Hi,
I was trying to calibrate my ESCs for my Quadrino Nano, but they didn’t end up calibrating (no beeps). Here are all the components:
Flight Controller - Quadrino Nano
Power Distribution Board - Lynxmotion PDB
Radio & Transmitter - Turnigy 9X and it’s 8 channel receiver (works fine on WinGUI)
Battery - 6S LiPo
ESCs- littlebee 30a blheli_s
I tried to calibrate the ESCs through both methods listed on the Advanced ESC calibration for Lynxmotion here: https://community.robotshop.com/blog/show/lynxmotion-quadrino-nano-advanced-esc-calibration
All the wiring between the components was the exact same for both methods (changed wiring for each method). I also flashed the calibration firmware and such. Perhaps one difference is that the Quadrino Nano isn’t powered by the 6S LiPo yet, but instead a small USB battery pack. The transmitter(as shown in WinGUI) worked fine, as all the endpoints were correct. Please help me find possible problems with my setup so that I can calibrate ESCs.
I think you got the issue regarding the powering.
You need to power both the ESC’s and the Quadrino Nano at about the same time to make it work.
The Quadrino, when powered, will send a high 2000us signal a a time then a low 1000us.
On the ESC side they need to see a high signal upon power-up to go into calibration mode.
Hi,
After some testing, there were still no beeps (and the motors are, and always has been, totally unresponsive to any changes in throttle). I currently don’t have a 5V regulator connected to the power board to power the flight controller, so I removed the jumper so that power can’t flow from the battery to the flight controller. I am powering the flight controller using an external USB pack.
We connected the main battery to the power board and the small temporary battery pack to the Quadrino Nano within half a second of each other. Still, the problem persists. I have attached some pictures to show the setup and wiring.
Please let me know if you need any more photos of different things or from different angles.
At this point, I can only think of two things that could be going wrong, one is that because we don’t have the 5V regulator installed, so, therefore, the half-second delay between when the flight controller is powered and when the power board receives power is too much of a delay for the correct signals to be sent.
The other possible idea that I could think of is that the ESC’s might not be plugged in properly. Other than that, all I can think of is that some component might be fundamentally broken.
First thing i will raise as it’s dangerous, do not lay the MES Power Distribution Board directly on the carbon fiber material.
Carbon fiber material is conductive and you might have a short with the exposed metal of the board.
That said, more about your issue:
The fact that you do not have any throttle response from your ESC’s do not specifically point to a problem of calibration. It could be only the settings in FCT.
The jumper (JB) is not important for you. It could be leaved there as it will never carry the Battery power to anything. It’s a selector if you had a BEC with your ESC’s to activate the flow to the Quadrino or not. (here)
When you connect your battery to your ESC’s do you have any sounds from your ESC’s ? They usually beeps at power-up.
Note: have you tried them directly connected to your Turnigy receiver ?
I would greatly suggest to solder a 5V regulator to the distribution board to gain the 5V to power the Quadrino Nano from the battery:
Thanks so much for the tip on the carbon fiber being conductive, we put an insulated block underneath the power board now and it’s about half an inch above the bottom of the frame now.
That ESC said that it was meant for model planes, but for testing purposes, it works just fine. We proceded to do a normal ESC calibration, and when this one powered on, the motor it was attached to made the beeping noise. Then when we did the calibration steps, it did them flawlessly.
This leads us to believe that our other ESC’s are not working for some reason. The only possible idea that I have (assuming that all 8 ESC’s aren’t completely broken) is that it might have something to do with the fact that our ESC’s only have 2 of the PWM wires that plug into the power board and the one we got to test with has 3. Then again, that might not be what the problem is because we heard that the middle wire is only used if the ESC has a built-in BEC.
If you have any idea on what the problem could be, or could provide some clarification on how the small white and black wires that go into the power board work, that would be amazing!
(below is a picture with the lifting block and towards the right side of the image is the new ESC that worked)
The 3 wires are as follow:
Black - Ground or Negative
Red - 5VDC from the internal BEC when equipped
Yellow or White - Signal wire (pwm)
Your original ESC’s do not have an internal BEC therefore no “RED” wire and that’s ok.
It’s possible to calibrate your ESC’s manually with your Receiver directly. However it might not be 100% accurate as it will take the signal from your Receiver not the Quadrino as the reference.
If you do that procedure, make sure you have your “END Points” set in your Transmitter to show values of 1000 to 2000 in the WinGUI application.
