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Why would ESCs continue to beep after boot sequence?

Posted by steve on April 15, 2011 at 8:13am

I'm using ArducopterNG on a standard diydrones quad kit. Yesterday it started having a problem I haven't seen before. During the boot sequence I get the standard ESC bootup sounds but then when it's done and during the walking green orange red led sequence they start beeping about 5hz. The IMU goes to a steady green but I can't arm motors. They just beep at 5Hz until I unplug it. I can get in via command mode and have reuploaded the code and went through ESC calibration.

 

What is this 5Hz beep indicating?

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Replies

  • Ellison Chan September 13, 2011 at 9:45am

    I had a similar problem yesterday.  After disassembling, and re-assembling the whole copter to re-configure the frame from + to x, one of my esc always went into fast beeping.  I tried plugging another esc to the beeping channel, thinking it was a bad channel on the decoder, but the other esc did not have the fast beeping.  I plugger the beeping esc to another channel on the decoder, and it still fast beeped.  So it wasn't a bad channel, and I suspected the esc.

     

    Then I plugged the esc directly directly to the throttle of my transmitter, and it did the fast beep, so I went through the esc reset sequence.  It stopped fast beeping.  I thought the problem was solved, so I plugged it back into the decoder, and it started fast beeping again.  Just wouldn't go away.

     

    Out of frustration, I decided to reload the firmware and reset the APM.  To my surprise this solved the problem.  The fast beeping went away.  So, I now suspect firmware corruption, but how can just disassembling and re-assembling the copter cause a firmware corruption?!

     

    Can anyone explain?  This is scary to me if the firmware can be corrupted due to trauma.

  • chris g April 15, 2011 at 5:41pm
    the flashing on the rx might be caused by switching off the transmitter before powering down the rx. it's just letting you know it lost connection.

    hold the throttle down and to the right and look at the green led. it should go off and then come back on with a slow blink.

    just curious, if you flip the gear switch, does the yellow led come on?
  • chris g April 15, 2011 at 2:59pm
    no, throttle stick all the way down. the configurator needs to know the actual limits. you can adjust your throttle curve afterwards in your tx.
  • Ante Vukorepa April 15, 2011 at 12:52pm
    Actually, fast beeping can also mean two other things:
    - that it received spurious (or out of range) PWM input during ESC boot-up
    - that the minimum throttle is unset or that the throttle input wasn't at 0 after ESC boot-up.

    I get that beeping with my ESCs sometimes. From what i've gathered, they're caused by spurious output from the APM during boot. The moment the APM has booted up, beeping stops and everything is fine again.

    Frankly, i'm not too surprised nor worried, because i've seen Arduinos output junk on some of the pins during boot.
  • chris g April 15, 2011 at 8:56am
    for most escs that means it does not detect max throttle. could indicated that your apm is not receiving any data signal from your rx. check your rx connection, power, etc...
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