Hoverfly HFP - Weird Power Up Behaviour

[mbsteed]

Over the last month, whenever I test my Hoverfly setup, I get the following behaviour:

I plug my batteries in and the esc initialize and I hear the motors beep - all is good. However, when I disconnect and try again, I get this:

- I get dull beep from the Hoverfly Pro board, the light on the board turns from red to purple and the ESCs don't initialize so no beep from the motors and those are totally unresponsive even after I initialize the HF board. I unplug batteries and and try it again with the same problem. Then unplug wait for 20 seconds and try it again and the ESC and motors initialize and all seems good and I am able to fly.

What is going on - any ideas? Why the inconsistent behaviour. Could it be the cold - I am trying to fly in 0 Celsius.

Concerned about the reliability of my system. Something isn't right.

 

[kloner]

yikes, mine does that powering up without a signal from the reciever like if you connect the usb and no power to the craft or if your rx isn't powered up

when you flashed the firmware your totaly sure the switch was in the right spot when it asked to flip it? the firmware still loads, but the board gets weird.

 

[mbsteed]

Exactly - it acts like the usb is connected rather than the batteries. I am pretty certain that when I did the flashy thing the switches were in the right position. I guess I could try doing the flashy thing again but then I would need to recalibratie everything. I suppose if it fixes the problem then it is worth it. Any other thoughts before I try doing that?

 

[mbsteed]

I was checking things out and the flight seemed quite erratic today and noticed that the dip switch on the board was set to 2 rather than 1 during flight. Would that cause this problem - I was under the impression it didn't matter how the dip switch was set for flight.

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

Dip switch position doesn't matter for flight in my experience. I'd flash it and calibrate again. Also, what ESCs are you using?

 

[mbsteed]

I reflashed and recalibrated all the settings. Will wait for the weather to cooperate for another test. I am using Maytech 30 A V1 ESCs. Those seem to work quite well. Of course it has been my experience that if after you eliminate all other possibilities, it is probably a bad ESC so I don't discount that as a possibility either.

 

[Efliernz]

I had an intermittant programming problem that was fixed by exercising the dip switch (positive firm movements) and then reflashing.

Pete

 

[Bartman]

marlon,

has this problem continued? were you giving the heli equipment ample time to acclimate to the cold temperatures before applying power?

 

[mbsteed]

Still haven't had a chance to try it again. The weather is either bad or I have been busy.... will post once I have done another test.

 

[Cloud Level Media]

Not sue if this is what I was experiencing last summer while fling in South America. I would power up and get the beeps you are talking about and it would not let me arm. After a few reboots I could arm but performance was quite bad and even had a full shutdown while in flight. Unexplained. I narrowed the problem to the AH. For some reason in the cold AH would be on even though my switch was off. Once I warmed the machine up again there would be no issues again. Only in the cold. To test just plug in your HF setup make sure all your switches are set up right. then set your equipment out i the cold for a while and try again.

I still have yet to figure out if it is the RX or the board. (probably the RX) I just unplugged the channel for AH as I fly manual anyhow and soldered a resistor as George instructed between the pins on that channel.

Good luck with the trouble shootin!

cheers
Mike
CLM

 

[mbsteed]

I finally had a chance to do a quick test in the backyard. It did behave slightly better but I had to crank the gain much higher this time and it still wasn't quite right - It could be a gain issue but need to do more testing - didn't have enough enough room to experiment with gain in those close confined spaces. I will keep testing and tweaking. It is still nowhere near as stable as it was before. I will have to test the cold AH issue.