Turnigy 9x major delay

[patty86]

I hadn't flown my quad for a couple days and decided to burn a battery, but when I hit the throttle she went all wacky and almost gave me a haircut. It seemed like the controls were lagging.

I got it on the bench today and there is definitely a delay when I move either stick, roughly half second delay but no more than one second.

So this is what I tried:
Flashed my apm to the newest firmware and loaded default parameters.
ESC calibration
Flashed my Turnigy 9x from eR9x to open9x

Still has a major delay...

a couple of notes:
Using an orangerx 433mhz uhf - stock firmware
Fresh batteries in the transmitter
Throttle delay during esc calibration too, so I don't think its an issue with my apm board
SimonK on Afro30A esc, flashed maybe a month ago to the latest firmware
No settings had been changed since the last successful flight

Please help!

 

[patty86]

UPDATE:
flashed back to ER9x, did a few esc calbirations and stick calibrations on my tx and the delay is gone.... not sure where it came from or why... has anyone seen this before?

 

[patty86]

UPDATE 2:

tried to fly and it was a disaster, quad seemed unresponsive to stick inputs, big time delay... This is driving me crazy and makes no sense... please help!!

 

[Jaxx]

Are you certain it's the transmitter? Here you tried using the transmitter with another model?

 

[patty86]

No, I don't have another model to try it on but I do have the old 2.4 module and receiver I could try this weekend.

It seems level in the air, just no control of it

 

[Jaxx]

So it takes the throttle input, but nothing else?

By the way, welcome to the forum.

 

[patty86]

Thanks, I don't normally post on forums, because a lot of the help I needed was already out there... pieced together this 450mm quad over the last several months with many successful flights on it... but this problem has me stumped.

Even when I do the apm esc calibration there is a big delay on the throttle... put the stick to full, count to two and they spin up, put it to zero and count to two and they slowly spool down.

With props off there is a pitch change when I give it other inputs, but during flight it drifts on launch and its very hard to bring it back... I ended up crashing both times I tried it because I got too close to my shed and figured the ground was softer lol.

I haven't checked the apm logs yet, I should have some time tonight to look them over, but not really sure what to look for there... Also I'm thinking about hooking up each esc to ch3 on my Rx and testing all four motor/esc for individual throttle response.... Any other ideas?

 

[patty86]

UPDATE 3

This is what happens when I plug the esc directly into my RX.

Every channel pulses like this, when I plug a servo into any of the four channels and move the stick on my 9x, it pulses back and fourth from center to end of travel and back.

When I use the 2.4 module & receiver its very smooth, no jitters.

Would flashing the orange module help with this? Is it a TX or RX problem? Not sure what my next step should be.

 

[Jaxx]

Are you saying the stock 9x module and Rx work fine, and you are only seeing the problem with the OrangeRx module/Rx?

 

[patty86]

Yeah, a bench test of one esc and a motor is smooth on the 2.4 module, haven't tried it on the quad, but think I can rule out the 9x being a problem.

Another thing I noticed is the green power led of my esc blinks off and on each time the servo pulses, not sure if that means anything... short in the rx maybe? I don't see any burnt components on the board.

I'm working on rigging something up to flash my Rx from the stock HK firmware to openlrs, but I don't have a 3.3v ftdi programmer.
I get 3.3v on the uart pin when I power from an esc... so just going to use the two data pins on the ftdi and power from the 5v rail of the orangerx.

 

[Jaxx]

Unfortunately, I don't know much about the OrangeRx products, as I have never used them, but it does sound like the 9x it working fine. The only thing I can think of is firmware compatibility issue. Either the firmware on the 9X doesn't like the OrangeRx hardware, or vice versa. That's all I can think of at the moment. Do you know anyone else with a 9x, who might me able to test the OrangeRx setup for you?

 

[patty86]

WELL.... after about 11 hours of confusion and frustration the problem is resolved. I was able to bastardize my asp programmer because I couldn't get my ftdi to connect, checked and double and triple checked my pinouts, powered both RX and TX externally for the 3.3v then flashed from arduino ide and binded. Servo jitters are gone and motor speed is smooth. I guess I jumped the gun ordering a new module. I guess I'll add it to the tackle box of spare parts lol.

One word of advice is make sure you are using the right drivers! For some reason it was seeing my usbasp as a "prolific usb to serial" so I had to uninstall those drivers (three of them) then download the right ones for usbasp, reboot windows to disable driver signing, and install. Once in arduino make sure to "upload using programmer"

Thanks for the help, its good to be able to bounce ideas off of other people in the hobby... I don't think there are any other people in my town building drones.