Sorry to hear that Dave. Is it just me or are the BL 3.0 boards unusually "fragile?" It just seems like we've seen more failures in the last few weeks than we had in the whole year for BL 2.x boards. Andy.
I’m hoping my board made it back to Holger so maybe he could suss out what happened to mine. His support has been excellent, and the second board is working beautifully.
Hi. I´m running the same set up as David. Can someone tell me what are the recommended changes made by Holger? Thanx
I emailed Holger my concerns and here's his response In the past weeks we got some defective boards back from customers and we were able to find out what caused the problems. 1. Some motors caused an overcurrent when driving them without propellers. In all cases that only occured during motor test. I made a firmware-change that solved this problem. Also the motors are starting better now. I would suggest, that you install this version also in your Double-Quadro-Board that you are currently using. 2. We found out that there is a small part on the BL-Ctrls that is sensitive against moisture or dirt. We started to cover this part with a special isolating coating. In your case the problems accured on BL3 and 7 - both are on the upper side of the Double-Quadro. Maybe this was the problem in your case. We will send you another Board with the coating and the new firmware. Also we can send you a bottle of the coating for sealing the other Double-Quadro-Board. I will send you the instruction of the firmware-update in another mail. Regards, Holger
I sent Holger this response and his response is below along with the picture he attached. OK. Sounds good. Do you coat the entire board or just the one component? Dave We are coating only the small High-Side-Driver Tansistors (attached). Regards, Holger
I received another email from Holger with the update instructions Hello, we have a small firmware update for the V3 BL-Controllers. Some users reported failures during motor-start and defective BL-Boards when doing a motortest without propellers. Changelog: 1. Improved motor-start 2. internal speed limitation 3. increased commutating speed (Max RPM is 200.000 devided by the number of magnets -> 16.666 RPM if you have 12magnets) 4. Prepared for redundant FC-Operation 5. Small bugfixes Here you can find the Firmware:http://www.mikrocontroller.com/files/upload/BL-Ctrl3_MEGA168_V1_02d_SVN799.hex Attached you can find a picture of a simple update connector. Only the three pins on one side (Pin 1, 7, 9) are needed for update. The cable goes to the MKUSB like the FC or NC. Regards, Holger
Hi. David. Thanx, I was curious to know what changes you made on Mktool. I have similar set up. Everything is ready for firsts test flight but I need to know if you made any changes after your tests. Thanx again Sir.
I have to say that i'd be scared *hitless with every single flight if I were running those controllers. I've said it once and I'll say it again, they are overly sensitive with too much bling. Having them all connected together in a power distro setup makes it virtually impossible to protect them against the elements leaving you no other option but to have that very sensitive circuit board unprotected. Sure they work fine (I think) with Holger specific motors but you run the risk in the long term using motors that weren't a part of Holger's initial beta testing.
Ok. Other than that have you made any other changes to mktool. the only differences in my configuration is that I´m using FC 2.1. Other than that…same *hit.
Hey. I tried to use the link to the BL3 update and it goes "NOT FOUND". Looked in MK webpage an noting there either. Anywhere else to get that update? Thanx
If I click on the link it doesn´t work, buy if I copy and paste it with google chrome it works. I don´t understand it but it works.
For whatever reason, the link above is discombobulated. This one will work: http://www.mikrocontroller.com/files/upload/BL-Ctrl3_MEGA168_V1_02d_SVN799.hex
The first link, for reasons I don't understand, tries to download V1_02c not d. I guess they upped the version number while you were typing your message, Steve. Andy.
I downloaded the Firmware update... fashioned up a connector as described above. Hooked up the connector to the BL3 as shown above. Connected the USB interface board to the laptop running MK tools 2.06 and tried to update the firmware. The screen reads as follows: Flashprogram - Update Reading file ...ok Programsize: 14080 bytes Connecting (try to reset hardware and start bootloader) ............. TIMEOUT then the UPDATE FAILED dialog box appears. Do I need to have the FC connected to the BL3 board? Assuming I am able to accomplish this update... do I have to do it for each BL? or is once good for the entire board. It's a Double Quadro BL3.0 Also... is there anyway to tell what BL firmware I have? Thanks
I suspect your cable/connector is not right. I did not have anything connected to the power distro board except for my bench power supply. The board does have to be powered. When you connect up to it, it’ll tell you what firmware version you have (sorry, that’s wrong), then show the new version after the update is complete. And you have to do all 8. Here’s what happened when I did it... http://forum.freeflysystems.com/ind...ium-heavy-lift-8-10kg.3079/page-11#post-42125
Thank so much Steve... I was not powering the board but rather using the USB connector with the jumper installed to power the respective BL from the USB port...this obviously isn't the way to do it ... once I powered on the board using my desktop PS things worked like charm. Thanks again!