air can cause the enclosed electronics to overheat).

On the power front, you may want to check your battery voltage. Separately, if you got your ROV before October 2018 then you might have our old 5V 3A power supply, in which case it’s likely a good idea to upgrade to our 5V 6A BEC.

If it’s none of those things then it could be a not great tether connection, but that’s unlikely if it was working fine before (Ping1D devices don’t require much data throughput).

There’s also the possibility that the lag is from your topside computer struggling to handle the video stream + mavlink telemetry + ping profiles. If you’re on Windows it may help to get QGC 4.1.4, which can force hardware decoding of the video stream. It’s perhaps worth noting the “Minimum Recommended Hardware” from the BlueROV2 Technical Details, which suggest at least an i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a solid-state drive.

5

Thanks mate,

Right on the money about the overheating. After testing it a day later it seems to be running as smooth as ever.

Cheers

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