Stuck figuring out my first quad build...

outthayr

Active member
Flew some Wal-mart cheapos for a bit, went through three of them and found a Blade Inductrix FPV. Got a little carried away from there and bumped up to a Vortex 250 and some Fatsharks. Piloting skills are getting there, but I wanted to try my hand at a build.

Went with FlexRC Owl 118. Stumbled through the soldering and assembly. Got to a point where I've got the core, motors, ESC, video TX (only picking up static so far, so maybe I mucked something up there)... just haven't framed it in yet.

Battery connected: three tones. Cool, so I'll run BetaFlight. Driver is installed for my Mac running 10.6.8 (Newer driver requires Mac OS 10.7 or later). Bummer for me, BetaFlight won't connect.

I was hoping to try to bind the Lemon Satellite RX to my Spektrum DX6e through BetaFlight... so right now I'm dead in the water.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
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LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
Flew some Wal-mart cheapos for a bit, went through three of them and found a Blade Inductrix FPV. Got a little carried away from there and bumped up to a Vortex 250 and some Fatsharks. Piloting skills are getting there, but I wanted to try my hand at a build.

Went with FlexRC Owl 118. Stumbled through the soldering and assembly. Got to a point where I've got the core, motors, ESC, video TX (only picking up static so far, so maybe I mucked something up there)... just haven't framed it in yet.

Battery connected: three tones. Cool, so I'll run BetaFlight. Driver is installed for my Mac running 10.6.8 (Newer driver requires Mac OS 10.7 or later). Bummer for me, BetaFlight won't connect.

I was hoping to try to bind the Lemon Satellite RX to my Spektrum DX6e through BetaFlight... so right now I'm dead in the water.

Anyone have any ideas?

Welcome to the club outthayr!
I have a handful of Owls myself and run Spektrum as well. I don't have Mac OS so can't help much there. Once you figure that piece out, there is a good tutorial on Spektrum binding with Betaflight HERE. Can you list the full specs for the parts you used for your build? Here's one of the build threads I have for my owls: OWL THREAD

Take a few minutes to tell us about yourself too. Look forward to seeing your progress on the build.

Cheers!
LitterBug
 

outthayr

Active member
I got the OWL Silver Bullet DIY Kit.

FlexRC Core
SirinFPV F3 Flight Controller with VTX, OSD and Blackbox
FlexRC FX20A V2 – Cicada BusyBee2 – 4 in 1 20A BLHELI_S DSHOT ESC
XT30 battery connector
4pcs of T-Motor F20 1406 4100kv
HS1177 2.8mm 600TVL CCD Camera

I'm going to try a friends laptop later today and see if I can get a connection to the board with BetaFlight.
 

outthayr

Active member
Also, what's supposed to happen when the board gets power? I've had different things happen now. First it was three tones. Then I another time it was tones and flashing lights. Another time was tone and a little motor jump. Another time was constant flashing lights. I know as I delve further into quad building this will all make sense, but now everything is mysterious and new.

P.S. Yes, my soldering sucks.
 

JimCR120

Got Lobstah?
Site Moderator
Flew some Wal-mart cheapos for a bit, went through three of them and found a Blade Inductrix FPV. Got a little carried away from there and bumped up to a Vortex 250 and some Fatsharks. Piloting skills are getting there, but I wanted to try my hand at a build.

Went with FlexRC Owl 118. Stumbled through the soldering and assembly. Got to a point where I've got the core, motors, ESC, video TX (only picking up static so far, so maybe I mucked something up there)... just haven't framed it in yet.

Battery connected: three tones. Cool, so I'll run BetaFlight. Driver is installed for my Mac running 10.6.8 (Newer driver requires Mac OS 10.7 or later). Bummer for me, BetaFlight won't connect.

I was hoping to try to bind the Lemon Satellite RX to my Spektrum DX6e through BetaFlight... so right now I'm dead in the water.

Anyone have any ideas?
I recently had trouble coonecting to my new Gremlin Femto F3 FCB and my Mac. Searched drivers, sought help, tried 4 different cables... and then tried a 5th cable... joy!

There are sync cables (good) and there are charge only cables (used to charge blue tooth devices) and I do have a few BT devices around so it seemed prudent to check another cable. I would recommend getting a known good cable before anything else.

Keep us posted and welcome to the forum.
—Jim
 

outthayr

Active member
Using my friends Mac running 10.10.5 I've got BetaFlight up and running.

