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ESC Bricked after FC Betaflight Flash! Any help appreciated!

JNew137

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Hey friends
I'm pretty new to the building scene but after a hard crash I had to jump in. I just replaced all four motors and flight controller on my quad. All motors spun up and everything was looking great. Then I had the "bright idea" to flash my fc to newest betaflight firmware. Didn't think to back up. Just did it. Now no motors are spinning up (no beeping). After some research I thought it to be esc issue so I tried blheli to flash. It will read it, then nothing. I see quad in betaflight and sticks all show up. Motors do nothing. Any ideas would be so appreciated. Been researching for hours on this with no luck. Thanks in advance!

this is the fc I have
SucceX-A F405 40A AIO Board
 
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Hey @JNew137 , glad you made it here. I'm the guy from Reddit that recommended this site. Like I said, we're a small crew but we're tenacious; if you don't quit we won't quit until you're back in the air!

I was going to ask @HighTechPauper about that board you have, I think that it's got an ESC built in and that's why it's not communicating to the motors. If you can post some pictures of your build / stack it could help us figure it out.
succex-a-aio-board%20(1)-1000x1000.jpg
 
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Hey RTK! I can do that for sure. After trying tons of other things I actually went ahead and bought another board. I was messing with it so much a connector pin got bent :( It should be in today or tomorrow so I'll slap it in and let y'all know. This is for my cinewhoop but I also ordered a le drib skyeliner hd frame to build out a freestyle quad in the next couple days so I know I'm going to have questions for you guys! Its great to have a community of like minded people like this to help out! Thanks for connecting me brother!!
 
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Not a bad idea, but you know to keep every board, even if you think it's damaged. As I've gotten better at diagnosing and fixing things, old boards that I had previously lost confidence in have been a godsend.
 
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Not a bad idea, but you know to keep every board, even if you think it's damaged. As I've gotten better at diagnosing and fixing things, old boards that I had previously lost confidence in have been a godsend.
For sure thanks for the advise
 
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Hi @JNew137, welcome! If yu flashe the FC then you lost all your configuration, so everything will need to be configured by hand including the Modes tab where you define what the arming Aux channel and position will be. While I have never seen a board like this that (appears) to have the ESC's built in, that should not stop you from talking to the ESC's like normal. Are yu sure you had a battery plugged in to read the ESC's and not just the USB cable? You need to Disconnect Betaflight Configurator when you try to Connect with BLHeli, and yo will need a battery attached (motors attached won't matter to flash them) to read and write the ESC's. You say you could read them but then nothing, that doesn't really make any sense since reading them is the same as writing them. I am wondering if you just weren't connected, or if you didn't ahve a battery attached. Can you post a picure of the screen while BLHeli is connected and read?
 
So I tried to throw in another FC/ESC and I failed again miserably. Soldered everything up plugged it in to betaflight. All motors spun up well (I just had to reverse one. Last thing I had to do was bind my radio to my xm+ reciever. I made the mistake of plugging in the usb while the drone had a battery in it. It sent a smark and small amount of smoke. After watching this video I checked for continuity and there is continuity between both pos and neg with all of the motors so I guess I burnt out the internal ESC. One crash, 2 sets of motors 3 ESC's later and its still down. Anyone want to buy an almost new iflight bumblebee with tons of extra parts?! Long story short, no beeps no motors spinning up, no bind to radio. Everything else in betaflight seems to work ok.

 
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I made the mistake of plugging in the usb while the drone had a battery in it.
This shouldn't damage anything, in fact plugging the USB in with a battery plugged in is the only way to access BLheli and test motors on the bench. Believe me, I know how frustrating repairs can be, I've personally lost my cool on these boards to a frankly embarrassing level. I blew through 2 stacks on a build recently and in the process they ate 3 VTX and a camera. The parts lost on that build cost about as much as the build its self.

I have the feeling there's a gremlin here that we haven't identified yet. Take pictures as you go, and be pragmatic, and you might be able to get refunds / replacements for any defective parts. We might find that it's something small (i've been burned by a 5 cent ribbon cable) and you have enough working spare parts for another build.

