New, need direction

MrFoo · « **on:** February 18, 2016, 03:48:41 am »

Hello! I recently acquired a Storm racing drone with the cc3d controller. I was able to get a few test flights in before I had a hard crash and now it won't work. I have reached out to the company I purchased it from and I am not getting much help. I have tried to connect to the Librepilot software but it doesn't appear to be connecting at all. I don't want to erase any settings that are already on there. I basically have a really nice paperweight at this point and have no idea where to go from here. Any assistance would be great at this point. Thank you in advance for any help.

aa8mc · « **Reply #1 on:** February 18, 2016, 04:28:08 am »

I wouldn't be terribly concerned about losing your settings save maybe the PID timings which you can probably live without and come up with equivalent or better settings on your own. Try loading the board up in rescue mode and see if you can use it to flash the latest LP. I've found that I get better results with upgrades by wiping the board anyway. If it doesn't come up, congratulations! You have an excuse to upgrade to a Revo!

swapping the boards either for a replacement CC3D or a Revo is actually pretty straightforward.

hwh · « **Reply #2 on:** February 18, 2016, 04:47:56 am »

Quote from: MrFoo on February 18, 2016, 03:48:41 am

Hello! I recently acquired a Storm racing drone with the cc3d controller. I was able to get a few test flights in before I had a hard crash and now it won't work...

Won't work is a little broad a description. When you hook it up to your computer what happens? What lights on the cc3d come on, do they blink and if so how?

MrFoo · « **Reply #3 on:** February 18, 2016, 05:04:52 am »

When I plug it up, the green light stays on and the blue light flashes quick for about 15-20 seconds. Then it goes into a steady on then off. From this video I saw about the lights it seems to be the "heartbeat disarmed" I also saw a guide about erasing the usb component device and reloading the driver. I don't see any components that relate to it to delete. I have tried this with the batter connected, disconnected, and the same with the controller. the tx/rx at the bottom don't light up. I click the connect button and nothing.

cato · « **Reply #4 on:** February 18, 2016, 05:24:25 pm »

What are the symptoms?

Is it that the motors don't start at all anymore, or sth else?

MrFoo · « **Reply #5 on:** February 18, 2016, 07:23:21 pm »

Quote from: cato on February 18, 2016, 05:24:25 pm

What are the symptoms?

Is it that the motors don't start at all anymore, or sth else?

When I plug in the battery, the motors all do a small movement like they did before the accident. Other than that, there's no response.

Mateusz · « **Reply #6 on:** February 18, 2016, 07:43:35 pm »

Quote from: MrFoo on February 18, 2016, 07:23:21 pm

When I plug in the battery, the motors all do a small movement like they did before the accident. Other than that, there's no response.

Ok, so first of all. You flashed it before with LibrePilot right ? and you could connected to GCS via USB ?
Then you were flying.
Now after a crash you can't connect to it via USB ? or did you do something to it after the crash ?

Anyway, if you could connect to it with GCS before crash and now you can't because of crash, then it's very likely that flight controller or part of it is damaged (maybe usb port), and you should replace it with a new one. Do you even see any device getting connected when you plug in USB cable ?

It could be also that you messed up something with your drivers on your computer at some point. Did you try another computer ?

MrFoo · « **Reply #7 on:** February 18, 2016, 07:52:41 pm »

I never flashed it. It came already programmed. The board is in a yellow case that had openpilot on it. It appears that program has been replaced by Librepilot and that's how I ended up here. It has a Devo 7 controller and RX701 receiver. I haven't changed any controller settings and from what there company indicated, they TX/RX are bound. But they are in Hong Kong and there is a bit of a language barrier...

Mateusz · « **Reply #8 on:** February 18, 2016, 07:59:04 pm »

Quote from: MrFoo on February 18, 2016, 07:52:41 pm

I never flashed it. It came already programmed. The board is in a yellow case that had openpilot on it. It appears that program has been replaced by Librepilot and that's how I ended up here. It has a Devo 7 controller and RX701 receiver. I haven't changed any controller settings and from what there company indicated, they TX/RX are bound. But they are in Hong Kong and there is a bit of a language barrier...

