Cheerson CX-20 problems

I bought a Cheerson CX-20 from HK. Kind of...

The one I bought was sold without a radio. The ad stated "just add your own radio". I received the unit and it had absolutely no instructions (except the basic ones explaining how to use the "included" remote control).

I opened it up and connected my radio. The channels on the controller were marked "A-E-T-R-1-2-3-4"

I figured out what the "AETR" ones were, and connected them up. After checking on the net, I found that the controller was an Arducopter, so I tried Mission Planner. That seemed to work, and I used that program to calibrate the radio channels and set things up.

The controller was getting no power from the battery (it DID get power from USB, however), and I noticed that the red wires from all the ESCs were disconnected. The controller in this machine sits on a power distribution board that happens to have a small switching regulator on it, and 3 wires (red, black,white) came from the board. A voltmeter showed that 5V was on the red wire and 12V was on the white one. I connected the red wire to one of the wires connecting the ESCs to the controller and that powered the controller from the battery.

I went through all the mandatory setups in Mission Planner and put the unit in the "loiter" mode, but it will not arm. The red and green lights are flashing, but it simply will not arm.

I should state that the motors "sing" when I plug in the battery, and that I did get it to arm one time - by accident. The motors spun in response to the throttle. I have no idea what I did to create that conditon, and I haven't been able to duplicate it.

So I have some questions:

Is there some sort of diagnostic that I can run that will show WHY the unit won't arm?

I didn't see any voltage indication in Mission Planner. Could it be that the controller doesn't see the appropriate battery voltage and cause the unit not to arm? Should the wire that has the 5V and 12V be routed to the controller somwhere so it can not only get power but sense the battery voltage (I don't see where it could plug in).

There is a small PCB that holds the USB connector on the bottom of the machine, and there is a 3-conductor wire coming from that. It is not connected to anything now. What is that for?

There are a bunch of pin headers surrounding the USB connector. What are those for?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. HK is of absolutely no help whatsoever.

I did get it to work. I just had to become familiar with APM and Mission Planner and figure out what was connected to what.

I did have a problem, however in that the lights would flash the "low battery" warning when the battery voltage got below 11.8V. That gave me about 3 minutes of flight time! I figured out where the voltage divider on the power distribution board was and put a trimpot there so I could adjust the low-voltage warning to something more reasonable (10.5V).

I wound up crashing it badly enough that I needed to buy a new case/housing. Since that had to come from HK and I didn't want to wait, I took the controller and GPS out of the Cheerson and put it into a home-built quad - where it still is.

I got the new chassis and put new (bigger) motors in the Cheerson, added 9" props and cut out the battery compartment ends (Dremeled out the front and removed the door from the rear) so I could use a 3800mAH battery. I bent a piece of aluminum that went under the craft and came up in the front to cover the front of the battery, and put a hinged door in the rear. I painted the aluminum white. It doesn't look bad at all, and my hinged door latch is a lot better than the silly latch on the Cheerson. I used a SOUTHCO 1/4 turn fastener for the latch. I also extended the landing gear about 2" with some pieces of .063" fiberglass sheet to better work with the gimbal. For the controller, I use a NAZE32 with a GPS. It doesn't do way-points, or autonomous flying like the Cheerson, but it really flies well and has position hold, etc.

The bigger motors and props help lift the camera gimbal and the bigger battery gives me 15min + airtime.

The Cheerson ESCs have no trouble with the bigger motors/props, although I did add a small stick-on heatsink to the FETs to make them run cooler.

So, the CX-20 (if you can still call it that) is still in my 'hanger' with my 5 other quads/hexes, and I fly it from time to time. It is a lot of fun to fly.

The 32 bit controllers seem to be a bit more stable than the APM - based ones. The downside being that they don't have all the autonomous features.

You can check out my blog at

http://CALmultirotor.com

Replies

Flyoz October 30, 2016 at 2:09am

I changed a compass setting as directed by an advanced use in Parameters But the CX20s lights went out and it just beeped continuosly.

I didnt know what to do as it would NOT conect to Missionplanner so I could NOT even fix parameters.

Solution:

I disconnected battery.

Started Mission Planner

Plugged in the USNB from the quad to the PC which of course saw the Quad beep every second very annoying.

