Mikrokopter MKtools terminal window - strange characters

[ZAxis]

With no pilot to fly our Hexa I have been giving it a thorough checkout. Everything seems to work OK but the Terminal screen in MKtools 1.76b does not show the expected characters when started up.
Instead of
View attachment 2028

I get
View attachment 2029

the last line repeats several times with some characters changing before finally stopping. If I arm the FC, I get a short message, in english, about a timer being reset , so it can communicate correctly under some circumstances.
I am running MK tools under WinXP on a netbook. All MK firmware is up to date.
Has anyone seen this behaviour and have a fix ?

andy

 

[Macsgrafs]

I get the same display when its just the FC board connected!

Ross

 

[ZAxis]

Ross ... interesting.
I have the full stack of FC (v2.1), NC(1.1), GPS(2.1) and Mag(3).
When I had only the FC, I got the same behaviour but it never prevented me updating the firmware so quietly ignored it. Now with the full stack I'm looking at data logging,etc so would be interested in seeing the correct data rather than random rubbish.
Ironically I spend a good amount of time at work supporting customers and talking them through very similar inter unit RS232/USB communications problems on their scientific instruments, it feels a bit weird being on the other end of the stick.

andy

 

[Macsgrafs]

Andy, how do you connect your notebook to the navi board or do you go straight to the FC board?

Ross

 

[ZAxis]

Connected via the Nav board using MK-USB.
FTDI USB driver is up to date and is set to COM4.
Nothing changes if SD card is present or not.

Have a sneaky feeling that there is a bug in the MK firmware but it does not affect anything adversely.

andy

 

[Macsgrafs]

Droider Dave is the main man or Bart, both are up to date with MK, I'm a complete newb & very easily confused

Ross

 

[ZAxis]

Thanks for your thoughts Ross.
I'm surprised no one else on the forum has seen this. Perhaps they have and jumped ship to WKM !

cheers
andy

 

[Macsgrafs]

A lot seem to be jumping ship to be honest, but I've just bought MK & my mrs would kick my butt if I wanted to spend £100's more on WKM
Have you checked out quadrocopters US, they have some online videos setting up MK stuff, very informative?

Ross

 

[ZAxis]

Thanks for the link to quadrocopters.us. There are some good instructional videos there.
Watching the one on upgrading firmware I saw the same gobbledegook screen I've been worrying about which confirms to me there is nothing unusual going on. So I'll relax.

andy

 

[Macsgrafs]

Dont worry Andy, I'm no different to you, if things dont look right then I get a bit paniced

Ross

 

[schizomorph]

I've been getting these characters for a while now and I can't pinpoint what causes it.

Everything else seems unaffected but it is quite annoying not to be able to see the terminal window display.

Hope someone finds what causes this or that it's fixed in a later update.