FT Gremlin - SP0NZ Build Log
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PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Sounds like two things going on... I know there was a recent version of betaflight that did not seem to want to keep any settings. 3.1.7 may be the one. Second is the drivers in windows can be a total freakin nightmare and we have ALL fought that monster specially on win 10 when it decides it knows better what drivers you want and erases the ones you installed.
IF you loaded Defuse demo to do the flashing it will load the default drivers to connect to Beta Flight. However.. for the boot loader drivers it makes a new folder which contains separate drivers for win 7 and win 10 you have to go to that folder and manually select the proper one for your computer.
I got tired of having to redo drivers every time I switched between Kiss, Beta flight and clean flight. I tried Zadig drivers after uninstalling all other drivers, doing a cold restart and then running a registry cleaner to make sure all old stuff was gone. Once that was done I ran Zadig and selected the win drivers and have not had a problem connecting or flashing anything since.
IF you loaded Defuse demo to do the flashing it will load the default drivers to connect to Beta Flight. However.. for the boot loader drivers it makes a new folder which contains separate drivers for win 7 and win 10 you have to go to that folder and manually select the proper one for your computer.
I got tired of having to redo drivers every time I switched between Kiss, Beta flight and clean flight. I tried Zadig drivers after uninstalling all other drivers, doing a cold restart and then running a registry cleaner to make sure all old stuff was gone. Once that was done I ran Zadig and selected the win drivers and have not had a problem connecting or flashing anything since.
Okay, I never knew anything about loading any drivers for anything. I just grabbed the BetaFlight app for chrome, and the BLHeli Suite and ran them. There are drivers that I need to install now too? Where do I get those and would you recommend just using the Zadig driver then?
JUSS10
I like Biplanes
No dummy, its all new to me too. It was just nice, when I did it on my mac it just "worked". may have to give those drivers an install as well and see if I can get things to work on my PC.
Sponz,
I had the same mountain to climb. There was 2 things that made my first connection a nightmare. One was the Zadig driver issue. Can't or don't want to remember the details but Psyborg is correct and has better experience. The other was that I had a cord that didn't transfer data. It was a micro usb but it only did power. So annoying as I was trying to get it to flash.
I did eventually get the DFU to load but drivers are needed first, I think.
Now that my computer has drivers correct and all my second Gremlin connected up nice and sweet. I agree on the TJ video lacking details but how could you cover all possibilities.
I also remember that Joshua Bardwell youtube helped me some too.
Can't wait for you to finish your initiation into the club and begin to "fly angry". It is a fufillment of a childhood fantasy of flight for me. I hope you can stick it out to get there. It is a blast but way harder than switching servo direction. It was surprising how little you do on a radio for trimming.
Hang on!
I had the same mountain to climb. There was 2 things that made my first connection a nightmare. One was the Zadig driver issue. Can't or don't want to remember the details but Psyborg is correct and has better experience. The other was that I had a cord that didn't transfer data. It was a micro usb but it only did power. So annoying as I was trying to get it to flash.
I did eventually get the DFU to load but drivers are needed first, I think.
Now that my computer has drivers correct and all my second Gremlin connected up nice and sweet. I agree on the TJ video lacking details but how could you cover all possibilities.
I also remember that Joshua Bardwell youtube helped me some too.
Can't wait for you to finish your initiation into the club and begin to "fly angry". It is a fufillment of a childhood fantasy of flight for me. I hope you can stick it out to get there. It is a blast but way harder than switching servo direction. It was surprising how little you do on a radio for trimming.
Hang on!
JUSS10
I like Biplanes
So true! I just made the model on the radio, calbrated the ESCs, did a level calibration and took to the air. I can't believe how locked on these little things are and how little trimming is needed. I honestly didn't trim at all.
Sponz, sounds like you might be in the final stretch here and making sense of it all.
Possibly, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But, that still doesn't explain why the camera isn't working. :/
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Yes it really is like a hazing when you get into the programming of the quad with all the flashing. It is very daunting. In my defense I DID warn you this was coming back in post 38. I do have several gremlin threads where I do list step by step for people to do these things AND I did very well document my own nightmareish journey down the rabbit hole.
Anyway the task at hand is to get you in the air mate. I will give you a call around 7 pm est and check in on you to see where you stand if that is Ok.
Anyway the task at hand is to get you in the air mate. I will give you a call around 7 pm est and check in on you to see where you stand if that is Ok.
Not sure when I'll be in the shop working on it tonight. How about I give you a call. It will likely be a little later than 7 EST though.
Well I've been playing with all the gremlin pieces parts for quite some time. Really need to get the soldering iron out tonight and finish my TJ frame up. Expect to see some action on my build thread and hopefully I can shed some light on the gremlins plaguing the Gremlin builds. 
The Boot pads are definitely difficult to short while trying to plug the USB in. I find it easiest to plug the board side in first, short the boot pads together with a bent paper clip, and then plug the Computer end in. Using a screwdriver or other flat implement to short the pads did not work as well on the Femto as on other boards. Might work better with blobs of solder on the pads.
Cheers!
LitterBug
The Boot pads are definitely difficult to short while trying to plug the USB in. I find it easiest to plug the board side in first, short the boot pads together with a bent paper clip, and then plug the Computer end in. Using a screwdriver or other flat implement to short the pads did not work as well on the Femto as on other boards. Might work better with blobs of solder on the pads.Cheers!
LitterBug
I don't have a functional femto...but...on just about any board I usually find LitterBug's method of leaving the cord plugged into the board to work best. I use a USB extension cable instead of plugging straight into the computer and use a fairly short USB cable so I can make the connection right on my desktop (usually one handed) much easier than reaching to my computer.
