For people who are just getting started with OpenHD and have a lot of questions to ask, please create a single topic with all of your questions together, rather than separate topics for every question you have.
For general help requests please do the opposite and create separate topics for each problem you need help with. This will make it much easier for other people to see what you’re asking about, and will also make it easier for you to find topics created by other people who have had a similar problem in the past. Otherwise a solution for a problem with a particular wifi card might be hidden in an unrelated topic called “Camera not detected”.
If you’ve encountered a problem while using OpenHD we ask that you do a few quick checks before reporting it to us.
Once you’re sure that none of these things are causing the problem, open a new bug report on the OpenHD bug tracker, which will make it easier for everyone to keep track of the issue and notify you once it is fixed.
1. Check your power supplies
Power is common problem with OpenHD hardware. It can cause issues that are hard to track down and may not seem like a power problem at all.
For example if the wifi cards are not receiving enough power, they can slowly begin to experience reception problems. It will look like interference at first, and eventually if the power drops low enough the card may completely disconnect or reset itself, potentially in the middle of a flight.
It is critical to ensure that your power wiring is OK before concluding that the problem is in something else.
In particular, if you are connecting high power wifi cards to the USB ports on a Raspberry Pi and have not added direct power wiring, that may be the problem. It is generally a good idea and in some cases necessary to solder power wires directly to the cards from a BEC or other regulated 5v power supply.
2. Check to see if the problem is already fixed or already known to us
We write detailed release notes for every image, and possible or confirmed problems with a specific release are generally added to the “known issues” section of the release notes.
If you see your problem listed already, it is likely going to be fixed very soon and may already be in the testing phase of the next release.
3. Check for interference or issues caused by other parts of your setup
In some cases, the USB and CSI camera cables can cause and receive interference that can be difficult to track down. This generally shows up as an increase in lost/damaged blocks on the OSD, or as visible corruption in the video that is not otherwise explained by lost/damaged blocks. If you’re seeing something odd, like the bottom half of the video corrupted while the top is OK, the CSI cable is a prime suspect. You may need to shield or replace it.
The CSI camera cables and connectors are also fragile and they can wear out over time. If you’re seeing video suddenly drop out and you’re sure it isn’t a power problem, try wiggling the camera cable gently to see if you can make it happen yourself, if so you may just need to re-seat or replace the cable.