minimOSD with Mavlink & TauLabs - It works, but doesn't

[OrangutangSurfer]

hey guys, I've been working with this sparky board trying to get some cool features setup, so far I think I have it ready to fly and tune on an airframe (BNV). My last challenge before I install everything is to figure out whats the matter with my OSD.

It boots up and gives some startup messages (minim 2.0, waiting for Mavlink heartbeats, booting etc.) it's all center screen though it seems to have a weird "refresh rate" it is centered and visible. Once I assume it begins to receive a message from the flight controller it starts putting messages on the screen but they are in the top right of the screen and I believe that part of the words are off screen. It feels like i'm only looking at the bottom left part of a display. this is weird because it boots up center screen with out a hitch... after boot this is what I get:



as you can see part of the word is displayed "ove.." I've seen it say "Stall" and "Battery" as it seems to rotate between them, error messages maybe? I have the battery sensing setup on the FC and I assumed it would forward that data to the OSD, maybe i need to run the battery sensor direct to the OSD? Stall is probably because it's not in motion, and I have no idea what the over message is, overspeed? however my work bench doesn't move that fast so I doubt i've broken any speed rules 😊

Before I start refreshing and messing with the minimOSD extra software (this board was supposed to be preprogramed and appears to get a signal so I assume it's programmed properly) I wanted to see if anyone with any experience could give me some ideas to try.

thanks in advance


-Jes

 

[makattack]

What software are you running on the minimOSD? Again, I haven't had a chance to use taulabs yet (I will once I get my grubby hands on a sparky2 or brainfpv but gotta save some more before purchase) but with my APM stuff, I found I had a lot of problems with minimOSD working reliably until I flashed the latest software from the minimOSDextra fork:

https://github.com/diydrones/MinimOSD-Extra

I flashed the R800 build, and all my OSD issues went away. You will also need to follow the directions exactly as detailed here:
https://github.com/diydrones/MinimOSD-Extra/wiki

depending on the version of the firmware. If you flash the multirotor version, it's a little easier and involves fewer steps as you can flash the character set and firmware in series. If you use the plane version, you will have to flash a special characterset flashing version of the software, flash the character set, then reflash with the software.

You will also then want to make sure to edit your screen panels as you need/desire, getting rid of stuff that is on by default that you won't be displaying (assuming you're only getting GPS data fed to it).

Yes, if your flight board is getting battery data -- the OSD won't see it unless you send that telemetry data to it. That's why I mentioned with APM, they way I have it connected, all GPS, battery, and airspeed sensors send data to the APM, which in turn is connected to a telemetry radio + minimOSD so that the flight controller is what's sending data to the telemetry and OSD devices.

Those stall, etc. msgs. need to be configured via the osdconfigure program that allows you to set values for when to warn about stalls (based on air or ground speed), battery/current warning levels, and the screen layout.

 

[OrangutangSurfer]

I think it says 2.0 it was supposedly flashed to be used with the sparky board. Looks like I'll get some use of the FTDI programmer I picked up with the order. I'm glad I got that for "just in case." Looks like I'll be reflashing it and at least the starting there. The sparky board is using the mavlink protocol and I guess I ought to setup the screens and remove the junk I don't need. If I understand right the GPS is connected to the board and the battery sensor (I need one with a current sensor too) and it is my understanding that when connected to the minimOSD it will forward all that info to the OSD. It does look like it makes a connection to the board if I power the osd and not the FC the osd is "waiting for mavlink heartbeats". Once the FC comes on it moves to the next screen (back to the first post).

It's for a fixed wing so looks like an extra few steps flashing as well. Thanks for the links I'll probably get to that later this week I'll post results as soon as I have some.

Another thought. Do you know if I bought a minimOSD and a GPS unit could I use them with out a FC? The board has a ton of inputs I assume they are for when there is no FC to supply the data.

Thanks again

-Jes

 

[makattack]

Just realized I hadn't seen your most recent post until I was doing a search on osd for another thread. Did you have success? Yes, I suspect you figured out that if you have the minimosd modified with extra serial input pins, you can just connect those sensors to it Instead of a flight controller. I haven't done so myself, and the only bit too worry about ate the connection speeds, etc. I'm pretty sure that most GPS use standard serial lines. The external compares use i2c.