Trying to calibrate esc with cleanflight, but escs wont beep when I plug the naze32 in with the TX o

[BAMAXXX]

• 3d plastic printed hovership frame
• naze32 rev6
• old crystal radio, works fine but the ranges don't go far enough, hence calibration via cleanflight
• emax 1806 package with 12a blheli esc
• matek power distribution board

I can't get the range of the transmitter to go past 1550, I'm just using the old transmitter to get the whole setup up and running before I upgrade and get some more equipment. Everything spins up and arms, but the motors don't spin at the same rates. I'm assuming this is a calibration issue, but I can't get the esc into calibration mode. They just beep and stop, even when I have the stick up and move it down. I tried the procedure of motor up and down on clean flight and my issue is that when I plug in the controller with the TX off, the escs don't go into that beep mode unless that transmitter is on. In which case, its taking commands from TX, I assume.

Anyways, I'm not sure how to get it all synced without plugging in usbs and calibrating the esc that way. Any ideas?

 

[cootertwo]

FIRST......NO PROPS! Connect to Cleanflight, go to motors, move the slider thing to OK I UNDERSTAND THE RISKS, no battery power to the naze yet, move the MASTER slider all the way to the top (wide open) then plug in battery. wait a second or two, then pull the MASTER slider all the way down, you should get a happy beep or two from the esc's. Then when you move the MASTER slider, or any of the individual sliders, the motors will run. Biggest problem when calibrating, is that "some" esc's go into a program mode, and you have to read up on that particular esc, to find out how to go to default.

 

[moonpie57108]

You should be able to work with the range you have, the resolution will just be low. And don't worry about the transmitter when calibrating. All signals come from the flight controller. The only problem I can think of for you is if you can get the esc to calibrate with such a low throttle signal amount (1550). Might work, never tried it, bu sounds like it could be causing you a problem already. But if you calibrate with a normal range, say 2000, you wouldn't be able to get above 50% throttle I suppose. Maybe we can find you a happy middle ground, say 75% of your throttle range to get you started.

I don't have clean flight open in front of me but will take a stab at it.

With the 1550 maximum throttle, what is your minimum? If it is below 1000, try trimming your throttle up if possible till the minimum is 1000, the use the new maximum throttle in replace of the 1550 below.

Set your Maximum throttle to 1550 in the configuration tab. Set your minimum throttle to whatever your minimum throttle command from the radio is. If you don't do this first, you will calibrate the throttle range on the esc above what you can send for a signal on your TX.

Now cootertwo's instructions, it is important that there is no props. You could cause the machine to spool up while sitting next you and attached to the computer.

Calibrate the ESCs through cleanflight.
- usb to flight controller, connect
- Motor Tab
- Check you understand the risks
- Move master slider to full (should show signal of 1550), the slider mimics your Tx command for easier calibrating.
- Plug your battery into the multirotor
- If you get no beeping, unplug the battery, and adjust the maximum throttle command to 1600. Repeat increasing about 50 each time until you are able to generate the programming beeping.
- Once you get a beeping with the master slider at max, move master slider all the way down to minimum throttle. You should get those additional beeps.
- Unplug everything, turn your remote on, plug in the multirotor battery, and try arming and spooling up. Leave the props off.
- Everything should start at the same time.

 

[BAMAXXX]

Looks like the REV 6 board has a usb problem where the voltage is flowing backwards, I'm looking for a diode to put in at teh momment, will report back, this is not a 6a or 6b board

 

[moonpie57108]

If your ESCs each have a BEC, make sure you are not connecting them all. At most one, unless you are powering from outside source. You can pull the center wire from the servo connector and put some shrink tubing or electrical tape around it.

 

[BAMAXXX]

If your ESCs each have a BEC, make sure you are not connecting them all. At most one, unless you are powering from outside source. You can pull the center wire from the servo connector and put some shrink tubing or electrical tape around it.

I need to do that also, I'm going to pull the power lead off three of them, leaving the ground and power

 

[cootertwo]

Our Friend "Painless 360" has a good video explaining ESC's Not all types have to have the power (red) wire disconnected. I don't like the idea of my board depending on a single ESC/bec for power, as I've fried more than 1 esc. Give this a look see

 

[moonpie57108]

I also never use a ESC to power the flight controller. I am not sure if it s actually better or safer, I have never burned up a esc, standalone bec, or one of my soldered pololus. Seems as cheap as some of this stuff is made, any of them are likely to burst into flames the first time I fly over water .

But because it is probably a little safer, it is a bec or pololu or me and never a esc with bec.

 

[TheCrey]

Whats wrong with using the ESC for powering the FC ?
I am also powering LED and GPS over the FC.
I mean, yes if i use only one, and this one is failing i will have an issue, but i could use all four, so i am safe.

Did i miss a point in here ?

