Looking your last image it looks like your build will always be armed…
It should look more like this ( sorry for the rough screenshot, I don’t have a quad with me )
Your assigned arm switch should move in and out of the yellow arm area.
The areas can be a different size depending on where the disarmed and armed position of your switch is
White area = disarmed.
Yellow area = armed.
Hi Doomed
I thought that might be the case, but having finally got it to work, I didn’t want to mess it up again.
However, I have changed it a bit so that it is only armed at 1350 now.
The motors all seem to start at different times,some at 1350 and some about 1400-1450. Is this something I need to worry about, and if so, what should I do to rectify it?
I am really grateful for your ongoing help.
Sounds like ESC calibration to me…
Have a read and follow of this guide and let us know how you get on.
Hi Doomed
Thanks for that link. I followed the guide and the motors are improved a lot, but things didn’t all go as expected.
The ESCs never stopped making noises, whether it was the motors beeping or musical chimes, it just didn’t stop.
In the end, When the musical chimes started for the fifth time, I turned the motors right down got some different noises,but it still didn’t ever really finish until I just pulled the plug.
I tried several times with similar results, but overall, the situation is much improved.
What other modes do you think I need to set, and at what should I set them?
I will also look at getting the camera to work tomorrow.
Sounds like one of the ESC went though the programming menu so likely you have changed a setting on that one esc.
My suggestion would be to use passthrough mode to make sure all the settings between the ESC are exactly the same. I made a guide about it here:
I have tried on three different computers to get BLHeli to work. I have also downloaded new programs to each computer.
On ALL computers, I get the same screen that is just a blank.
I click on Read setup and the screen tells me it has done that, but no graphics appear.
Does this mean that the ESCs are NOT BLHeli ones.
The website from EBay tells me the following:
Title page: 4pcs A2212 1000KV Motor & 4pcs HP 30A ESC + 4pairs 1045 Prop (B) Quad-Rotor V5R8
Features:
Safety arming feature: regardless the throttle stick position, the motor will not spin after battery connected.
Throttle calibration: throttle range can be configured to provide best throttle linearity, fully compatible with all market available transmitters.
Programmable items:
Brake setting: brake enabled / brake disabled.
Battery type: Li-xx(Li-ion or LiPo) / Ni-xx(NiMh or NiCd).
Low voltage protection mode (cutoff mode): gradually reduce the output power / cutoff the output power.
Low voltage cutoff protection threshold (cutoff threshold): low / medium / high.
Start mode: normal / soft / very soft.
Timing: low / medium / high.
Reset: reset all the programmable items to their default settings.
Full protection features: low voltage cutoff protection / over-heat protection / throttle signal lost protection.
Specifications:
XXD A2212 1000KV brushless outrunner motor:
KV: 1000
Max. efficiency: 80%
Max. efficiency current: 4-10A (>75%)
Current capacity: 12A/60s
No Load current @ 10V: 0.5A
No. of cells: 2-3 Li-Poly
Motor size: 27.5 * 27mm / 1.1 * 1.1in
Shaft diameter: 3.17mm / 0.1in
Weight: 48g / 1.7oz
30A Brushless ESC:
Output: Continuous 30A, burst 40A up to 10 Secs.
Input voltage: 2-4 cells lithium battery or 5-12 cells NiCd/NIMh battery
BEC: 2A / 5V (Linear mode).
Max speed: 210,000rpm for 2 poles BLM, 70,000rpm for 6 poles BLM, 35,000rpm for 12 poles BLM.
(BLM: Brushless Motor)
Size: 45 * 24 * 11mm / 1.8 * 0.9 * 0.4in
Weight: 25g / 0.9oz
Item total weight: 480g / 1.06Lbs
Package List: RM413
4 * A2212 1000KV Brushless Outrunner Motor with Mounts
4 * 30A Build-in BEC 2A Brushless ESC
4 * Pairs of 1045L/R Propellers (Black)
I’m not sure if they are BLHeli or not.
When connected to BLHeli with your props off
you have to connect your lipo as well to power the ESCs.
You can also try the standalone BLHeli app.
download
Hi Doomed
Well, I downloaded and installed that version of BLHelisuite. It all installed fine and gave me the options of Atmel or SiLabs ESCs. It also has a tab for recognising whatever is plugged in to it. It didn’t recognise whatever it is that I have.
I went through all the ESCs that are supported, but I didn’t see mine anywhere.
I will write to the EBay seller I got them from and ask if they know what they are.
from your ebay description, i’m positive your esc’s are old simon k ones. yellow or blue plain heat shrink.
had some of these a few years ago when starting out. NEVER could get them calibrated, i even reset each one to factory default and still would not spin up correctly after calibration, i filed them in the B1N.
sometimes bite the bullet and get some decent ones.
I use the chaos 20 amp esc on my 2212. from unmanned tech of course.
If they are SimonK ESCs.
Bin them there old, really old.
I with dale589 buy choas.
I can recommend them I have two sets of two different builds.
OK, I have just ordered 4 of these ESCs from unmannedtechshop on your advice.
They’d better be good.
They are, and appreciate the order 
I have 4 quads 1- 8 inch and 3- 5 inch all use choas esc’s. only every had 1 smoke when soldered incorrect.
Never had one fail in flight.
Alex do myself and Doomed qualify for commission.
Hello Dale589
The good news is that YES, you are due a magnificent commission for your part in this sale. Your percentage of the commission (in (A$) dollars) you will receive $0.49 cents. Doomed will earn the same amount.
Bank charges on this will cost you A$0.50. We can transfer this amount to you as soon as we receive the sum of A$1.00 from you to cover the costs of transfers both ways.
PS because of our automated accounting programmes, we can ONLY transfer money using the banking system. This is to ensure that the tax office has all the necessary information for our VAT etc.
cool IOU $1.01 will post asap
Brilliant!
But on a side note it is something I am genuinely interested in setting up on the forums. Its alot of work but I have two ideas…
1 - Basically offer some sort of rewards for users answering questions (when a help topic is marked as solved)
2 - Have a system for users to offer a reward for solving a problem/helping… possibly using the same points system.
But there are a bunch of major issues to figure out still apart from the actual code and time to build, how would we control people gaming the system (create two accounts and just answer your own questions to get rewarded). And also what about duplicate questions and what is the value of a reward and how would we set this up? And whenever money is involved things start to get complex as what happens when someone thinks he answered but the solution goes to someone else after him… So lots of interesting problems that will be introduced with such a system. For now I am just happy with the satisfaction I get from helping people when I get some free time!
Side side note, I recently received a quora partner program invite and they essentially run something like this where they reward engaging questions and answers so this could be another way to go about this. I will look into this abit more to see if we can come up with something.
As I am writing this I have an idea… (this post is getting long)
For now my initial simple idea would to essentially allow all dronetrest members to enter their own google adsense ID, then for their posts they can earn any money from google if people click on their ads for their topics. And we can earn ads from our own content, or the homepage to pay for the server. Furthermore we could expand it to if a user has a solution then they get their ad shown sometimes on that topic to also earn some money from their answer. I think this idea may actually work as it kind of solves a couple of the problems… interested to see what people thing of this and if it is something I should even bother looking into…
Not many people will see this post here.
May I suggestthat you think about it a little more, and then make, it a separate subject.
Exactly, that post was just me spit balling some ideas. Once I have a better plan I will make a dedicated topic for it :-).
Dito happy to help as when i started it was all trail and burnout.
