Lights are on, but PAW not at home....

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi Ian,

Many thanks for that, I think that might be the problem. In effect the NMEA out is from Port 1, which is the only Port not used in the basic set-up.

I'm surprised that changing the setting for Port 4 didn't stop the WiFi, which is plugged in to that Port. Does the software of the Raspberry Pi over ride any manual settings?

Just to make sure I've got this right:

Port 1 – Not used in basic set-up – Now used for position data to transponder.
Port 2 – RTL-SDR Dongle
Port 3 – GPS Dongle
Port 4 – WiFi Dongle

Physical layout:

Port 1 – Not used in basic set-up   Port 3 – GPS Dongle Port 2 – RTL-SDR Dongle                Port 4 – WiFi Dongle

Worth a trip up to the airfield later today to try it out.

Thanks again for the assistance.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[Admin]

Hi Richard,

The port selection only affects serial devices.
the WiFi, and SDR are not serial devices, and the GPS is a 'special' serial device.

For the above we can detect what the purpose of the device is by its identification

For general serial devices, there is no way of knowing their purpose, hence the selection

Thx
Lee

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi Lee,

Many thanks for that, it does explain some of what I’d observed.

Am I right in thinking that with the Farnell USB > RS232 cable plugged in, the PAW would know that there was a serial device attached, but not what to send? In that case it wouldn't send anything, hence the lack of flashing lights on the cable.


My original PAW still remains resolutely dead, apart from the two unblinking lights that is. Do you have any more ideas about how I can resuscitate it?

Thanks for all the assistance.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[Admin]

Hi Richard,

Hi Lee,
Many thanks for that, it does explain some of what I’d observed.

Am I right in thinking that with the Farnell USB > RS232 cable plugged in, the PAW would know that there was a serial device attached, but not what to send? In that case it wouldn't send anything, hence the lack of flashing lights on the cable.

Correct. Although you should see that its existance is recognised by looking at the PilotAware home page where the USB devices are listed.
Once you select a Mode/Baud combination for the port, PilotAware will attempt to communicate using the specific selection

My original PAW still remains resolutely dead, apart from the two unblinking lights that is. Do you have any more ideas about how I can resuscitate it?

Is this a PilotAware Classic (which is under warranty), or a homebuild.
The only way to diagnose if it seems really dead is to connect to an HDMI monitor.

Thx
Lee

[Paul_Sengupta]

I recently had the steady red and green lights when trying to configure an RP 3 for Stratux. I had a cheap Chinese SD card which I was trying to use. Worked fine in an RP 1 B+ but seemingly not in the RP 3 which wouldn't boot from it. I eventually sacrificed an earlier engineering PAW build on a reputable make SD card and used that, and that worked fine in the RP 3.

I could marginally get the cheap Chinese SD card to work by writing Noobs to it...it would boot up partly but wouldn't access other partitions...I believe the Stratux image already contains partitions hence it not being read. I keep meaning to try various formats and overwrites on that SD card to see if I can figure out what makes it work or not work, but I haven't had the time yet.

So the fact that the SD card from the other working PAW doesn't work maybe doesn't mean entirely that the second Pi is dead. You could perhaps try a new reputable make SD card formatted and written with the PAW software to see if that helps at all.

I don't know how the file systems work between the Pi 1, 2 and 3, but the 3 seemed a lot more sensitive to SD cards than the Pi 1 B+.

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi Paul,

I'm using the original SD cards as supplied, the only thing I can think of is that in my misguided bumblings I've managed to inadvertently re-program something at a low level. Swapping cards with the other (working) PAW doesn't cure the problem.

Frustratingly it did work, as you can vouch for at Starlight Day.

Just tried it with a monitor and HDMI cable. All the monitor showed was No Signal.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi Lee,

The only way to diagnose if it seems really dead is to connect to an HDMI monitor

As mentioned to Paul above, I finally found a monitor and hooked it up. Only got No Signal showing on the screen.

Is this a PilotAware Classic (which is under warranty), or a homebuild.

PilotAware Classic ordered 11th May 2016 order No #337

Thanks for your assistance.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[Admin]

Hi Richard,

Sounds like you need to contact Dave Styles for a return at pilotawarehardware@gmail.com

Was there anything specific that preceeded the failure of the PI ?

Thx
Lee

[JCurtis]

Have it connected to the display before you power it on, then watch the display when it powers up.  If the Pi is physically working you should get a coloured square appear on the screen before it tries to mount the SD card.

I had SD card corruption recently, it would boot to the point of flashing the wired ethernet lights, the red and green light on the Pi was on but not on the bridge as it wouldn't get that far.  Once plugged into a screen and turned on it was obvious what the problem was. 

[Paul_Sengupta]

When I was messing around with mine, I found that if it couldn't read the SD card at all I'd just get a blank screen. If it could read the SD card but couldn't make any sense of it, I got the big multi-coloured square and it would hang there.

I had various depending on how I formatted and what I wrote to the card. And as I said, I had problems even trying a working card from a Pi B+ in a 3. Not sure about a 2. Some worked, some didn't. Older versions of the OS didn't work in the 3 at all. Newer one(s) did. But I don't think that affects the 2. The (up to date) card from the 2 worked in the 3.

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Well Folks – It Works….

The data appears on the display of the Trig TT21 transponder, which according to Trig means that the ADS-B signal is being transmitted.

I checked it out with Farnborough LARS, who seemed to be getting the data. Unfortunately an unrelated audio problem made detailed discussion impossible. I asked Headcorn to have a look on FlightRadar24, but they couldn't see me on there*. I'm not sure if there’s another step in the process to achieve that.

Thanks to everyone for the help. The two main problems were the old software in the TT21 and having the wrong port set up on the Configuration page.

Hopefully there is enough information in the posts above to prevent anyone else having the same problem. If you have a TT21 with old software, the nice people at Trig will update it at no cost.

Thanks again for the help.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

* Edited to say that for some reason FR24 shows 'WK as a twin engined airliner, rather than a light aircraft. If you see an airliner on FR24 doing 70 knots at 1,500' it's probably me....

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi Lee,

Was there anything specific that preceded the failure of the PI ?

Nothing obvious, although there was quite a bit of changing things around going on while trying to resolve the NMEA out issue. If I've managed to break it by my own cack-handedness I'll cover the repair costs.

I've emailed Dave to find out what he wants sent and where to send it.

Thanks for the assistance.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[DaveStyles]

Reply sent.
Cheers, Dave.

edit:

Richard, I think you have a typo in your email registered on the forum ?
It has 2 x "n" and gets returned.
I've tried again with 1 "n"

[Whiskey Kilo Wanderer]

Hi Dave,

E-mail received, many thanks.

I'll send the dead unit off to you today.

Safe Flying,
Richard W.

[Smaragd]

I have same problem as WKW - steady red and green lights on powering up. Have tried reloading software onto SD card (Sandisk Ultra 8Gb - reloaded OK) but still just the two steady lights on power-up. Haven't connected to monitor by HDMI cable yet. Mine is a homebuilt with Pi2B.