New build drone not powering up

[Sly]

New to the hobby and decided to build my own drone. I have just built my first ever drone today. checked all connectors to make sure everything is correctly setup and wired. Plugged in the battery 11.1v 3s battery and the motors twitched and the the tune played but all moters was out of sync.

The first thing i wanted to do was to check if the motors where spinning the right way so i could tidy everything up and make it permanent . I went into clean flight and tested to see if the transmitter worked but no luck. I then went to the "Motors" tab tried to spin the motors by raising the sliders and nothing happened however after removing the battery and plugging it back in the moters started to spin but there was no way to stop them from slowing down. tried to move the sliders in the "Motors" tab and they did nothing so we had to unplug and the motors stopped and someone pointed out a burning smell which i personally could not smell. I touched the ESC';s and they were not hot however they were warm which i assume is expected. I touched the moters and they didnt feel warm or hot. After what happened i stopped testing and just tried to get the Transmitter working and no luck.

Now when i plug in my battery only the 1st motor twitches and that is it. no little songs, No spinning. It is just basically a little twitch from the motor and nothing else happens. I was told to wait 2 minuets and it will start but still nothing happens. checking all ESC';s again and surprised only 1 ESC is warm to the touch and that is connected to the motor that twitches when 1st plugging in.

Now i don';t know what to do. I feel if i hooked up a working transmitter it may work but i am not to sure. Another thing i noticed is when i turn over the copter there is what seems golden and silver flakes but the copter did some moving around the house so its possible it could of been picked up from somewhere else.

Any help would be perfect. I am willing to answer any questions

Hardware:

• Emax 250mm frame
• SP Racing F3 Flight Controller Acro
• RS2205 2300KV Motor
• PDB-XT60 Matek
• E-TECH SimonK 30A Brushless ESC
• Zippy 1300mAh 3S 11.1V Lipo

The Transmitter i wanted to use is a Esky 0406A which was from a Belt CP but it is broken and i was hoping i could use that however couldn';t get it to work

New to the forums so apologise if this is is the wrong section

[Saleem]

What reciever is hooked up to the quad,the reciever and handset has to be binded and compatable,just a starting point.

The esc need to be calibrated then all motors should spin fine,min and max throttle need setting in betaflight/cleanflight,set min to 1000 for now and max at 2000,min command 1000.

So what rx and what radio set?

[Bad Raven]

The Transmitter i wanted to use is a Esky 0406A which was from a Belt CP but it is broken and i was hoping i could use that however couldn';t get it to work

AFAIK that Tx is pre-set to a Helicopter Mix (and is probably unalterable), i.e, the three channels used for Cyclic are mixed, as are the two channels used for Throttle and Blade Pitch.  This would likely defeat default arming and anyway prevent the FC from deciphering the commands coming at it.

As Saleem says, what Receiver are you using, ESky??  For initial testing at least a paired AIRCRAFT program Transmitter is required, with its paired type and bound Rx either connected per channel to the FC, or if it has serial output (different types exist) a single wire set between Rx and FC.

[Sly]

So what rx and what radio set?

I woke up and tried my Quad copter and same thing with the 1st motor twitching and the 1 ESC getting warm and that is still it 

it states on the Transmitter "Esky 0406A 6ch transmitter 35MHz" which supports PPM. The Receiver is a "6ch Esky Ek2-0420A" FM-35MHz both came with the Esky Belt CP when i bought it the helicopter. The Belt CP is a 3D helicopter and when activating Idle up the throttle becomes a Throttle and Blade Pitch

From what i looked up if its supports PPM then you should only need to use 3 wires however after looking up the Receiver i noticed channel 1,2,8 are for servos and channel 3 is for Speed controllers but still no input on Cleanflight.

My brother is buying a Flysky FS-T6  W/Receiver R6-B for his own so i could try that and see if everything works. which i will bind first. I think it comes tomorrow.

[ched]

You should be able to get motors to spin without a rx.
First off if you or someone else smelt burning it is worth checking all connections are correct and no little bits of solder etc shorting things. You might need a magnifying glass for this. The burning smell may have been a component failing and you might not be able to see the fault! So check everything you can first.

MAKE SURE PROPS OFF then connect FC to computer with Clean Flight and go to motors tab, connect battery tick the boxes saying you want to run motors etc and try the sliders. Do the motors spin?

You will also need to calibrate the motors/esc/rx but you need to make sure motors/esc/fc is working first.

