I’m SoloPilot72013’s father who posted some initial general problems in the Ask Chad thread. Craft Dan suggested we post the problems here with more details. (Thanks for the direction.) We’ve been trying to put together the Bat Bone tri-copter from the Flite Test kit. We’ve flown various Hobbyzone planes and several FliteTest swappables. SoloPilot has flown several Blade helicopters and quadcopters. But, as I feared, we’ve run into some problems connecting the recommended KK2.1 board we purchased from Hobby King. (Electronics and soldering are NOT my strengths. I’m always amazed when I manage to get everything to work.)
USER GUIDE
We’ve been following the User Guide for the KK 2.1 Multi-Rotor Control Board that we downloaded from the Files tab for the board on the Hobby King site.
(1) Mounted board.
(2) Connected receiver outputs to board using “6” Male/Male Jumpers” we got from our LHS (which has been helpful but know little about multi-copters and nothing about KK 2.1 boards).
(3) Connected ESCs to the board as directed making sure to align negative lead properly. We opted to disconnect the red power wire from all but one of the ESCs and use the BEC from that one.
(4) Bound the Rx and Tx. We’re using my son’s Spektrum Dx9 transmitter (he saved up his snow shoveling money and bought it himself) and a Spektrum AR400 (4 channel) receiver.
(5) Powered on and went through the menus adjusting the stick movements and trim controls to match the readouts in the LCD screen. Since only 4 channel, was unable to check the AUX channel.
(6) Picked tri-copter from “Load Motor Layout” sub-menu.
(7) Looked at the “Show Motor Layout” sub-menu. At this point noticed that the screen indicated power should be coming from the front left ESC (as seen from behind the tri-copter) so had to rearrange the ESCs.
STUCK: Everything looked good but the instructions say “Correct rotation direction? Does the motor speed up when dropping the arm it is mounted on?” At this point the motors do not run or respond to inputs from the Tx controls. ????
QUESTION 1:
Could the problem be caused because we are only using a 4 channel Rx and, at this point, not concerned with turning on and off the self-leveling feature? Tonight or tomorrow we’ll probably try one of the inexpensive orange receivers I have from Hobby King and see if there is any difference
QUESTION 2:
For some of this setup we checked out the Hobby King video by Matt called “KK2.0 Complete Guide Pt.5 - X900 Tricopter” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC6Gz_qysxc). Not the exact FC or tricopter we have but gave us something to follow. He seems to be using the battery balance plug from the battery to power a completely separate BEC through the Voltage Monitor connection. Not necessary, right? This confused my son plus have no idea how to convert the four wire battery balance plug to the two Voltage Monitor connection.
QUESTION 3:
In the Hobby King video by Matt called “KK2.0 Complete Guide - Introduction and Part 1” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_j-d2a-iUM) he talks about updating the firmware with a USB asp firmware updating tool. Is this really necessary? While I can see the advantage of having the latest and greatest, at this point we just want to get the tri-copter to fly. I would order one but they are on Back Order and apparently only available from Hobby King’s International Warehouse so who knows how long it will take to arrive once I can order it.
In the “kk2.1 flight controller set up” thread below, FinalGlideAus says:
I have a Bat Bone with a KK2.1. I would recommend you flash the KK2.1 board with Steveis Firmware V1.12S1 beginner version and then just keep the settings standard. It flys great as is. Hold off fiddling until you know what you're doing. Fiddling will only get you into trouble. The factory Hobbyking Firmware is terrible. You will need an AVR flash tool to do this but they are cheap. CPO has a YouTube channel that shows how to do this.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_oXzVEdjuTE
Is this the tool both of them are talking about? (It’s the one I want to order but they are currently unavailable.)
“USBasp AVR Programming Device for ATMEL proccessors” PRODUCT ID: 381000147 at
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor..._for_ATMEL_proccessors.html?strSearch=usb asp
QUESTION 4 (more FYI than question):
Note that we did not connect the included buzzer to the Speaker/LED connectors. It was not mentioned in the instructions. Plus, we had seen something about the possibility of shorting things out if this was connected wrong and did not figure it was important at this time.
Attaching the pictures attached to my son's other posting.
USER GUIDE
We’ve been following the User Guide for the KK 2.1 Multi-Rotor Control Board that we downloaded from the Files tab for the board on the Hobby King site.
(1) Mounted board.
(2) Connected receiver outputs to board using “6” Male/Male Jumpers” we got from our LHS (which has been helpful but know little about multi-copters and nothing about KK 2.1 boards).
(3) Connected ESCs to the board as directed making sure to align negative lead properly. We opted to disconnect the red power wire from all but one of the ESCs and use the BEC from that one.
(4) Bound the Rx and Tx. We’re using my son’s Spektrum Dx9 transmitter (he saved up his snow shoveling money and bought it himself) and a Spektrum AR400 (4 channel) receiver.
(5) Powered on and went through the menus adjusting the stick movements and trim controls to match the readouts in the LCD screen. Since only 4 channel, was unable to check the AUX channel.
(6) Picked tri-copter from “Load Motor Layout” sub-menu.
(7) Looked at the “Show Motor Layout” sub-menu. At this point noticed that the screen indicated power should be coming from the front left ESC (as seen from behind the tri-copter) so had to rearrange the ESCs.
STUCK: Everything looked good but the instructions say “Correct rotation direction? Does the motor speed up when dropping the arm it is mounted on?” At this point the motors do not run or respond to inputs from the Tx controls. ????
QUESTION 1:
Could the problem be caused because we are only using a 4 channel Rx and, at this point, not concerned with turning on and off the self-leveling feature? Tonight or tomorrow we’ll probably try one of the inexpensive orange receivers I have from Hobby King and see if there is any difference
QUESTION 2:
For some of this setup we checked out the Hobby King video by Matt called “KK2.0 Complete Guide Pt.5 - X900 Tricopter” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC6Gz_qysxc). Not the exact FC or tricopter we have but gave us something to follow. He seems to be using the battery balance plug from the battery to power a completely separate BEC through the Voltage Monitor connection. Not necessary, right? This confused my son plus have no idea how to convert the four wire battery balance plug to the two Voltage Monitor connection.
QUESTION 3:
In the Hobby King video by Matt called “KK2.0 Complete Guide - Introduction and Part 1” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_j-d2a-iUM) he talks about updating the firmware with a USB asp firmware updating tool. Is this really necessary? While I can see the advantage of having the latest and greatest, at this point we just want to get the tri-copter to fly. I would order one but they are on Back Order and apparently only available from Hobby King’s International Warehouse so who knows how long it will take to arrive once I can order it.
In the “kk2.1 flight controller set up” thread below, FinalGlideAus says:
I have a Bat Bone with a KK2.1. I would recommend you flash the KK2.1 board with Steveis Firmware V1.12S1 beginner version and then just keep the settings standard. It flys great as is. Hold off fiddling until you know what you're doing. Fiddling will only get you into trouble. The factory Hobbyking Firmware is terrible. You will need an AVR flash tool to do this but they are cheap. CPO has a YouTube channel that shows how to do this.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_oXzVEdjuTE
Is this the tool both of them are talking about? (It’s the one I want to order but they are currently unavailable.)
“USBasp AVR Programming Device for ATMEL proccessors” PRODUCT ID: 381000147 at
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor..._for_ATMEL_proccessors.html?strSearch=usb asp
QUESTION 4 (more FYI than question):
Note that we did not connect the included buzzer to the Speaker/LED connectors. It was not mentioned in the instructions. Plus, we had seen something about the possibility of shorting things out if this was connected wrong and did not figure it was important at this time.
Attaching the pictures attached to my son's other posting.