We are using a pixhawk 2.4.8 with raspberry pi 4b for our ROV setup. We are trying to connect esc to pixhawk and test a single thruster, but we are not able to calibrate or initialise them. We are using Blueos in Rpi and QGC on a surface computer to test it. This is the error message I am getting while testing. I have tried connecting pixhawk directly to the surface computer and also through raspberry but couldn’t start the thruster. The pwm signal and ground of the thruster are connected to Main1 pin in pixhawk.
Hi @aravinds23 -
Welcome to the forums!
The Auto detect direction function requires the ROV to have all thrusters connected, and the unit to be in the water!
If you are unable to slide the arm switch and manipulate the slider for thruster channel 1, I would recommend verifying you’ve calibrated the accelerometer and compass, or disabled the failsafe checks that may be preventing you from arming the vehicle.
When you apply power to the system, do you hear the start-up beeps from the connected thruster, followed by a third confirmation beep indicating the motor controller has been initialized?
We were able to hear 2 beeps only. The Qgc application is showing it is armed and all sensors are calibrated but we are getting this error when testing thruster. Is it compulsory to connect all thrusters and test in water or connecting just one will work ? Our thruster and esc model is not from bluerobotics. The pwm wires are connected to Main 1 ground and signal on servo rail.
The automatic motor direction detection is checking whether any of the motors are running in reverse, so the autopilot can correct for that in software by reversing the control outputs sent to that thruster. It tests all the configured motors by commanding them to rotate in sequence and checking whether the resulting vehicle motion is as expected for the selected frame - if the vehicle is outside the water or a thruster isn’t connected then the motion will not be as expected so the automated test will fail.
Note that the automated test is not required to be able to operate your vehicle, it just helps to confirm the thrusters are connected and configured correctly. If you want to test a single thruster (or manually test each of the thrusters) then you should do that with the manual motor test sliders instead.
The startup beeps come from the ESC vibrating the thruster, so if you’re not using our ESCs then you’ll need to check your ESC’s documentation for what kinds of beeps you should be hearing.
You’ll also need to make sure the ESCs are bidirectional, and check what kinds of input signals they support, because otherwise they may not be compatible with ArduSub.