I let it beep its brains out and clicked connect in MP

It still wouldnt connect and timed out so I went into the termibnal screen in MP and clicked the green connect box there

Then after that appeared to worlk I clicked the main pages connect plug icon and it connected.

I reloaded a good Full parameter list and then disconnected MP and the USB

On reconnecting the battery the quad worked properly

Thank God I thought i had bricked it for good

Lesson stay away from Mission Planner it really can cause issues.
Flyoz October 30, 2016 at 2:09am

I changed a compass setting as directed by an advanced use in Parameters But the CX20s lights went out and it just beeped continuosly.

I didnt know what to do as it would NOT conect to Missionplanner so I could NOT even fix parameters.

Solution:

I disconnected battery.

Started Mission Planner

Plugged in the USNB from the quad to the PC which of course saw the Quad beep every second very annoying.

I let it beep its brains out and clicked connect in MP

It still wouldnt connect and timed out so I went into the termibnal screen in MP and clicked the green connect box there

Then after that appeared to work I clicked the main pages connect plug icon and it connected.

I reloaded a good Full parameter list and then disconnected MP and the USB

On reconnecting the battery the quad worked properly

Thank God I thought i had bricked it for good

Lesson stay away from Mission Planner it really can cause issues.
Flyoz October 30, 2016 at 2:07am

I changed a compass setting as directed by an advanced use in Parameters But the CX20s lights went out and it just beeped continuosly.

I didnt know what to do as it would NOT conect to Missionplanner so I could NOT even fix parameters.

Solution:

I disconnected battery.

Started Mission Planner

Plugged in the USNB from the quad to the PC which of course saw the Quad beep every second very annoying.

I let it beep its brains out and clicked connect in MP

It still wouldnt connect and timed out so I went into the termibnal screen in MP and clicked the green connect box there

Then after that appeared to worlk I clicked the main pages connect plug icon and it connected.

I reloaded a good Full parameter list and then disconnected MP and the USB

On reconnecting the battery the quad worked properly

Thank God I thought i had bricked it for good

Lesson stay away from Mission Planner it really can cause issues.
This reply was deleted.
- Steve Burton December 17, 2014 at 12:33pm
  
  Did you get your cx20 working? If so how did you do it??
  
  Thanks,
  
  Steve
  - Charles Linquist > Steve Burton December 17, 2014 at 1:05pm
    
    I did get it to work. I just had to become familiar with APM and Mission Planner and figure out what was connected to what.
    
    I did have a problem, however in that the lights would flash the "low battery" warning when the battery voltage got below 11.8V. That gave me about 3 minutes of flight time! I figured out where the voltage divider on the power distribution board was and put a trimpot there so I could adjust the low-voltage warning to something more reasonable (10.5V).
    
    I wound up crashing it badly enough that I needed to buy a new case/housing. Since that had to come from HK and I didn't want to wait, I took the controller and GPS out of the Cheerson and put it into a home-built quad - where it still is.
    
    I got the new chassis and put new (bigger) motors in the Cheerson, added 9" props and cut out the battery compartment ends (Dremeled out the front and removed the door from the rear) so I could use a 3800mAH battery. I bent a piece of aluminum that went under the craft and came up in the front to cover the front of the battery, and put a hinged door in the rear. I painted the aluminum white. It doesn't look bad at all, and my hinged door latch is a lot better than the silly latch on the Cheerson. I used a SOUTHCO 1/4 turn fastener for the latch. I also extended the landing gear about 2" with some pieces of .063" fiberglass sheet to better work with the gimbal. For the controller, I use a NAZE32 with a GPS. It doesn't do way-points, or autonomous flying like the Cheerson, but it really flies well and has position hold, etc.
    
    The bigger motors and props help lift the camera gimbal and the bigger battery gives me 15min + airtime.
    
    The Cheerson ESCs have no trouble with the bigger motors/props, although I did add a small stick-on heatsink to the FETs to make them run cooler.
    
    So, the CX-20 (if you can still call it that) is still in my 'hanger' with my 5 other quads/hexes, and I fly it from time to time. It is a lot of fun to fly.
    
    The 32 bit controllers seem to be a bit more stable than the APM - based ones. The downside being that they don't have all the autonomous features.
    
    You can check out my blog at
    
    http://CALmultirotor.com

This reply was deleted.

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Cheerson CX-20 problems

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