Bitcraze Forums

Hi,

I just encountered with a problem with connecting cfclient to the crazyflie.

First, I just finished soldering new crazyflie (bought for a while, but left it in the box.) After flashing with the newest firmware, I tried connecting to my PC, which I have been using with another crazyflie for a while, with the driver created by Oliver for his Kinect control program. However, the flie is not seen by the driver (radio:0/10/250K didn't appear). Sometimes, it appears and can be connected, but not stable and keep losing connection.

I also tried with the original cfclient, and the result is the same.

Then, I tried using my notebook with cfclient. The connection works well.

I then switch the two crazyradios, but the PC still cannot connect to the flie, while the notebook can. So, the crazyradio is not the problem.

Now I just flashed it with the custom firmware by Oliver, and nothing changed.

I also tested with my older crazyflie, and it can be connected to both PC and notebook. (Unfortunately, I think I have burned the connection of M4 on the PCB while changing the broken motor holder, and it cannot be used for flying now as M4 is not rotating.)

I think the firmware flashing failed once during the flash, but have no idea if it can affect the connection or not.

Any idea what happened?

Thank you.


(PS. I just realized I should post it here, not in the General Discussion, so I delete that one and repost here.)

Additional things after some tries today.

I reflashed the flie with firmware version 2013.4 and tried connecting cfclient to my flie while plugging in with USB cable, and it can somehow connect, but for a short time and then the connection was lost. However, if the cable is unplugged, the flie cannot be seen by the client.



EDIT:
After trying moving the flie closer to the crazyradio attached to my PC, it can now be connected. Anyway, it seems that the range of my flie is very short (about 1 meter from the radio and the connection is lost. Is it possible that my soldering during the assembly caused the problem with the radio capability, or it is the defect of the flie?

Hi,

If I understand correctly your Crazyflie (the new one) works well with one computer and the range is very short when you use it from another one. Are you using the same Crazyradio to connect from both computers?

marcus wrote:Hi,

If I understand correctly your Crazyflie (the new one) works well with one computer and the range is very short when you use it from another one. Are you using the same Crazyradio to connect from both computers?

The new one can connect to both computers, but the range is very short (around 1 meter.) I have tried switching the Crazyradios between 2 computers, but the result is the same.

(The older flie can connect to both computers with no range limit, as far as I have been using it, but I think I over-solder the M4 connection and now M4 is not rotating.)

A short can result in bad range since big current spikes will be generated which will affect the radio.
Can you remove the short, does it work then? Make sure to use flux or new solder so the solder will float nicely. That will avoid shorts. If it was a big short the motor driver transistor might have been damaged.

tobias wrote:A short can result in bad range since big current spikes will be generated which will affect the radio.
Can you remove the short, does it work then? Make sure to use flux or new solder so the solder will float nicely. That will avoid shorts. If it was a big short the motor driver transistor might have been damaged.

This one is just brand new, just out of the box and assembled normally. I didn't modify anything.

That doesn't sound good and it should at least have a 10m range. Can you contact Seeedstudio support? You can also try to change channels and data rate. Try e.g. channel 80 and 2mbit as it sometimes help.

tobias wrote:That doesn't sound good and it should at least have a 10m range. Can you contact Seeedstudio support? You can also try to change channels and data rate. Try e.g. channel 80 and 2mbit as it sometimes help.

I have contacted them, and they asked me to send it back to China. I'm going to do that next week.

Changing channel and data rate is also not possible, as the bootloader cannot connect to the flie too.