MobiFlight Community Support

Hello. I just finished my Cessna 172 cockpit using steppers, Servos and switches. I Have:
5 Steppers
10 Servos
15 Switches
While i have 10 switches on the board, everything works fine. But if i add the extra 5 buttons some of the already added buttons dont work and from the new 5 buttons only 2-3 are working. Whats hapening?

Hi

At first rethink your Power manegment. pretty sure a Setting of more then 2 Steppers on a board will reach the Maximums of Arduino.
Do you use those Motors with a external Power ?
I think so cause normaly a Ardiono with 10 Servo and 5 Stepper get burned down in short time. ( Extremly to much power needed)

So your Problem can have 2 Reasons.

1. Power problem.... Maby Board is already broke in case of overdrive the limits.

2. Software Problem ( mostly the reason)
Mobiflight got Problems if Name of Devices is to long.

Please Confirm.
The Name of Your Devices like Buttons and Motors are short and not include Signs like "§$%&/-.,;:_ and so on.... Also no "Space" if Possible.
Finaly the should be short as possible (i personaly recommend to use not more like 6-8 Charackters.
For exmaple if a switch is called "Elcectrical-Power-Switch:01234 MCP" this is to long , include Simbols "-:" and also have Spaces
Call it "SW01AB" for example.... then problems are gone normaly.

Please Report experience!

Hi,

I strongly recommend, with 5 stepper motors an external power supply. A stepper requires between 150 and 200 mA at rest!
A USB interface delivers 500mA of power according to specification.

Now when all steppers are connected, they draw the required current. The result is, the voltage breaks down.

The supply voltage of the external power supply (5V 2A) to the stepper boards or the controller boards, GND to the Arduino. Then it is electrically faultless.

It’s not a power problem. Of course with 5 steppers and 10 Servos I use a external lab regulated power supply. I think the problem is in the mobiflight software. I will try the no space names for my devices. Thanks

It’s not a power problem. Of course with 5 steppers and 10 Servos I use a external lab regulated power supply.

If you power the steppers external then it should be work..... BUT If you power the Arduino external (and wire the Motors to Arduino) then Power Problem still occure.
With 150-200 mA and 5 Steppers this is already 750 -1000 mA .... Additional you got Servos x10 .
The abolute maximum recommend power level for the whole Mega is 800mA .... This would be over the limit sure !

Additional Note:

I said multiple times already.... Its recommend to plan your whole project ( not only one little part)
If you for example think about building a full cokcpit then its recommend to split the electrical power used devices oer more Arduinos.
For example if you finaly need 10 Arduinos i would simply set 1 Stepper on each of 5 Boards.... The Servos 2 each on the other 5 Boards.
Also split all LED over the 10 Boards and fill up with Switches (that need no power)

I dont power the arduino with the external power supply. I have a external power breadboard with only the ground connected to the arduino. The arduino does not power anything. This project is for my diploma thesis. I will present it next week. Later i will add multiple arduinos to share the work, but now for my presentation i dont want to add an extra.

Ok...

Apollogy for our comments. Now i see in your new signature you are a professional ingineer.... So you know what you do i think.
Just note most users that startup with Mobiflight are beginners....So we must talk about that stuff .

Summary. Please report your results with shorting the names..... If it not help we must check your Pin Setup finaly.
I hope problem can be solved before you have to deliver your project to your professor.

I just changed the names of the devices.

I used to use names like (B-Lights-Switch). So i changed all the names of my devices and used max 7 characters for each name without any special characters and Upercase only.
Now everything is working perfectly. The problem was bad device names.

Your support was very helpful. Thank you very much.