The tx/rx you are using might give you lots of problems as it might have custom channel mixes for a heli that are not compatible with a quad.
If you want a good cheap tx look at the newer FlySky i6. Should be able to get it and rx for about £35. It will run on 2.4Ghz not 35Mhz, it will be a lot more resilient, reliable and more configurable to the tx you have.
Hope the above gives you some ideas?
Standard channels for quad are 1,2,3,4 with 3 being throttle.

Hope that gives you some clues?

[Cheredanine]

Ffs more Simonk escs???

Can you take a pic of the escs on the arms?

[Sly]

I tried the suggestion that Ched999UK made. checked all the connections. that go into my PDB and everything seems fine. there is nothing that stands out on both the PDB and FC. I connected FC to computer with Clean Flight and went to the motors tab, connected the battery ticked the box saying i wanted to run motors etc and tried the sliders and nothing happens what so ever.

None of the moters try to spin. its like everything is dead apart from 1 ESC gets warm to the touch and that goes to the motor that twitches when first plugging in the battery

I do want to note that in the picture i have posted on the capacitor you can see a little indentation near the red wire. i am unsure if that was there before or after however it seems like that on all ESC';s

Ffs more Simonk escs???

Can you take a pic of the escs on the arms?

I found some other ESCs however when i looked them up i found lots of complaints about them not working or them breaking after a couple of uses and some people suggested Simonk even seen some youtubers recommending them for a cheap build. :/

[ched]

One point that needs addressing before flight. The cables going from esc to motors should be as thick as motor wires. Thin wires have more resistance and cant flow the current the motors need, it';s not critical but bad practice having a thinner wire feeding a thicker one.

I don';t know if this will be easy for you but can the signal wires on the esc can be connected to ch3 on your receiver temporary? If so you can test the esc individually.
Connect the receiver to appropriate power, connect esc control wires to channel 3 on your rx, make sure esc is connected to charged battery, make sure rx is set to pwm mode. Now your tx throttle stick should work the motor?

Can you try that?

[Sly]

One point that needs addressing before flight. The cables going from esc to motors should be as thick as motor wires. Thin wires have more resistance and cant flow the current the motors need, it';s not critical but bad practice having a thinner wire feeding a thicker one.

I don';t know if this will be easy for you but can the signal wires on the esc can be connected to ch3 on your receiver temporary? If so you can test the esc individually.
Connect the receiver to appropriate power, connect esc control wires to channel 3 on your rx, make sure esc is connected to charged battery, make sure rx is set to pwm mode. Now your tx throttle stick should work the motor?

Can you try that?

WE HAVE PROGRESS. I have the biggest smile on my face that we have progress  ::) 

i plugged in the a single ESC to the receiver to channel 3 as you mentioned and i plugged in the battery and it started to sing. after i pushed throttle up on my transmitter and it began to spin

the beeping tone goes like "beep - beep beep beep - beep beep".

Regarding the wires the ESC wires going to my PDB are thick wires. I think they are 16gauge as 16 is written on the wires along with 200°C. however The wires coming from my ESC to my motors are not as thick. i want to say slightly bigger then a 24AWG and my motor wires seem to be smaller then 24AWG.

Unfortunately there is no number written on the wires apart from the wires that supply power to the ESC';s through the PDB

Edit - All motors do the same beeping noise apart from motor 4 and when increasing throttle it will just spin continuously even at 0 throttle

Question would a burning smell come from brand new motors because used for the first time most likely at max throttle?

[ched]

That';s good. Did you get all motors working one at a time?
I can';t remember the calibration via rx procedure. Something like throttle max, connect battery to esc, wait for beeps, lower throttle to min, wait for beeps, disconnect power - esc calibrated.....Now repeat on the other 3.

Now you know the esc/motors are working you can focus on rx to fc and fc to esc.

[Sly]

That';s good. Did you get all motors working one at a time?
I can';t remember the calibration via rx procedure. Something like throttle max, connect battery to esc, wait for beeps, lower throttle to min, wait for beeps, disconnect power - esc calibrated.....Now repeat on the other 3.

Now you know the esc/motors are working you can focus on rx to fc and fc to esc.

