Comments

• Dan April 20, 2012 at 9:52am

  I found a post in one of the forums with a similar problem.  According to that kind gentlemen, DIYDrones shipped two different types of plain yellow ESCs, one of which is not programmable (despite what the instructions say).  That would certainly explain my frustration...
• Dave Langridge April 20, 2012 at 9:29am

  Dan,  try setting your trim on the Tx to minimum or full trim...you might not be getting the full throttle to get into the calibration settings.
• Dan April 20, 2012 at 7:58am

  Happy to skype with anyone who want to inspect my setup.  This is ridiculous since I can't get the basic 3dr kit to work...
• Dan April 20, 2012 at 7:51am

  I've been trying to do this with the ESC directly connected to channel 3 (Throttle) on the receiver.  the APM2 isn't in the loop at all.

  I'm doing this indoors.  Probably 70 degrees F, 21C
• 

  Ramesh Tahlan April 20, 2012 at 7:41am

  Dan, 

  do one last thing, Take ur Rx and hook up esc to the Rx and power it up and see what happens. dont do  manual calib with esc connected to quad controller, do in directly hooked up to ur Rx.  Now we have to thing of the ridiculous and try and find a solution.
• Dan April 20, 2012 at 7:37am

  certainly didn't intentionally set to NiMh.  No matter what I do, I seem to only be able to get the musical "123" tone (self test) and a long beep when it arms (with throttle low).  I don't get three beeps or two beeps or the musical programming sequence, so I can't get into programming mode.  I've confirmed my transmitter throttle is 0%/100% with no sub-trim.

  Agree with Ramesh that it's unlikely that all 4 are bad.  I'm clearly missing something.
• Moderator

  Ruwan April 20, 2012 at 7:35am

  Dan, I had nightmare calibrating/using 3DRobotics ESCs in low temperatures. However, they worked fine indoors. Also given it is spring here, it works outdoors as well. Are you working on low temperatures?
• 

  Ramesh Tahlan April 20, 2012 at 7:31am

  Rod, and Dan,

  the default on this esc is Lipo, but it could have happened that during all the fiddling he went into programming mode, and NiMh got set, can happen. Then this may be the only solution. reprogramme to Lipo.
• 

  Rod Cole April 20, 2012 at 7:21am

  Dan, did you set your ESC Battery type to NiMh before you performed the Throttle Range Calibration?

  If so, the ESC will not issue the three beeps indicating 3S LiPo because it cannot detect the NiMh cell count. I confirmed this by setting the Battery Type to LiPo and again performed the Throttle Range Calibration and received the expected number of beeps.

  I made this mistake myself when I did it the first time. On my Quad, with the Battery Type set to NiMh, the ESC sends the following sequence when I first plug the ESC into the throttle channel of the receiver with throttle set to full power.

  1. Musical tones

  2. Two beeps

  After dropping the throttle to minimum, I did not hear the three beeps as expected, but I did hear a single beep indicating that the setting took effect.

  I spent $6.95 to purchase the Turnigy Programming Card from HobbyKing and it has definitely made setting my ESCs easier. Unfortunately they appear to be on backorder right now.

  My ESC settings as set with the Programming Card are as follows:

  Brake: Off

  Battery Type: NiMh

  Cut Off Type: Soft

  Cut Off Voltage: Low

  Start Mode: Normal

  Timing Mode: Medium

  Music: Personal choice

  Governor: Off
• 

  Ramesh Tahlan April 20, 2012 at 7:17am

  Dan,

  all 4 esc cannot be faulty, that will be one hell of a coincidence, and unlikely to happen.