Ok so you flashed it with LibrePilot. When you do that, you have to configure everything from scratch. Settings of OpenPilot are not compatible with the LibrePilot. Actually settings between versions are not always compatible. So you should have done full erase and upgrade before any attempt to fly.

There is a Wiki with documentation https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/Firmware+Rescue
And thread about unbricking https://forum.librepilot.org/index.php?topic=208.0

But I would try first Wiki. If the reason you cant connect is crash though, then it may not help, but worth a try.

al · « **Reply #9 on:** February 18, 2016, 08:11:27 pm »

Are you sure the receiver is OK?

MrFoo · « **Reply #10 on:** February 18, 2016, 08:26:39 pm »

I didn't flash it at all. I just wanted to see what the current setting were. As far s the receiver, out appears OK it again I am not sure

cato · « **Reply #11 on:** February 19, 2016, 10:36:14 am »

Hi

I think communication was a bit shaky here: I think you think that Openpilot was replaced by Librepilot, not on your controller, but generally.

When you never flashed it, then you still have some version of Openpilot on it. This project is dead, and Librepilot jumped in into this vacance, continuing to develop the old codebase.

Now, in most cases, the ESCs produce some sound during initialization, at the moment when the motors slightly move. Did that happen happen before and disappear now? If there is a sound, is it the same sound as before or has it changed?

MrFoo · « **Reply #12 on:** February 19, 2016, 12:31:31 pm »

Cato, you are correct! It still makes the same initialization sound as it did before. The company contacted me a few hours ago and said to try this.

May I bother you to connect the CC3D controller to OpenPilot software and go to Input-> RC Input section and move the stick travel to see whether the radio controller action can reflect on the controller screen to test whether they are bound successfully. Many thanks.

I tried that but I don't see "input" anywhere on the program. For some reason, I seem to be missing something. Either my computer doesn't recognize this ESC is connected or I don't know how to connect it once I have the program open. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I click the connect button ( in Openpilot in this case) and it doesn't seem to connect.

cato · « **Reply #13 on:** February 19, 2016, 01:54:51 pm »

OK, first which GCS software are you using? If you still have the Openpilot GCS, then everything is fine. If you use the Librepilot GCS you will get a warning and need to be a bit careful. Do not change any values while running the Librepilot GCS on some old firmware. But it should be ok to take a look at some values.

So, now remove all your propellers from the quad. Do not go on if you did not do so. Switch your transmitter on, then start the GCS, connect your CC3D via USB to your computer, and power your quad with a battery, so that the receiver gets power. If all is fine, you will get a warning that your firmware is not up-to-date, and after a few second your controller should show up in the firmware tab.

If you get to that point, you can now go to the HITL tab, and try to move the sticks on your transmitter. The movements should show there (with a certain lag). If this is not the case, your connection between receiver and controller is somehow broken.

That should bring you so far as the supporter asked you to do. Please tell us your findings, then we certainly will get to the root of your problem.

MrFoo · « **Reply #14 on:** February 21, 2016, 05:41:01 pm »

Thanks for that info Cato. The company also responded with this video. I have tried this with Librepilot as well as the Openpilot v. 15.02.02. My computer doesn't seem to recognize the quad is connected. The cc3d lights up (from usb power). As you can see about 30 seconds into the video, the cc3d info pops up on the firmware tab. It doesn't do that when I try it. On my computer in the "connections" box at the bottom, there is not a USB option. The only 3 that are showing up is "serial:com3" "Logfile: logfile replay..." and "UDP:unconfigured".

With that being the case, would the next step be to test the wire continuity? The wires coming from the cc3d are bundled with other wires but do they run straight to the receiver?