Discussions

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on the forum.  I've been reading through everything on here and there have been many helpful tips, but none seem to be working out for me so far. 

I am trying to get a Pixhawk to work with a tradition helicopter setup, a T-rex 250 DFC Flybarless helicopter.  I am using a Spektrum DX8 transmitter with a Spektrum satellite receiver plugged into the Pixhawk which has been bound separately.  I have gone through all the accelerometer calibrations and radio calibrations, and cannot get past the ESC calibration setup...

I have the ESC plugged into Channel 3 on the Pixhawk since this is where I am seeing the throttle outputs happen during the radio calibration.  

I am following the following youtube video for these steps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kfVusza17I

I am performing the following steps to calibrate the ESC:

1) Plug battery into Pixhawk with throttle up

2) Wait for sounds and lights to flash rapidly

3) Unplug and replug the battery with the throttle still high, wait for musical sound and long tone

4) Press the safety button till the red light turns solid

5) Reduce throttle to min position

My problem starts right in step 4 above after the safety button turns solid, I don't hear the motor confirmation tone as can be heard in the youtube video at 1:15.  I keep going anyways and move the throttle all the way down and again don't hear any tones as can be heard in the video, and naturally I do not get any throttle movement from the motors after that either.  My Pixhawk just blinks the main LEDs with red, blue, and green over and over and nothing ever happens.  I have even tried the calibration routine with another brushless ESC and motor and I get the same result.

Now, I have tried many things. I have tried setting the helicopter up in both Acro mode and Heli mode with a single servo swash setup.  I've read many conflicting accounts on which one is right for Spektrum setups, so if someone can tell me which is correct that would be an awesome first bit of help!  I have also changed the trims and sub trims to bring the lower throttle value around 1000 and below (I can only go to around 997 and that seems to be the lowest my transmitter can go).  

A few times I have randomly been able to get the system to Arm itself by holding the throttle stick right, but I still don't get any motor movement. It's also weird because the system disarms itself after about 10 seconds which I don't understand either.  If anyone can give me some advice to fix this issue I would really appreciate it as I feel I have tried everything with no luck!

Also, for anyone using Spectrum with a traditional Heli setup, can you confirm if your remote is in Acro or Heli mode (and any settings or changes to those modes worth mentioning) and can you confirm that these are the proper channels to plug my servos into the Pixhawk:

Channel 1: Aileron servo

Channel 2: Elevator servo

Channel 3: ESC

Channel 4: Rudder Servo

Channel 5: Pitch servo

Thank you very much for reading through this and any input is greatly appreciated.  I tried to include as much detail as possible to help you diagnose the issue better!

Evan