Hi,
After switching to different ESC’s I got 7/8 motors spinning on my octocopter! This shows that it was a problem with the other ESC’s. Unfortunately though, for some reason, one of the motors is not spinning.
I tried to isolate possible failure points. The ESC for the 8th motor works. I tested it on a different port on the power board and I spun the motor just fine. I know that the motor works as well because I plugged it into a different ESC on a different port on the power board and it spun just fine. I know it that the ESC is getting power, because the LED lights up and the motor plays part of the start up beeps. However, the usual start up beeping is interrupted.
I am using the Lynxmotion Power Distribution Board in conjunction with the Quadrino Nano and the ESC that has the non-spinning motor is plugged into port 8 on the Power Board.
I tested continuity between the signal pins that connect to the Quadrino Nano to the power board. It seems that electrically, the connection from the signal on the ESC is connected just fine to the Quadrino Nano. When I plug the ESC signal wire into a different signal port, it works fine. On WinGUI, all ESC’s appear to have the same signal sent out.
All of this leads us to believe that there is some issue with either the configuration or possibly the firmware on the Quadrino Nano. Any ideas on why this might be happening would be great!
Have you tried that “ESC” to another of the Quadrino Nano output ?
It could be a calibration issue and/or the “Min Command” value that need to be raised slightly.
Hi,
Thanks for your reply! Yes, we took the PWM signal wire from that ESC and moved it to a different port on the power board, while leaving the ESC’s black and red wires in the same ports. Then we armed the copter and pushed up the throttle and it began spinning without a problem.
Yup, that’s exactly what’s happening. Here’s a short video portraying what is wrong.
The ESC is powered, and when I plug the signal wire into port 5 (which is one of the working ports), it powers on just fine. But then when I move the signal wire into port 8 (which is the one that doesn’t work), it doesn’t make any startup sound.
Have you loaded a profile which use the Motor8 output ? Otherwise it will not output anything.
In the WinGUI, when arming, do you see all motor outputs set to the “Min Command” ? This should confirm you that MultiWii is actually sending a signal to that output.
Since this cable is not populated at the factory in the Motor Harness, make sure it is fully inserted in the connector and if you have the ability to test the conductivity at either sides it would be great. Maybe you have a defective cable.
Hi,
I’m pretty sure I have a proper configuration loaded. Here is a copy of my configuration folder in the AppData/Local/Quadrino Tools/Profiles folder: Hummingbird.zip (1.2 MB)
I’m pretty sure that MultiWii is sending the proper signal. Here is a screenshot of MultiWii when it is armed and the throttle is at its minimum position:
Finally, I just tested continuity between the signal pin of port 8 on the power board, and the end of the corresponding pin on the wiring harness that plugs into the flight controller. Those are connected to each other perfectly.
That’s perfect, it does clarify a lot of possibilities.
One thing i am unsure is the calibration of the ESC’s in an Octo configuration.
After some investigations here, the ESC calibration using MultiWii only seems to work on Motor 2/3/5/6.
We found the issue in the calibration file which was set to “QuadX” so only calibrate the 4 motor for a Quadcopter.
Hi,
I just tried MultiWii calibration using that new file, and something different does happen, but still, that eighth motor isn’t spinning. When the flight controller is powered and the battery is plugged in at the same time, it makes the normal three quick startup beeps, but the difference is is that it usually makes 2 slower beeps immediately after the three quick startup ones. When calibrating with this file, it paused for about 7 seconds between making the three quick beeps and the two slower beeps. Then, after flashing normal firmware back onto the flight controller, I push the throttle up and still only 7 of the 8 are spinning.
The “calibration” side should be good now.
Regarding the motor that’s not spinning, i would increase the “Min Command” value in the FCT slightly and test.
Hi,
I changed the “Min Command” value in FCT from 1000 to 1010, the ESC powered on just fine, but still, only 7 of the 8 motors were spinning.
I then tried increasing it again to 1050. Then I plugged in the battery and the ESC’s made the normal 3 quick beeps, but then only made 1 slower beep instead of the 2 that it normally makes. When I Armed the copter and pushed up the throttle, none of the motors spun.
I then reverted the value back to 1000 and the 7 motors started spinning just fine again, but that 8th one still isn’t spinning.
Hi,
I took that cable that is in the middle in the picture that you sent above and I added the 4 other wires to it. I then replaced the connection between the signal wires of the ESC and the flight controller with that harness. I then armed the drone and pushed up the throttle and still only 7 of the 8 propellers spun. It was still motor #8 that wasn’t spinning.
