Thrusters not working when ROV is armed

Blue Robotics Software QGroundControl
,
1

We are having trouble getting out thrusters to start up when our ROV is armed. Joystick is enabled and ROV has worked in the past. We have calibrated everything, including the motors. QGC is fully updated, and everything else seems to be up to date. We’re not too sure on where to go from here to get these thruster running when the ROV is armed. Any suggestions?

2

Hi @ruthduncan, welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

For the thrusters to suddenly stop working seems odd. A few questions:

  1. Does each thruster still do all 5 beeps on startup? If not, do they at least do the first 3?
  2. Can you check the SERVO_OUTPUT_RAW values from the MAVLink Inspector?
  3. Have you applied a custom frame, or run any code that may have changed the motor functionality assignments (e.g. for controlling thrusters individually)? If so it may be worth resetting the parameters.
3

Hi Elliot!
When this issue first started, we realized that we had a thruster wire that was lose, and that seemed to fix the issue.

Unfortunately the problem has come back, and the thursters won’t take commands from the contoller when armed. All caibrations pass, and the automatic thruster test says all the thruster are fine. The contoller works with all other commands, but thrusters will not seem to fire up.

We do get five beeps when we power up the ROV and have not applied a custom frame or any codes.
We also could not find SERVO_OUTPUT_RAW values on the MAVLink Insepctor page.

We are truly stumped at what to do next.

4

Hi @ruthduncan,

Not certain what’s going on here - my main ideas are:

  1. perhaps there’s a failsafe being triggered that’s preventing the vehicle from staying armed?
    • maybe check that page and see if there are any that shouldn’t be turned on
  2. it may help to reset the parameters and restart the vehicle
    • which ArduSub version are you using?
    • is it being correctly detected by QGroundControl?
5

Hi Elliot

We did reset the parameters and magically our ROV started working again when armed!!! Not sure what the issues was, but regardless we are glad it is up and running again. Thank you for your ideas :slight_smile:

1 Like