[M.Saiz]

Hey ho,

i am new to this hobby but now i am stuck. I think i  have a little issue with my CC3D. I have have assembled my multicopter and now wanted to get my cc3d working. I started the vehicle setup but when i have to calibrate my ESC's they are not responding. I already calibrated my ESC with my transmitter but i think the ESC should play the setup beeps when they are powered on. When i power on my esc nothing happens. Only when they are directly connected to the reciever on channel 3 (throttle).

Is my CC3D broken? I am really shure that i wired the esc's correctly to my CC3D. Anything else i am missing here?

Hope someone can help me. =D

[crof2003]

Hello! I'm new-ish to this hobby as well, but I like trying to help people.  If others reply, maybe take their advice first

Before going any further, take off your propellers if they are on!  If they accidentally start, they are seriously dangerous.  If the motors accidentally start without them on, they are just a bit noisy

So first, I'm confused by the thread title - are you getting an error saying "Output Critical"?  I'm going to assume that's just your description of the issue.  If that's an error you're getting, then everything below is likely not useful.

When everything is working correctly, when you attach the battery to the power distribution setup it'll power the ESC's and the CC3D, the CC3D will 'talk' to the ESC's and they'll do their startup beeps/singing.  If they aren't beeping/singing, then there is a problem.

If you disconnect the CC3D from USB and power everything from the battery alone, does the CC3D have any LED's lit?  If not, there is a wiring issue.

Your wiring should be Battery > some sort of power distribution that goes to all ESC's > all ESC's control wires going to their correct pins on the CC3D > all the wires from ECS's connected to motors as required by your hardware.

Here's a diagram I found, just ignore parts you don't have like GPS, Telemetry, etc.: http://fpv.tv/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CC3D-OpenPilot-Flight-Controller-for-multirotors-no5.png

• Note: Only one of the ESC connectors going to the CC3D should have all 3 wires attached.  Red wires should not be coming from all ESC's to the CC3D, only one.  I removed the extra wires from the connectors with a small screw driver and heatshrink tubed them to make sure they didn't short each other out

You need to get to the point where the CC3D is powered up by attaching the battery only and the ESC's are beeping/singing shortly after the battery is connected (within about 1-5 seconds).  If that isn't happening, you can't do the vehicle setup wizard.  Don't attempt to fly without doing the setup wizard.

You'll need to calibrate your ESC's through the Vehicle Setup Wizard unless you really know what your doing.  If things are wired up right, its really just a matter of following the on screen instructions.  I was scared to attach the battery with the USB plugged in, but the internal circuits of the CC3D protect your computer from the 12V (under normal circumstances at least).  Just attach it when asked.  I found that my reciever doesn't work without the battery attached.

Hope this helps some.

[M.Saiz]

Hey there,

thanks for your reply. In my build my ESC's are powering my CC3D using BEC. I am using Emax Simonk Series 12A. I followed some different instructions but i read that i don't need to remove the middle cable from the ESC's because of the BEC.

Never the less i wasn't sure about that in my first try so i run the vehicle setup with only one ESC connected. Also because i wanted to check (before complete assembling) that my motors spin in the right direction. But nothing happens when i power the ESC.

So lets say i messed up the BEC thing and i "overpowered" the CC3D is it broken now? From the UI on the computer everything seems fine except for the Servo waring. It just says "one ore more servo outputs failed to update" and shows a red output health.

Update:
I tried it another time with the middle cable removed from all except one ESC so my wiring looks the same as shown in your diagram (at least the part ESC <--> CC3D but ... same result. Nothing happens. The ESC dont beep on power on  and the CC3D cant calibrate them.

[crof2003]

everything seems fine except for the Servo waring.

