This topic was migrated from the BotBlox ticketing system after being summarized and anonymized.
Problem:
Customer received multiple DroneNet boards that powered on correctly but did not appear on the DroneCAN network in either DroneCAN GUI or Mission Planner.
They described:
- Board powers normally.
- Not visible on CAN bus.
- Ethernet activity LEDs behaved differently from known-good units.
- Unable to ping board over Ethernet.
- CAN idle voltages differed from known-good boards.
Answer:
Root cause was outdated/incorrect AP_Periph firmware on the DroneNet boards.
The affected boards could not properly communicate on DroneCAN until the firmware was updated.
Because the older firmware used DHCP rather than a known static IP, the customer could not access the web interface to perform a network-based update. The board therefore had to be reflashed directly through the SWD debug interface.
What Worked:
- Reflashing DroneNet with the latest stable AP_Periph firmware using an ST-Link/J-Link debug probe.
- Board immediately appeared on DroneCAN after firmware update.
What Didn’t Work:
- Attempting to discover the board through DroneCAN before updating.
- Attempting to access the web interface without knowing the DHCP-assigned IP address.
- Using the board as shipped from the factory.
Final Status:
Customer successfully reflashed the board via the debug port and confirmed the issue was fixed.
Conclusion:
If DroneNet powers up but does not appear on DroneCAN and cannot be reached over Ethernet, check the AP_Periph firmware version first. Reflashing with the latest stable firmware via SWD resolves the issue.
(TS2512-0078)