Now the issue is trying to get the Lemon Satellite RX into Bind Mode.

Also, under the Receiver tab in BetaFlight I cannot change the Channel Map from TAER1234 to Spektrum. I select it in the drop down menu but it won't save, just keeps reverting to Taer1234.

At one point I had the Satellite constantly blinking, but that may have just been from a bad solder point!

I've got the port set to UART3 Serial RX, configured to serial-based RX - Spektrum 2048. (https://flexrc.com/2016/04/22/how-to-configure-cleanflight-and-bind-dsmx-satellite-receiver/)

Lemon is not flashing, I only get one red flash when the board gets power.
 

outthayr

Active member
Are you powering it up on the battery only?

Cheers!
LB

Swapped the Lemon for a Spektrum auto bind, successfully tied it to my DX6e - while it was plugged in via USB.

When only the battery is plugged in the satellite will not power on. Meter shows 12+ volts battery to ESC board and 12+ volts board to FC. Meter shows Satellite at 0.3v.

When USB is plugged in satellite shows 3v.

Now back on my older Macbook, which is unable to connect BetaFlight, but I did all the settings on my friend's machine.

...aaaaand still no video transmission. So far for my first build I'd say it's going pretty well! Lots to learn.
 

outthayr

Active member
Hit the Pololu battery connections with some more solder and now it's spreading the power along all the components. Dealing now with weak video signal, and unable to spool up the motors with the DX6e controller (this is probably fixable if I could get into BetaFlight?).
 

outthayr

Active member
Video signal was due to being on R freq, clear on F band. Duh.

I can access the BetaFlight OSD menu, trying to scroll through functions I realized I needed to reverse some channels (Roll and Yaw).

Still cannot arm motors. Any pointers on getting my Spektrum DX6e to play nicely with the Owl ?
 
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ElectriSean

Eternal Student
Mentor
Also, under the Receiver tab in BetaFlight I cannot change the Channel Map from TAER1234 to Spektrum. I select it in the drop down menu but it won't save, just keeps reverting to Taer1234.

At one point I had the Satellite constantly blinking, but that may have just been from a bad solder point!

I've got the port set to UART3 Serial RX, configured to serial-based RX - Spektrum 2048. (https://flexrc.com/2016/04/22/how-to-configure-cleanflight-and-bind-dsmx-satellite-receiver/)

Lemon is not flashing, I only get one red flash when the board gets power.

The Spektrum channel map is TAER1234, you're good to go there.

When the satellite is blinking it's in bind mode. When it's on steady it is bound and connected to the Tx.
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
What in particular is the issue between the Dx6e and owl? There isn't anything special with it vs any other quad running BetaFlight.

Cheers!
LitterBug
 

outthayr

Active member
What in particular is the issue between the Dx6e and owl? There isn't anything special with it vs any other quad running BetaFlight.

Cheers!
LitterBug

I suppose it may not be the controller at all, as I can use it to scroll through the OSD menu. Only issue I'm facing now is left stick down and right does not arm the motors. I'm just assuming my end points aren't set properly? I also assume I'd be able to check that in BetaFlight (I'll use my friend's computer again tomorrow). I could also try setting up an arming switch.

Any other troubleshooting for the motors not arming?
 

outthayr

Active member
Cool. Good info in that video. I realize I never calibrated. That will be #1, hopefully will solve it.
 

JimCR120

Got Lobstah?
Site Moderator
I do recommend using a switch to arm vs control sticks. If left on the sticks, you might attempt a maneuver that disarms the quad. It happened to my son.
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
Funny thing is, I flew my A450 last night with APM 2.6 controller, and it felt SO weird arming with sticks. So wish I could put it on a switch for that build. Was doing LOS full stick fun and was waiting for it to drop out of the sky.... LOL
 

outthayr

Active member
Followed along though steps from the video above ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0S3HTQihxs

Managed to get three of the motors to respond by adjusting my minimum throttle on my controller.

My flight modes seem to be overlapping with the arm switch, I may explore channel mixing to sort that out.

As for only three motors spinning... I guess I'll check the solder points?
 

outthayr

Active member
Changed the ESC settings from ONESHOT to DSHOT, now the motors arm nicely.

Still have my Flight Mode and Arm somehow assigned to the same switch.

Also, still only getting motors 1 3 and 4 to power up.

I remember first getting the Vortex Pro and realizing how deep the rabbits hole goes when getting into quads. Now that I'm building one I realize the hole is even deeper. I see some light at the end of the tunnel though...