Ok, so that was an actual warning in the LibrePilot software.  That's something I've not seen before so hopefully someone else can help - but it does seem like something is wrong hardware wise with the CC3D and it may be best to just get a new one

Also maybe this document will help you found out if the problem you're seeing in the software is an actual issue, or just that the controller isn't configured yet: https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/SystemHealth?preview=%2F5669070%2F5669223%2Fsystem_health.pdf

So i sounds like when you attach USB to the CC3D, it powers up OK (LEDs, sends data to GCS software, the quad image moves on the flight data tab when you physically move the quad).  But what happens if you have no USB connected but connect the battery to the ESC(s)? Does the LED on the CC3D light?  Do the ESC's beep?  Also, only because you didn't say if you had or not, going through the ESC calibration steps in the vehicle setup wizard requires you to detach/attach the battery from the ESC's at different points - did you do that when you got to that point?  The ESC's will not be on at all if the battery isn't attached regardless of if the CC3D is connected to USB.

...In my build my ESC's are powering my CC3D using BEC. I am using Emax Simonk Series 12A. I followed some different instructions but i read that i don't need to remove the middle cable from the ESC's because of the BEC.

Never the less i wasn't sure about that in my first try so i run the vehicle setup with only one ESC connected. Also because i wanted to check (before complete assembling) that my motors spin in the right direction. But nothing happens when i power the ESC.

ESC's powering the CC3D using the BEC is correct.  The reason that you want to remove the Red wire from all but one ESC connector is that we only need the lower BEC voltage from one to power the flight controller.  You likely can 'get away' with having all 4 red wires from the ESC's BEC circuits attached - it shouldn't 'over power' the board when everything is going right, but the board (and most other flight controllers) were designed to only have one attached at a time and the other 3 ESC's to have just the signal cable.

Let me share a story on why I wish I knew about removing those cables sooner:

In my first build I was using a KK flight control board.  All ESC's had all 3 wires attached: no problems, flew great!.....until one day I plugged in the battery and on ESC decided to fail in spectacular fashion and there was immediately sparks, noises, and magic smoke from that ESC. Unfortunately the ESC apparently shorted out in a way that sent too much power over the BEC and killed my KK board as well.  If that particular ESC didn't have the BEC connected, my KK may still be alive and kicking today! (But then I wouldn't have found OpenPilot/LibrePilot). 

...wow I hope something in that post was helpful....re-reading it, it looks like a jumbled mess of nonsense

[M.Saiz]

Hey there,

its no nonsense.. but it lacks solutions =D. Hmmm.. it could be a very tricky issue or something really stupid i just forgot. Yes when i power the ESC the CC3D is active. (Blue and orange LED)

Okey back from beginning. I started with soldering my ESC to the power distribution board then I connected all motors to my ESC's then the ESC to the CC3D. Last step i connected my CC3D to the receiver. Then i connected my CC3D to my Computer an started the vehicle setup. I started by updating the firmware. Then i went through all other pages .. receiver, calibration then the ESC calibration page came. I carefully read all the instructions on the page and when it came to the point where i had to wait for the beep .. nothing happened. I already knew something was wrong .. i have seen videos of the installation so i knew there was always a sound from the ESC's.

Since this first "fail" i did a lot of tests. First i tested all my ESC's using a multimeter. All deliver the right currency so they all have power. (So no failure in the power distribution board). I also tried the calibration using the output tab... same result.. no beep. Then i unplugged my CC3D and plugged my ESC's one by one in to the receiver to calibrate them manually. That worked .. every one beeped correct and i can "use" them. With my ESC's calibrated i added the CC3D again, i powered them via battery and... nothing. Did the vehicle setup again.. nothing... I was able to do the transmitter setup wizard. That seems to work fine every command is recognized. Also the gyro and most of the other functions from the CC3D seem to work fine.

Sooo here i am .. stuck.. i am thinking about buying a naze32 and moving to clean-flight. 

[TheOtherCliff]

Are there any errors shown on Flight Data -> System Health?

Go to the output tab and make sure that Min is 1000, Max is 1900, and Neutral is 1000.  For this test I would set all banks to PwmSync.  Take props off and plug in a flight battery.  Read wiki instructions on how to calibrate ESCs and calibrate them.