(will need to remove the red cable to calibrate with naze32 rev6 because if this "backfire issue")

Regards
TheCrey

 

[BAMAXXX]

Update: put in the diode, no stuttering when connected. Did the calibration procedure, through clean flight I believe the esc are calibrated but now the motors are behaving erratically. When I move the sliders all up, the motors all respond differently, someone go to the appropriate power range, some just sit there and move slowly while shrieking. If I jiggle the corresponding power slider the motor breaks out of the stutter sometimes and starts behaving properly. So it seems the escs aren't fried or and work. Motor 2 seems to always work fine, the rest need to be jiggled up and down on clean flight before they break out of the stuttering and start working according to the slider.

Is this a calibration issue still? or is this something else, seems to me like the controller is not working correctly.

 

[TheCrey]

Did you removed the diode?
If yes they are on power ageing from the FC ant this the reason they behave strange.
You need to connect the battery as well to get them all behave normal.

If diode is still there I have no idea, sorry very new to this myself.

Regards
TheCrey

 

[moonpie57108]

Whats wrong with using the ESC for powering the FC ?
I am also powering LED and GPS over the FC.
I mean, yes if i use only one, and this one is failing i will have an issue, but i could use all four, so i am safe.

Did i miss a point in here ?

Regards
TheCrey

Nothing wrong with it. The idea is that you could burn up the ESC and doing so would kill power to your flight controller. This is more important in our helis and planes because if you lose the motor you still have options. With a quad, I don't know how much it matters if you lose a motor or a FC, you are going to fall out of the sky similar to a rock. In a bigger drone, you might be able to maintain flight with one motor down unless that esc is powering your FC.

So it is just a habit I carried over.

Trying to use all four can cause problems. I have not tried it, but you are basically connecting 4 power sources in parallel across the Naze power rail. My understanding was that this could cause problems with some of the Naze boards or possibly the ESC so that is why I have not done it.

 

[moonpie57108]

Update: put in the diode, no stuttering when connected. Did the calibration procedure, through clean flight I believe the esc are calibrated but now the motors are behaving erratically. When I move the sliders all up, the motors all respond differently, someone go to the appropriate power range, some just sit there and move slowly while shrieking. If I jiggle the corresponding power slider the motor breaks out of the stutter sometimes and starts behaving properly. So it seems the escs aren't fried or and work. Motor 2 seems to always work fine, the rest need to be jiggled up and down on clean flight before they break out of the stuttering and start working according to the slider.

Is this a calibration issue still? or is this something else, seems to me like the controller is not working correctly.

If the motors ares all responding differently to the master slider, I would think the calibration is still an issue. I haven't had a chance to look at this voltage problem on the new boards so not familiar with that.

Try disabling Damped Light on your escs, I have seen Damped Light do weird things with motors from the vibration of sitting on a bench.

You could try using Spin on Arm and increasing the minimum throttle, do they only get stuck when creeping the throttle up from a stop? Could be cogging at low speeds that they don't like causing them to stick.

 

[cootertwo]

I've read that "shrieking" is an indication of the ESC's not being in sync

 

[moonpie57108]

I did read one other thing this morning.

If you are using BlHeli, access each ESC and set the calibration range you want manually. say 1020 to 1980, min and max. I have had to do this a couple times on Minimum to make the motors start together better. After doing a couple calibrations, I noticed some motors might be 1020 and one might be 1030, so manually changing 1030 to 1020 solved my problem that day.

Search for a thread at IntoFPV called "Naze32 Rev 6a missing diode".

But in reference to your problem, I read a post citing the Naze Diode problem and that he set is ESCs manually to get around it.

Depending on how old it is or where you bought, you could try getting a replacement if the thing is defective. But probably not much luck there, as most people having this problem got the board from BangGood?

The one diode picture I saw showed it soldered in series on the power, so it would not be removable. Not sure if this is right or wrong, just what I saw.

 

[BAMAXXX]

I did read one other thing this morning.

If you are using BlHeli, access each ESC and set the calibration range you want manually. say 1020 to 1980, min and max. I have had to do this a couple times on Minimum to make the motors start together better. After doing a couple calibrations, I noticed some motors might be 1020 and one might be 1030, so manually changing 1030 to 1020 solved my problem that day.

Search for a thread at IntoFPV called "Naze32 Rev 6a missing diode".

But in reference to your problem, I read a post citing the Naze Diode problem and that he set is ESCs manually to get around it.

Depending on how old it is or where you bought, you could try getting a replacement if the thing is defective. But probably not much luck there, as most people having this problem got the board from BangGood?

The one diode picture I saw showed it soldered in series on the power, so it would not be removable. Not sure if this is right or wrong, just what I saw.

Diode situation is fixed, I got it off of ebay, it wasn't bang good. Confirmed that it was a v.1 from the seller. Now its a esc/calibration firmware issue. Someone suggested that I upgrade the esc firmware and set the calibration on blheli suite