Installing Ardupilot

You can now install your chosen version of Ardupilot, to do this open Mission Planner and go to the 'Initial Setup' screen and choose 'Install Firmware', next choose the version of Ardupilot for your application by clicking and then follow the onscreen instructions.

Mission Planner Firmware Screen

Note: The correct firmware versions for your hardware should be selected automatically by Mission Planner however if prompted to select board type do not select Linux. Select 'Pixhawk' and then select 'Cube Black'.

Cube Orange and Yellow Firmware

Cube Orange and Cube Yellow require Ardupilot 4.0 or later, At the time of writting Arducopter 4.0 was still in beta and you may need to click the 'Beta Firmware' option at and select the version you require.

Note: You may need to download the firmware manually, to do this select 'Download Firmwares ' at the bottom of the firmware downloads screen in Mission Planner and download the relivent versions from the daily build or beta secition of the Ardupilot downloads area for your application. Then use the 'Load custom firmware' option to install the file you have dowloaded.

USB Connection Issues

Most issues related to conneting to the Cube are caused by the following

• Old version of Mission Planner/Ground Station

• Old drivers

• Older Windows OS such as Windows 7 (Windows 10 Recommended)

First steps to resolve connections issues is to update Mission Planner and drivers as shown above.

When correctly installed with Ardupilot loaded Mission Planner should show the Cube listed with its port unter the top connection box, the actual com port number my vary but it should show as follows

Cube Black

Cube Black Mission Planner Com Port

1. To connect Cube Black select the port and set the baud rate 57600 and click connect.

Cube Orange & Cube Yellow

Cube Orange Com Ports In Mission Planner

1. To connect Cube Orange or Yellow select the Mavlink com port and set the baud rate 57600 and click connect.

Com Ports In Device Manager

If you are still having connection issues you can check if the com ports are correctly installed by going to device manager in Windows.

Cube Black, Purple and Blue should show a single com port as follows

Cube Black Com Ports in Device Manager

Cube Orange and Yellow should show two com ports connected 'Cube Orange Mavlink (COMx) and Cube Orange SLCAN (COMx)'

Cube Orange Com Ports in Device Manager

For Cube Orange and Yellow if you see 'CubePilot CUBE H7 (COMx)' or ' CubePilot CUBE F7 (COMx)' then the drivers are not installed correctly and follow the above process again.

Cube Orange & Yellow - Windows 7

There are known issues installing the Cube Orange and Cube Yellow with Windows 7. Its advised you use Windows 10 or later however Windows 7 can be made to work in some circumstances by manually deleting the driver files and installing the latest driver file and forcing Windows to install the correct driver manually.

1. Delete CubePilot CUBE H7/F7 from device manager while the Cube is still connected, then disconnect the Cube from USB.

2. Uninstall and reinstall the latest Cube drivers as linked above.

3. Reconnect the Cube Orange/Yellow and two devices will show up in “Other Devices” called CubeOrange-BL.

4. The top entry will change to CubeOrange and you should see the message from windows notifying you that it is installing device drivers.

5. CubeOrange-BL will move to the Ports section and be named Cube Orange Mavlink (COMx)

6. If the “CubeOrange-BL” in Other Devices" does not move to Ports after a few moments, right click, go into properties, click on the driver button and wait, it should then move to Ports and is named Cube Orange SLCAN (COMx).