XAircraft 2 ESC's beeping and compass issues

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
Yesterday I was in a golf tournament at the most scenic golf course in town. Morning light with the sun just coming up over the mountains was fantastic. There was NO wind. The course was empty 1.5 hours before the tourney and the pro authorized me to go out with my hexa and do some aerial images/video. A fun time to do my 2nd FPV flight.

I got to the 2nd tee, a nice hole which goes over water. I set up the bird and from this spot would be able to get awesome shots of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th, and 11th holes. Great spot.

I powered up my system and motors 5 and 6 did not beep the 6 times they normally do at startup. They simply just beeped about every 2 seconds. Also, my LED on the SuperX showed solid red or solid yellow.

I had just flown the night before with no issues.

What changed from the night before? Yesterday's flight was with two brand spankin new batteries, which I balance charged.

When I got home after the tournament I checked the manual and it would seem that my compass needed to be recalibrated. I just remounted the compass on a higher pole because of occasional battery interference. Ironic. So I calibrated the compass and the system seemed to be happy, except the two beeping motors 5 and 6.

I remember that beeping and two posts prior we were helping someone with throttle calibration here. SO I began to recal those two esc's. The only problem is that the power on my block was off and I was running out of light. I'll finish this morning and report.

I'm not sure if the last time I dumped my log that perhaps something got reset in the system or perhaps there was a static discharge which nuked the pram of the controller and the esc's?
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
I did a throttle calibration on motors 5 and 6 and just tried the bird this morning. No go. Motors 5 and 6 beep every 2 seconds. Help welcomed. I may go through the whole calibration sequence again for all motors, the TX, and the SX.

I'm noticing on my Taranis that the throttle channel is stopping at about -95 at the bottom. If I hold the stick with my finger and push down all the way it will go to -100, but if I let go it goes back to -95. I have powered the bird up with my finger on the throttle so it is -100 though.
 
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mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
UPDATE:


This should lend a good clue as to the issue. I throttle calibrated ESC 5 and 6 several times and still no go. Single beeps every two seconds.


For the hell of it, I plugged the servo wires for motors 5 and 6 into the SuperX channels 1 and 2. Guess what? No beeps and they spin up. If I plug in other motors (like 1 and 2) into the servo outs of the SuperX into channels 5 and 6, they beep.


I'm beginning to think my SuperX suddenly thinks I'm running a quad and not a hexa. Going to power up the GUI and check there.
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
Just checked the SuperX removable storage device. There's no log file and there's no SuperX.exe file.

Obviously something whacked the files in the controller. Now googling to find the files.
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
I'm not able to download SuperX firmware. I do not know my unit ID number. I tried punching in my serial number but that did not work. I have an email in to Drew, but not sure what else to do at this point.
 

Q

Quadrocoptregic

Member
From a n00b's perspective I appreciate you posting your problem and your troubleshooting despite not being able to help at all. Good luck, hope it all comes out in the wash soon for you.
 

Photo Elevate

Photo Elevate

Gravity always wins!!!
I guess some people have already done this.

But it would be a good idea for all Super X owners to make a note of their ID number and keep it in a safe place.

It can be found in the super X exe.files. Then if any thing happens in the future it will make life a lot easier.
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
Quadrocoptregic said:
From a n00b's perspective I appreciate you posting your problem and your troubleshooting despite not being able to help at all. Good luck, hope it all comes out in the wash soon for you.
Click to expand...

Thanks. This community has some great and very smart users and has been a great help. I try to help too when I can to pay it forward.
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
Photo Elevate said:
I guess some people have already done this.

But it would be a good idea for all Super X owners to make a note of their ID number and keep it in a safe place.

It can be found in the super X exe.files. Then if any thing happens in the future it will make life a lot easier.
Click to expand...

Yeah hindsight for me. I'll do it when I get my FC running again. I'm in limbo waiting to hear back from Drew or XA on how to download the firmware without an ID number. Sucks. Flying weather is perfect right now and I'm dying to do my 2nd FPV flight.
 


mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
It took a while to get the file downloaded and decompressed, but once I got it, SuperX.exe transferred fine to the SX. Booted up the SX software and all the previous configuration was gone. So it thought it was flying a quad, not a hexa, explaining why two esc's beeped (motors 5 and 6), just as I suspected.


The gains were also all at default. So it would seem the whole thing reset somehow. I set the gains back to 1.1 (I THINK that's where they were) and set it to hexacopter. Then I booted the bird up and sure as hell, no esc beeping and the GPS locked, even from my basement. It would "appear" to be back and ready for a test flight (tomorrow).


Many thanks to NortheastBay and also to neavissa for the help.


I'm not focused on getting the thing tested in the air tomorrow and my 2nd FPV flight. I'm also quite concerned as to why the file would disappear. I suspect some kind of OS issue where the file was corrupted.


I recommend copying down your unit id number and also backing up your SuperX files somewhere in case a virus program or some other operating system issue deletes or corrupts them.
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
I'm happy to report my hexa is back in the air, though not quite back to 100%. Two flights yesterday.


Once I got the SuperX.exe file back on the FC I was able to download the firmware and reinstall it. My configuration was lost.


First flight was slightly nerve racking because I hadn't done the full calibration. Throttle was right, but left/right was backwards so banking or yawing was the opposite. Plus the unit was drifting quite badly. Both issues were due to not doing the complete calibration (sticks, neutral points, compass etc).


Once I did all the calibrations the bird flew solid. I can't remember if my gain was 1.1 or 1.2 and it is on 1.2 now.


Only issue now is that the gain knob shows -33%, though I didn't change anything on the TX.


Once again the good news is I'm flying again and thanks to those who helped me out. I was sweating because I'm going to beautiful southern Utah this weekend and will be bringing my birds.
 



kloner

kloner

Aerial DP
or you had the gain knob not centered when you did the calibration? i have no idea except they fly like crap with - g knob gains.... those are right where i end up, between 1.1 and 1.2. get it in wind and fly fast into it to finish dialing it in, if you hear it oscilate lower what axis you think was doing it. you can also see the axis in the black box.
 

mediaguru

mediaguru

Member
kloner said:
or you had the gain knob not centered when you did the calibration? i have no idea except they fly like crap with - g knob gains.... those are right where i end up, between 1.1 and 1.2. get it in wind and fly fast into it to finish dialing it in, if you hear it oscilate lower what axis you think was doing it. you can also see the axis in the black box.
Click to expand...

I'll check that. Is the gain knob one of the knobs we have to tweak in neutral point calibration?
 



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