For shorting pads I almost always use a pair of very pointy tweezers like these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1PC...32667277580.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.Rk7u6h (I actually have that pair as well as another that cost me substantially more and I like the cheap $1 ones better!)
On some boards it helps if you very gently scrape the tops of the pads first just to make sure there's no oxidation. If they're gold plated that shouldn't be an issue...but I still find it can help. Sometimes tinning the pads can help too since it gives a nice soft glob of solder you can "stab" the tips of the tweezers into.
Drivers on windows are a major pain. Thankfully once you get them working you usually won't have to mess with them again.
For shorting pads I almost always use a pair of very pointy tweezers like these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1PC...32667277580.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.Rk7u6h (I actually have that pair as well as another that cost me substantially more and I like the cheap $1 ones better!)
On some boards it helps if you very gently scrape the tops of the pads first just to make sure there's no oxidation. If they're gold plated that shouldn't be an issue...but I still find it can help. Sometimes tinning the pads can help too since it gives a nice soft glob of solder you can "stab" the tips of the tweezers into.
Drivers on windows are a major pain. Thankfully once you get them working you usually won't have to mess with them again.
PysBorg is my hero. Spent 1:20 with me on the phone working through some of the issues and helped me get everything setup in BetaFlight. It was the drivers! We tried Zadig first and that just made this worse. After that driver install the FC would not connect to BetaFlight at all. Then he pointed me to ImpulseRC Driver Fixer. That did the trick and repaired the driver so I could connect, properly this time, to BetaFlight. I was then able to type in DFU in the CLI and flash the FC to the latest version (3.1.7). Everything went smoothly after that.
Still no camera. Need to troubleshoot that some more.
Anywho, big thanks to PsyBorg for all the help. I'm out of time to finish before we leave tomorrow though. So this project will have to wait until next week for now. I'll end up shipping the Gremlin to Keegan when it's done.
Still no camera. Need to troubleshoot that some more.
Anywho, big thanks to PsyBorg for all the help. I'm out of time to finish before we leave tomorrow though. So this project will have to wait until next week for now. I'll end up shipping the Gremlin to Keegan when it's done.
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
I keep telling you guys to tin the boot loader pads with a decent ball of solder. Then you can double side tape it to the desk top. Plug the usb into the Femto FIRST. Use a jewelers screwdriver between the balls of solder and twist. THEN plug the usb into the computer or extension.
Win 10 is a flat out driver nightmare. I am switching over to Linux once Win 7 support is done. Forced updates. HORRIBLE driver management and soon the become hostageware once they go full on subscription to "rent" that compiled pile of dog poo scrapings. This is one of the reasons I do NOT want to add specifics into a write up for how to do the drivers. Win 10 is so bad I do not want to be blamed for it screwing up drivers when setting up a flight controller. As it was this evening we tried the zadig driver and after a restart Dan lost his network connection for a time.
Anyway between Zadig for normal computers and the Impulse driver fixer tool for win 10 people should be able to get any FC up in a short time IF they take a few minutes to research the process before just attacking the issue. Trust me I BEEN there myself and it is royally frustrating.
You are very Welcome Dan. :applause: Was great chattin with you in between steps to get this done. BUT me thinks you want time with this for yourself before you pass it on after all this frustration getting it set up wish Keegan well when you see him I hope he enjoys the time in school and that his major keeps him focused and happy.
Win 10 is a flat out driver nightmare. I am switching over to Linux once Win 7 support is done. Forced updates. HORRIBLE driver management and soon the become hostageware once they go full on subscription to "rent" that compiled pile of dog poo scrapings. This is one of the reasons I do NOT want to add specifics into a write up for how to do the drivers. Win 10 is so bad I do not want to be blamed for it screwing up drivers when setting up a flight controller. As it was this evening we tried the zadig driver and after a restart Dan lost his network connection for a time.
Anyway between Zadig for normal computers and the Impulse driver fixer tool for win 10 people should be able to get any FC up in a short time IF they take a few minutes to research the process before just attacking the issue. Trust me I BEEN there myself and it is royally frustrating.
You are very Welcome Dan. :applause: Was great chattin with you in between steps to get this done. BUT me thinks you want time with this for yourself before you pass it on after all this frustration getting it set up
wish Keegan well when you see him I hope he enjoys the time in school and that his major keeps him focused and happy.
I have no interest in Win10. (or anything above W7 for that matter) I'm going to linux after W7 is killed off if not sooner. Unfortunately, winDoze a necessary evil. I really despise how everything is going to service based licensing rather than buy it and own it. Guess I am an old fogey now hatin' on all the new fangled stuff! LOL
Cheers!
LitterBug
Cheers!
LitterBug
I actually had fewer issues getting the drivers sorted out on W10 than W7 on both of my windows machines. But that's probably because I'd been messing with STM's before I got into quads so already had some stuff setup
Linux and macos are both way easier (well they're both unix at heart so not too surprising) but most people don't have those available
That said I do regret upgrading both of our machines to W10 because they run WAY slower now than they did on 7 and Vista (Yes, one was running Vista before I upgraded it...it's ancient and was actually running NT before it was upgraded to vista...it still works but it takes some patience to deal with...even more now that it's on 10!)
Linux and macos are both way easier (well they're both unix at heart so not too surprising) but most people don't have those available
That said I do regret upgrading both of our machines to W10 because they run WAY slower now than they did on 7 and Vista (Yes, one was running Vista before I upgraded it...it's ancient and was actually running NT before it was upgraded to vista...it still works but it takes some patience to deal with...even more now that it's on 10!)
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