Pendant connection issue 08

support
1

  • What package and version are you using ?
    Dashboard firmware v0.1.9

  • Please, describe the issues you are seeing ?
    The pendant is having a connection issue “Pendant 08” and the Amiga cannot be controlled. The lights on the pendant blink on and off. Sometimes the Amiga boots up fine and can be controlled, then after around a minute the pendant issue appears. Other times the pendant issue appears immediately at start up. This issue appeared out the blue and I am unsure what initiated the problem.

Troubleshooting I have tried so far:

  • Disconnecting and reconnecting pendant (Amiga powered off)
  • Changing port the pendant is plugged into.
  • Disconnecting the brain and POE switch.

The intermittent time it takes for the issue to occur makes me think it may be a wiring problem?

Is there a temporary workaround so that the we can activate the auto control functionality on the dashboard and steer the Amiga with our RF remote control?

Thanks in advance!

Wesley

PXL_20230606_131529742
PXL_20230606_1315297421920×1080 171 KB

PXL_20230606_132859498
PXL_20230606_1328594981920×1080 192 KB

2

Hi @Wes , Thank you for your post. I have submitted a ticket for you regarding your issue. Our team will update you soon.

Farm-ng Support

3

Hi @Wes ,

Sorry to hear about the pendant issues. Someone from the hardware team (likely @Agustin or @TravisT ) will be reaching out soon to see whats going on and get that fixed or replaced.

In the meantime, a workaround to activate the auto control functionality should be fairly straightforward.

We have an example of this in a branch on the virtual joystick app.

Here we:

  1. Add a toggle button for turning the pendant override on / off
  2. Send 2 empty messages to the canbus in auto control message generator when the button is pressed. One message is for the pendant state and other for the pendant heartbeat.
for id in [0x18F, 0x70F]:
    yield canbus_pb2.SendCanbusMessageRequest(
        message=canbus_pb2.RawCanbusMessage(id=id, data=bytes(8))
    )

These will trick the dashboard into thinking the pendant is connected and allow your other auto control messages to take control of the dashboard.

Let me know if you have any issues integrating this into your auto control application.

– Kyle

4

Thanks for the quick response @kylecoble! I will give that a try and let you know if there are any issues.

1 Like
5

Thanks Kyle. I implemented that code in the Virtual Joystick app and it works to successfully spoof the pendant status and allow the auto control to be activated.
Is it possible to send that can bus message through the feather microcontroller? We plan on conducting field image collection with a custom app on the Brain and so need to be able to navigate outside of the virtual joystick app while still being to stay in auto control mode and steer with our RF control. I know we can add that can bus message from our custom brain app, but ideally we would be able to send the can bus message from the feather so we can drive independent of the Brain.
Hopefully the pendant will be fixed before we need this workaround, but wanted to check with you so we are prepared for our image collection window.
The code we are running on the feather connected to the Amiga is from the FPV example in the Farm-ng SDK.

6

Hey @wes, absolutely that is possible.

You can add similar lines to the bottom of the send_command method:

Right after you send the rpdo1 command you can add something like:

for id in [0x18F, 0x70F]:
    self.can.send(canio.Message(id=id, data=bytes(8)))

I haven’t tested this yet, so please let me know if this gives you any trouble.

– Kyle

7

That works, thank you!

8

UPDATE. Pendant now does not light up at all and says message “Pendant 03” instead of the previous “Pendant 08”.

After it stopped working completely, I opened up the the pendant and it looks like the power/can wires from the Amiga could have touched and shorted. As pictured below there is exposed wire that could have touched when using the pendant. Particularly the pink and black wires (+ and - power?) look like they could have touched
When connected to the Amiga power, the component circled below gets very hot.

Pendant 1
Pendant 11454×779 110 KB

If I plug the pendant feather into computer USB-C power, it lights up and connects to the computer. However, the component circled below on the feather also starts to get very hot.
Feather

9

I’m encountering a nearly identical pendant connection issue. Same Dashboard v0.1.9, originally saw a few 08 errors and now consistently seeing 03 errors. Should I create a separate topic for this or keep it here?

A couple additional details:

  • Often the light at the top of the pendant cycles through colors
  • The voltage provided to the pendant looks close to 24v
  • The issue first appeared while testing my Amiga outside where the temperatures were noticeably colder (30-40F)
  • The motors appear to be connecting OK, so not obviously an issue affecting the entire CAN bus
10

Hi @calderpg ,

An 08 error code for the pendant means the dashboard lost communication with the pendant, while an 03 error code means the dashboard never had communication with the pendant to begin with.

Please e-mail support@farm-ng.com to coordinate a replacement pendant.

In the meantime, you can upgrade your dashboard firmware to v0.3.0 (released yesterday and not yet formally announced) to operate without a pendant, either through auto control with a brain or by a virtual joystick directly on the dashboard.

– Kyle