HELP WANTED: MINI MWC Flight Control Board and DSM2 Receiver

[tophe75]

! ! ! SOLVED ! ! !


Hi.

I have been trying to set up the MINI MWC flight controller and is starting to loose my hair...
Everthing seems just fine, motors beeps and all inputs can be read via the MultiWiiConf-tool

But two things will now work.

1. OLED will not turn on.
2. It will not ARM

First thing I could live without but that it will not ARM I don't under stand.

Brief overview of the code parameters:
#define QUADX
#define HK_MultiWii_SE_V2
#define SERIAL_SUM_PPM
#define LED_FLASHER_SEQUENCE_ARMED (I did this to see if the board ARMED)
#define OLED_I2C_128x64

Maybe it is just me, but I am starting to thing the board is broken, but how come the MultiWiiConf-tool shows me all the data???

Any ideas?

Full config.h file can be found here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35987792/config_h.txt

 

[Craftydan]

Silly question . . . have you calibrated the accelerometers? Is the board "level" when you attempt the arm?

Won't fix the screen (never played with one myself), but it's the little things you have to do before it will arm.

 

[jhitesma]

Check your radio endpoints. The GUI will only show values from 1,000 to 2,000, if you're beyond those then it will just round up or down.

I also see you have #define ONLYARMWHENFLAT enabled, which is probably good. But if the FC can't initialize the gyro then it won't let you arm. Is a light blinking? It should stop when it's ready to be armed. You may want to try doing a stick command to recal the gyro (zero throttle, full left Yaw - Full pitch forward no aileron) That should make the light blink fast for a few seconds and then stop. Just make sure the quad is sitting level and stable when you do it (level isn't actually required but if you're going to do a recal on the accels then it does have to be level so I usually just go ahead and hold it level.)

Also if you have a switch configured to arm then it won't arm by stick even though you have the yaw arming option set. So make sure you don't have any switches setup for arming if you want to stick arm.

Not sure on the OLED since I haven't used one. Can you provide a link to the actual board you're using? It could be it doesn't have enough serial ports to do OLED and SBUS PPM at the same time since those both take a serial port and 328 based boards only have one serial port. Though you're using plain PPM which shouldn't tie up a port.

 

[tophe75]

Silly question . . . have you calibrated the accelerometers? Is the board "level" when you attempt the arm?

Won't fix the screen (never played with one myself), but it's the little things you have to do before it will arm.

Not at all silly, but yes I did.

Check your radio endpoints. The GUI will only show values from 1,000 to 2,000, if you're beyond those then it will just round up or down.

I also see you have #define ONLYARMWHENFLAT enabled, which is probably good. But if the FC can't initialize the gyro then it won't let you arm. Is a light blinking? It should stop when it's ready to be armed. You may want to try doing a stick command to recal the gyro (zero throttle, full left Yaw - Full pitch forward no aileron) That should make the light blink fast for a few seconds and then stop. Just make sure the quad is sitting level and stable when you do it (level isn't actually required but if you're going to do a recal on the accels then it does have to be level so I usually just go ahead and hold it level.)

Also if you have a switch configured to arm then it won't arm by stick even though you have the yaw arming option set. So make sure you don't have any switches setup for arming if you want to stick arm.

Not sure on the OLED since I haven't used one. Can you provide a link to the actual board you're using? It could be it doesn't have enough serial ports to do OLED and SBUS PPM at the same time since those both take a serial port and 328 based boards only have one serial port. Though you're using plain PPM which shouldn't tie up a port.

I will remove the arm when flat and let you know, also a few pic's to help.

The board is: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...ver_ACC_GYRO_BARO_MAG.html?strSearch=mini mwc

 

[tophe75]

Aslo commented out the //#define ONLYARMWHENFLAT, no difference.

Also re-calibrated the gyros from the MultiWiiConf tool (as the stick-calibration did not work), no difference.

 

[jhitesma]

Just to confirm, you did flash it with MW2.3 correct? Because that looks like the 2.3 config but I wouldn't be surprised if HK ships it with 2.2 or something older installed and using different versions of the config with different versions of MW can cause issues.

I'm still thinking your endpoints are off. Assuming you are sure it's 2.3 on the board you may want to try this version of the config which can show RC values lower than 1,000 and higher than 2,000:
http://www.multiwii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5073#p50792

I'm not familiar with that particular board, I see that they're using I2C for the OLED instead of uart which I'm even less familiar with (didn't even realise there was an I2C option for that until seeing this post!)

