New Quad, Connecting to Baseflite

Jack Ley · May 1, 2016

I just got an ARF Anakin Sky-Hero the other day, it just needed a RC, which I have, battery and receiver. After some frustration I finally got the receiver hooked up,(this is my first non RTF quad, so this all new to be) I bound the receiver to the my AT9 RC and then I wanted to connect to Baseflight to get any needed firmware and set up the RC to go with quad. When I try to connect to Baseflight it says connections failed. I know my usb cord is good, because I hooked my other quad to Baseflight just fine. Is there something I need to do to the quad, or maybe have something hooked up wrong. Btw, I had the quad powered on when I tried all this. I've seen on some other forums sites that people said to check the COM port your are trying to connect to, but mine only has a choice of COM 5 or Demo, so not sure how you can choose another port. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

joesrevolution · May 3, 2016

Hey, Jack. Firstly you wont need to have a battery in to talk to base flight so try without for the first time. I really don't think that would make a difference though... It is unusual that you cant connect on COM 5. If there is a COM port listed that would normally work. It would probably be worth re flashing you board with the latest firmware. Having said that what FC are you using? If you are using a cleanflight compatible FC I would strongly recommend using cleanflight as a pose to base flight. I use that on all my models now. Its much simpler to use and more powerful with more modes available like g-tune etc... Lastly maybe just try using a different USB port on your PC? Another long shot but it might be a bad port. Let me know how you get on!

Jack Ley · May 4, 2016

OOOHHHHHHH, I had NO IDEA that certain FCs are only compatible with basefight or cleanflight, I thought it was just a user preference. I will definitely have to download cleanflight and give it a try it. My first quad was a Storm 250 RTF and the guy I got it from set me up on baseflight. Also the FC is a cc3d mini, or nano, it's what all the Anakin quads use apparently, I'll attach a pic. Also, if you don't mind another question, how to you "flash" new firmware to your quad/FC? With my Phantom you just go to their website, download the newest firmware on to a micro sd and then install that in the Phantom and turn it on, easy peezy. Thanks for all your help!!!!

joesrevolution · May 5, 2016

Well 90% are compatible. I'm sure your cc3d will be compatible. To flash with cleanflight download the cleanflight software, plug your board in and go to firmware flasher on the cleanflight homepage and select the most recent release for your board (it will say cc3d in brackets) don't flash any other board firmware. It will do the bad things Haha. Then click load firmware online wait for it to be done and then click flash firmware. Fingers crossed it will reconise you board then! That's certainly the method with cleanflight. I've never used base flight personally as I've always gone straight over to cleanflight. I'm sure it's a similar method. Let me know how you get on.

Jack Ley · May 5, 2016

So listen to this crazy crap, so I did some more research and I found out that cc3d would not connect to Baseflight, so I downloaded Cleanflight and I still couldn't connect. Then more research, so I find out that cc3d will ONLY work with OpenPilot, so I was like, finally, I'll just download that and be good to go. Went to do that and the download page would not open up, and then several other links related to OpenPilot were dead, so I found an OpenPilot forum and guess what, OpenPilot no more exists as of this last December, it completely went out of business or whatever and they shut it all down. So luckily on the forum I found this out, someone posted that most of the creators of LibrePilot worked on OpenPilot and that anything that would connect to OpenPilot would connect to LibrePilot. So I am downloading that now as we speak..lol. I'll keep you updated.

Jack Ley · May 6, 2016

Ok, WTF!!!!!! I am soooo fed up trying to put one of these things together!! So a little while ago I hooked my quad to the pc and pulled up the LibrePilot, and it was awesome!!! It recognized right away that I was connected, it walked me through how to clear and then install the latest firmware, then it calibrated my FC and confirmed I had the AT9 receiver hooked up correctly. Then it wanted me to calibrate my motors, so I did EVERYTHING exactly how they said to, which was to connect a battery and on the screen there would be a slider button for each motor, and how to test and set them to neutral. I did all that and slid the sliders, the motors didn't turn, so I figured I missed something, so as I was re-reading how the sliders work the quad CAUGHT ON FIRE!!! Not a little smoke, an actual flame!! My whole basement smells like burnt wires, I'm done!!!! If I even stay with this hobby, all my quads will be RTF from now on!

joesrevolution · May 7, 2016

Oh wow. That's crazy. Where was the fire from? Probably a case of having your esc wires the wrong way round or a solder joint bridging where onto a wrong pad. Did you do the soldering yourself? If not you should easily get a refund from your vendor. Are you able to take some pics? If you're truly done with that model where are you based? I would potentially be interested in the frame ;-)

Jack Ley · May 14, 2016

joesrevolution said:
Oh wow. That's crazy. Where was the fire from? Probably a case of having your esc wires the wrong way round or a solder joint bridging where onto a wrong pad. Did you do the soldering yourself? If not you should easily get a refund from your vendor. Are you able to take some pics? If you're truly done with that model where are you based? I would potentially be interested in the frame ;-)

Sorry I'm just getting back to ya, I haven't been on in a while. I think the fire was from an ESC if I had to guess, if you've ever seen an Anakin Sky Hero the arms are tubular instead of flat, all the ESC's and wires are in the tubing. Cool set up if it's wired correctly..lol. I did not do the soldering, in fact it was an ARF, directions said all I had to do was connect a receiver, bind it to my RC and flash the firmware and I'd be ready to go. I contacted the vendor and he said he couldn't do anything and I would have to contact the manufacturer. So I went to Sky Hero's website, filled out a tech report/complaint, twice now in the past 10 days, and have heard nothing from them, I'm totally bummed. I am in St. Louis area, I am going to hold off selling the Sky Hero until I figure out if they are going to replace it. I do have a couple other quads I'd love to get rid of. One is a Storm 250, it runs, but it doesn't fly right, I can barley get it above a hover, I'm thinking it's either the motors or ESC's. It was my first quad and I beat the hell out of learning to fly..lol. I really don't feel like tearing it a part and fixing it. The other one is a Scorpion Sky Strider 280 that I bought off a guy that is on a local FPV facebook page. He told me it was RTF, but when we met he decided to tell me it still needed a receiver, I still bought it, and for the life of me I cannot figure out how to install it on this quad without tearing the whole thing down to the frame. It's also missing it's video TX because I took it off for another build I'm doing. So if you're good at the tech stuff you could fix them up, or you could have lots of spare parts. The Storm has 12amp ESC's, emax motors, (plus four new ones I bought in case I decided to fix it), full Naze32 FC and the receiver is a radiolink R9D. I have no idea what parts are on the Scorpion. I'm not sure what's a fair price, I was thinking $300 for the pair, but make an offer and I'll ship them to you.