New Pixhawk Cube Orange+ hardware incompatible with PX4 v1.14.x?

PX4 Autopilot
1

Hi all,

I’m seeing a repeatable issue on newer Pixhawk Cube Orange+ boards where PX4 v1.14.x breaks RC/IO, but PX4 v1.15+ works fine.

  • Older Cube Orange+ (bought before ~Summer 2025): run PX4 1.14.0 / 1.14.3 with no problems (RC, PWM, GPS, TFmini LiDAR all OK).

  • Newer Cube Orange+ (bought Aug 2025):

    • Stock 1.15 / 1.16 / 1.17 → everything works.

    • Stock 1.14.0 / 1.14.3 and MATLAB-generated 1.14.0/1.14.3 →

      • Error tune on boot

      • No RC input (no RC_CHANNELS / RC_CHANNELS_RAW in MAVLink Inspector)

      • No DISTANCE_SENSOR from TFmini

      • PWM_MAIN 1–8 effectively disabled and PWM_MAIN_TIM* params missing

ver all is identical between the “good” and “bad” cubes (same CUBEPILOT_CUBEORANGEPLUS, MCU rev, bootloader, etc.), so PX4 thinks they are the same board.

Why I’m on 1.14.x: my lab uses the MATLAB UAV Toolbox PX4 Support Package, which is currently pinned to PX4 1.14.x. The exact same MATLAB-generated 1.14.x firmware still works on my older Cube Orange+ boards, but fails on the newer ones in the same way as stock 1.14.x.

My working guess is that there’s a new Cube Orange+ hardware/IO revision that PX4 1.14.x doesn’t fully support, while 1.15+ does.

Questions:

  • Has anyone else seen this with recent Cube Orange+ batches on 1.14.0/1.14.3?

  • Is there any known explanation or doc for hardware changes that affect 1.14.x?

  • Is the realistic guidance simply “don’t use 1.14.x on new Orange+; use 1.15+”, or is there a known backport/workaround?

Happy to share full ver all, param dumps, and logs if useful.

Thanks,
-A

2

We are seeing the same thing, but no solutions yet.

3

Hey,
Maybe the note here is relevant? So apparently, Nuttx update was required for these issues to be resolved since I am seeing they all look like power issues from what you mentioned above.

4

I reached out to MathWorks and received some very useful information:

  1. Launch & run the hardware setup screens from MATLAB and in the “Test Connection” screen, upload the firmware on the Cube Orange+ board. This would upload v1.14.3 now, but that’s fine.

  2. Close hardware setup screen in MATLAB.

  3. Launch QGroundControl (QGC). Wait for it connect to the newer Cube Orange+.

  4. In QGC, navigate to MAVLink Console.

  5. In the MAVLink console, run the command “bl_update /etc/extras/cubepilot_cubeorangeplus_bootloader.bin”

  6. You would see the below expected output when the bootloader is updated correctly.

nsh> bl_update /etc/extras/cubepilot_cubeorangeplus_bootloader.bin
INFO [bl_update] image validated, erasing bootloader…
INFO [bl_update] flashing…
INFO [bl_update] verifying…
INFO [bl_update] bootloader update complete

Reboot the Cube Orange+ hardware.

Based on our preliminary testing, this has fixed the issue. I confirmed this also works for stock v1.14.0.