Oh, and not to disparage Bardwell, he's more knowledgeable than I for sure, but I'm not sold on that method for diagnosing ESCs, I haven't got it to work for me personally. Maybe it's because I just don't understand it.
 
Thanks so much for the encouragement and help rtk. I have an acro build to try to do tomorrow night and I ordered another whoop fc to give it one more go. Plan on replacing every wire, capacitor and even receiver to rule out everything. The only thing left would be my dji air unit which seems to still be working ok. We'll see. Thanks for the nudge to keep me going. Feel like I'm going crazy.
 
Hi, I’ve just registered in the hope that someone can help me.

This exact thing has just happened to me. Twice!

I’m using an HGLRC F440 stack. I had a crash and blew the flight controller (voltage rails shorted) so I ordered a new STM32F405RGT6.

Before this arrived a friend found 2 f440 flight controllers in his spares box, both needed a board-board connector but otherwise ok so I ordered a few headers and set 1 of them up, updated the firmware to 4.1.5 from my Mac, put everything together and motor 4 isn’t spinning and I can’t communicate with that ESC using BLHeli.

My first thought was that I’d killed that ESC during the crash so I figured I would work out what was wrong. I swapped the BL heli chip I see referred to as a BB2 with esc 1 and no change to either ESC.

I then soldered a header onto replacement 2 and put it straight onto the ESC and can now communicate with all 4 ESCs. So it looks like it was just the first replacement FC at fault.

I then swapped the STM32s between boards and the problem followed the IC.

I updated the firmware on the 2nd replacement IC (now on the 1st replacement board) and restored my backup, soldered cam and receiver wires on, went to give it a final test and no comms with ESC 4 AGAIN!!!

I have continuity from the relevant leg of the STM32 to the relevant header pin on both FCs.

This is too coincidental.

I can think of a few reasons this could happen:
1. ESC 4 is dead and killing the FC after a few seconds. Enough time for me to see esc 4 is working, dance a happy little dance and disconnect but doesn’t survive a reconnection.

2. The firmware update has killed the fight controller.

3. The firmware update has modified the motor mapping and now the signal for ESC4 is expected on a pin that’s not connected (presumably).

Does anyone have any ideas?

I now have a new STM32 but haven’t flashed anything onto it yet.

2 good FC boards

2 STM32s both missing signal from ESC4

Thanks
James
 
Brother I hope you figure this out because I did this to several fc's and never could. I finally switched to a different brand fc and have since build a couple quads with no firmware flashing issues. This stuff can be so complicated and frustrating but once you get it going, its all worth it. Looking forward to seeing if anyone has any insight for you. Wish I could help.
 
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@JamesG60 the BF update could absolutely change the resource mapping. Have you tried rolling back to 3.5.7 to see if it comes up? It's worked for me before and I'm still not sure why
Thanks. Which version should I be using? I can't see HGLRC listed under the 3.5.7 assets on GitHub.

I’ve soldered wires between the pads of the board to board connectors to rule out a recessed pin - no change

I offset the board to board connector so the FC connector for #4 was on the header pin for ESC 2 and #4 is still down.
This confirms the ESC is ok and the problem lies with the FC
 
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Thanks. Which version should I be using? I can't see HGLRC listed under the 3.5.7 assets on GitHub.

I’ve soldered wires between the pads of the board to board connectors to rule out a recessed pin - no change

I offset the board to board connector so the FC connector for #4 was on the header pin for ESC 2 and #4 is still down.
This confirms the ESC is ok and the problem lies with the FC
Check in the upper left corner when you're in BF to see your "target". That is what you're flashing back to 3.5.7, maybe an omnubus f4 (?). You want to make sure you get that right and go slow, you can brick your FC by flashing the wrong target
 
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Flashed f4 omnibus legacy 3.5.7 and #4 is back online.

Turns out flashing the “correct” firmware isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Many thanks and I hope this saves anyone else struggling. I now have 3 working flight controllers.
 
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