How would i go about doing that? im using the motor just plugged in  directly to the RX and they work fine. i';ve looked on youtube and see people use the wire that came with their FC and plugging that into there FC and going to channel 1 on there RX however when i plug in my battery nothing happen, no beeps happen and nothing from my throttle even when plugging it into channel 3

[Cheredanine]

Dumb assed question but you are nrying to run oneshot to these are you (based on other thread)

(Vids recommending Simonk are about 2.5-3 years old
(and in fact I think these are actually Simonk bootloader but blheli installed)
Blheli_s is miles better and in many cases cheaper

However that aside, make sure on the config tab when connected to the flight controller you are using pwm not oneshot125 and make sure your pid loop frequency is 500Hz or less

Heat in the esc is a bad sign it generally infers a short or component failure if it occurs without the props spinning but could be above also

[ched]

How would i go about doing that? im using the motor just plugged in  directly to the RX and they work fine. i';ve looked on youtube and see people use the wire that came with their FC and plugging that into there FC and going to channel 1 on there RX however when i plug in my battery nothing happen, no beeps happen and nothing from my throttle even when plugging it into channel 3

As earlier:
I don';t know if this will be easy for you but can the signal wires on the esc can be connected to ch3 on your receiver temporary? If so you can test the esc individually.
Connect the receiver to appropriate power, connect esc control wires to channel 3 on your rx, make sure esc is connected to charged battery, make sure rx is set to pwm mode. Now your tx throttle stick should work the motor?
The servo plugs on the left of the photo (I assume connects to esc?) if so that is the cable that needs plugging into ch3 on rx. The rx needs appropriate power (I GUESS 5v) going to it. I guess you have a 5v source that you are using to power FC? Can you temp use that to power rx?
Make sure props off, charged battery connected to esc power wires and you should be able to control the motor whose control wire is connected to ch3 via your throttle stick on the tx?
If you can then that motor & esc work. Now repeat with each of the other 3 motors.
Do all 4 work this way?
If we have 4 working motors we can move on to FC.

[Sly]

As earlier:
I don';t know if this will be easy for you but can the signal wires on the esc can be connected to ch3 on your receiver temporary? If so you can test the esc individually.
Connect the receiver to appropriate power, connect esc control wires to channel 3 on your rx, make sure esc is connected to charged battery, make sure rx is set to pwm mode. Now your tx throttle stick should work the motor?
The servo plugs on the left of the photo (I assume connects to esc?) if so that is the cable that needs plugging into ch3 on rx. The rx needs appropriate power (I GUESS 5v) going to it. I guess you have a 5v source that you are using to power FC? Can you temp use that to power rx?
Make sure props off, charged battery connected to esc power wires and you should be able to control the motor whose control wire is connected to ch3 via your throttle stick on the tx?
If you can then that motor & esc work. Now repeat with each of the other 3 motors.
Do all 4 work this way?
If we have 4 working motors we can move on to FC.

I did try what you suggested which was plugging the signal wires on the ESC to channel 3 on the receiver and when i plugged in the battery i got the little tune that went beep > beep beep beep > beep beep and i get that with all motors. all of them respond to throttle movement and stop when at 0 throttle apart from motor 4. the tune doesn';t play however when i move my throttle stick it will just spin up and if i lower throttle to 0 then it wont stop but it does respond to throttle movement and speed up and slow down. i am assuming this will be fixed when its all calibrated.

On the picture showing on the receiver and FC the 4 wires on the left plugged into the FC are from the ESC';s which should be providing the 5v from the ESC';s which powers the FC as when i plug in my battery everything.

After i followed Cheredanine suggestion and changed some settings. I plugged in two ESC';s to test the motors would work in the "Motor" tab. I plugged in my battery the little tune played and i was able to control the motors through the sliders "Motor" tab i don';t know if this was due to the settings i tried but it worked. however throttle input from the transmitter was not working.

If it is due to the TX and RX not being compatible due to it came from a Belt CP then i can upgrade to a Flysky FS-T6 or Flysky FS-i6. are they similar and is the difference worth the extra £10

[Cheredanine]

I am no flysky expert but the standard Rx for flysky on a quad as far as I am aware is the fs-ia6b

[ched]

The FlySky i6 is what I use. It is cheap but I find it good. It can be flashed to be a 10channel radio with a simple adapter (FTDi).
You can get it with the FS-iA6B. This is 6 channel (flash tx and use ibus and its 10ch) that can relay flight battery voltage back to the tx with either a £3 add on or a hack. The flashed i6 can then alarm on flight battery voltage which is great.
The tx runs on 4 x AA batteries, I use Eneloops and they last hrs and hrs.