But if you're seeing your RC values change as expected in the GUI and still not able to arm or do stick commands I'm really thinking your endpoints are off in your TX.

 

[tophe75]

Just to confirm, you did flash it with MW2.3 correct? Because that looks like the 2.3 config but I wouldn't be surprised if HK ships it with 2.2 or something older installed and using different versions of the config with different versions of MW can cause issues.

I'm still thinking your endpoints are off. Assuming you are sure it's 2.3 on the board you may want to try this version of the config which can show RC values lower than 1,000 and higher than 2,000:
http://www.multiwii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5073#p50792

I'm not familiar with that particular board, I see that they're using I2C for the OLED instead of uart which I'm even less familiar with (didn't even realise there was an I2C option for that until seeing this post!)

But if you're seeing your RC values change as expected in the GUI and still not able to arm or do stick commands I'm really thinking your endpoints are off in your TX.

Yes, I downloaded the 2.3 and flashed the board with it (I have updated the config_h file linked to in the first post to reflect what is currently on the board).

Aslo, the link is not working, but I adjusted the travel on my DX6i radio, it will go as low as 1077, but still nothing.

 

[jhitesma]

Aslo, the link is not working, but I adjusted the travel on my DX6i radio, it will go as low as 1077, but still nothing.

That's your problem then. It's not going low enough. I'm not familar with the DX6i so I'm not sure how to help you with that. I know on the 9x you have to enable extended limits which lets you push them from 100% to 125% and then you can get full 1,000-2,000 range.

If you absolutely can't get the DX6i lower than 1077 then you'll have to raise the mincommand to 1077 and recalibrate your ESC's. But I'm pretty sure you can get the DX6i lower, I just don't know how.

 

[ssteve]

click settings, see what the min command is and change it to 1080, re calibrate your esc's and you should be good. Basically its not wanting to arm cause it thinks your throttle is not all the way down.

 

[tophe75]

First of:

THANK YOU FOR THE HELP.

Nowhere online could I find this information, so prof of that your help solved it:

Some more pic of the quad:



Once again, THANK YOU

 

[ssteve]

So that was the issue?

 

[tophe75]

So that was the issue?

The issue was that the range of my radio (whene put to 125%, which is max) is 1077 to 1956.
So I had to change som endpoints in the code

mincommand was raised from 1000 to 1080, meaning my stick value is lower (1077) then the minimum expected input when zero throttle (1080)

I also had to change the travel on the yaw to get it to ARM as default travel was not enough to trigger the ARMING.
I ended up changing all my travels to 125% (max in the radio DX6i)

I also, in the code lowered the maxcommand to 1950 (from 2000) as my max travel is 1956...


For now it seems as I am good to go...

 

[ssteve]

Yep, sounds about right. It's a shame the knowledge of the mw controllers is so spread out for all the new users cause it's really a pretty easy fc to use and setup.

 

[jhitesma]

MW's openness is it's biggest blessing and it's biggest curse

It's almost impossible to document because there are so many variations to it and no reference hardware just various "classes" of hardware with similar features.

It's really more of a fight controller building block set than it is a product like Naze, KK, APM or Naza are.

Expecting documentation is almost like expecting Lego to ship you operating instructions for the machine your kid made out of legos

Well, not exactly. I wouldn't expect the kid to document his work (though it sounds like that's what the schools are more worried about anymore) but I would expect the person selling a product based on MW to actually document and hopefully support the product they're selling. If they don't understand MW enough to do that - they probably shouldn't be selling hardware based on it. At least not to end users.

 

[mcashatt]

Hi folks,

I am facing the exact same problems as the OP and have followed the min/max throttle fixes but no joy. Here is what I have:

• DX6i
• HK MWC Mini with DSM2
• SimonK ESCs

I have set the mincommand and min/max throttle in the code just as the OP did, I have adjusted travel on the TX just as the OP did, etc. BUT THE QUAD WON'T ARM AND IT WON'T ALLOW ME TO CALIBRATE THE ESCS (when I have that feature uncommented).

Here is the strange part: I can arm just fine when hooked up to the configuration tool (no battery, just USB connection to my PC).

I tried a separate RX and it allowed me to calibrate the ESC directly, so I know the ESCs are ok.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Matt