1. First-Time Setup Guide
The most frequently recurring class of support ticket is a new user hitting a preventable blocker within the first hour of unboxing. Every item below belongs in a prominent Quick-Start or First-Time Setup page.
1.1 Power Cabling
The DCS kit ships without soldered power cables. Before you can power the board from a battery or lab supply you must prepare your own cable.
Recommended connector: XT60 (or TX60) for VDD MAIN
Solder the cable to the VDD MAIN pads on the top side of DCS2.PDB_Default (right-hand side of the board — see connector-orientation diagram in the PDB docs)
For bench development, connect a lab power supply set to 9–26 V at the same VDD MAIN pads
The DCS2 default PDB is rated to approximately 50 A on the main input at up to 26.5 V
1.2 Power-On Procedure
If using the DCS2.PDB_Default:
Connect your power source to VDD MAIN
Press and hold the power button on the PDB for several seconds until the system begins to boot
The EXT.BTN connector on the PDB accepts an external button or switch — wire to this to avoid reaching into the airframe
Note:
CONTROL connector signals (MOD_SLEEP, FORCE_RECOVERY, SLEEP/WAKE) on the Pilot board are for Orin-level control only and are separate from EXT.BTN. They can be left floating in normal operation. EXT.BTN switches all PDB power rails except the MCU supply rail.
1.3 Cube Autopilot — Firmware Required
IMPORTANT:
The CubePilot Cube Orange / Cube Orange+ ships from Airvolute WITHOUT ArduPilot firmware pre-loaded. A Cube with no firmware blinks its orange LED continuously and will not appear as a serial device on any host.
To flash firmware for the first time:
SSH into the Jetson (default: ssh [email protected] when connected over dev USB)
Switch the USB bus from Jetson to the Cube:
Connect the Cube's micro-USB port directly to your PC. Open Mission Planner or QGroundControl and flash the desired ArduCopter / ArduPlane release. No Airvolute-specific firmware build is required for standard configurations.
After flashing, set SERIAL2_BAUD = 921600 in ArduPilot parameters (default is 57600).
1.4 MAVLink — Connecting to a GCS
mavlink-router is the recommended way to forward MAVLink from the Cube to a ground station. It is NOT installed by default.
Recommended main.conf for dev-USB connection (GCS on 192.168.55.100):
If connecting over Wi-Fi or Ethernet, change the GCS Address to your host IP. For broadcast to any address on the subnet, use the subnet broadcast address (e.g. 10.223.255.255).
Note:
The av-mavlink-configuration package (service av-mavlink-configuration.service) runs on boot and writes MAVLink stream-rate parameters to the Cube. If you need to customise stream rates, edit /etc/av-mavlink-configuration/config.yaml rather than changing parameters via a GCS — GCS connections may also reset stream rates depending on QGC's 'All stream rates controlled by vehicle' setting.
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