The taranis is the ';industry standard'; but it is 4+ times the price and has 10x the features :)

That is my opinion on the i6, it';s definitely worth the extra over the T6.

[Sly]

It seems like the FS-i6 is on order. I just seen the FS-T6 and even though it feels good in the hand in terms of size the shiny part feels cheap.

The only problems i am having now is my 4th motor. The only ESC which is the 4th motor gets warm to the touch all overs stay cool with the props off. I assume i calibrated the motors. put motor slider to 2000 plugged in battery it did its little song and when it was done i unplugged the battery. All 3 motors are in sync. 4th motor does not beep and when i move the Motor slider up it spins and back to 0 it just continues to spin after 5-10 seconds later it stops.

Could the warm ESC be related to my soldering to the PDB or to the Motors?

[Saleem]

To calibrate esc,go to the motor tab,switch tedt mitor button on,push master to the top,plug in battery,esc do a song,the pull master slide down and the esc do another song,unplug battery.

In config,set master throttle to 2000,set min throttle to 1000 and min command.if your using ppm on the rx then set rx to ppm in config page.

Go to motor tab,plug battery in quad,turn on test switch,now dlide the master up very slowly and observe your motors,when they all spin correctly and equal make a bote of the throttle amount in each individual motor tab/bar,go to config page and set the min command to the amount you noted in the motor test page but add 30 points.

[Jazzz]

On the motor ( esc) that doesn';t respond the same as the othere three .did you hear lots of different beep ing
And move the throtal up and down . Or move the throtal
Sliders in clean flight when the esc ( motor) was beeping

[Sly]

when i plug in the battery for all 4 moters i cant tell which one is beeping. if i do each motor separate then motor 4 does not beep at all. when i apply throttle it starts to spin however when putting throttle back to 0 it will continue to spin for 5s then stop.

When i hooked the FS-T6 i borrowed my throttle controls Aux3 that is it :/ could be something simple and im missing the point

[Jazzz]

when i plug in the battery for all 4 moters i cant tell which one is beeping. if i do each motor separate then motor 4 does not beep at all. when i apply throttle it starts to spin however when putting throttle back to 0 it will continue to spin for 5s then stop.

When i hooked the FS-T6 i borrowed my throttle controls Aux3 that is it :/ could be something simple and im missing the point

When you have motor 4 spinning on its own try putting the throtal on tx in center position or very near to see if it stops or slows down

[Cheredanine]

Agree jazzz, sounds like esc settings are shot, beeper volume right down, demoing light turned off, but since it does stop eventually suggest it is not in 3d mode

Sly I know these have Simonk bootloader but have they got blheli installed?

[Jazzz]

Agree jazzz, sounds like esc settings are shot, beeper volume right down, demoing light turned off, but since it does stop eventually suggest it is not in 3d mode

Sly I know these have Simonk bootloader but have they got blheli installed?

Defo bellhelly I had these esc on my first quad

[Jazzz]

Agree jazzz, sounds like esc settings are shot, beeper volume right down, demoing light turned off, but since it does stop eventually suggest it is not in 3d mode

Sly I know these have Simonk bootloader but have they got blheli installed?

I don';t now the tx but thought it might have a sprung throtal
And centerd that';s why it stoped .
Every avenue and all that ...
But esc does sound shot with the burning smell when I had them I used to re supply weekly

[TheJackal]

Have you tried viewing the ESCs in BLHeli suite?
Check that 4th esc in there and maybe even reflash them if they dont have the latest firmware.
If that fails, just buy a new esc, or 4 new better ones if you fancy an upgrade at the same time

[Jazzz]

Have you tried viewing the ESCs in BLHeli suite?
Check that 4th esc in there and maybe even reflash them if they dont have the latest firmware.
If that fails, just buy a new esc, or 4 new better ones if you fancy an upgrade at the same time

There old esc Thay won';t configur in bellhelly suite

[Cheredanine]

There old esc Thay won';t configur in bellhelly suite

in this hobby, "old" doesn';t cover it for those escs

[Jazzz]

in this hobby, "old" doesn';t cover it for those escs
[/quote
Don';t get you ...

[Jazzz]

in this hobby, "old" doesn';t cover it for those escs

Put them on a PC and see how far you get .
Your a ****** some times mate

[Jazzz]

Any way ..the best thing you can do is change your esc to somthing people will know ...you caint chNge them on PC fact
And if you do keep them no one will have a clue