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Offline VOiDMiX

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Odd behavior
« on: January 18, 2018, 04:53:23 PM »
I've gotten my tank going with the TCB but at times the motors don't respond.  The turret will elevate and rotate so that's fine.  Sometimes the motors work, sometimes they don't. Seems I have to very slowly advance the throttle too... if I just push the throttle either way it won't go. I get the red and green lights but no mojo.  Any thoughts?

TIA

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2018, 05:53:19 PM »
What speed controller are you using? What kind of battery? Also what kind of receiver (brand and SBus/PPM)?

This isn't much to go on but I would say:
  • Double check your radio setup, make sure your throttle and turn channel min/max and center values are mapped correctly
  • Make sure you are using a fully-charged battery and that you don't have low voltage cutoff set too high
  • For the purposes of testing disable any acceleration/deceleration constraints, motor nudging, speed limits, etc...
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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2018, 08:32:28 PM »
I'm using the recommended HK 45A brushed ESCs:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbyking-x-car-45a-brushed-car-esc.html

Fully charged Turnigy 2S lipo.

FrSky X8R receiver.

  • For the purposes of testing disable any acceleration/deceleration constraints, motor nudging, speed limits, etc...
- I'll check these tomorrow.
  • Double check your radio setup, make sure your throttle and turn channel min/max and center values are mapped correctly
- check!

  • Make sure you are using a fully-charged battery and that you don't have low voltage cutoff set too high
- check!



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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2018, 09:08:12 PM »
When using the XCar ESCs the other thing to make sure of is that the ESC is really in "crawler" mode, ie, the LED on the ESC is solid and not blinking, this is described in the Wiki. I'm sure you did but just mentioning it.

Otherwise I'm not sure what to say. In order to fix a problem we have to narrow down exactly what the cause is and right now that's unclear...

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Offline jhamm

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2018, 01:12:48 AM »
Hi
i am with Luke.
This will be a Problem by the ESC.
If the ESC is in "Practice Mode" there is a delay when Stick is/go to center, therefor you have switch the ESC in "Climbing Mode"
How to switch? Look at the ESC manual:https://hobbyking.com/media/file/291056119X1264039X33.pdf

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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2018, 01:44:22 PM »
HM...ok, the only time the tank EVER worked was when the ESCs were blinking. Just switched them so the LED is now solid and it's still the same... nothing.

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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2018, 02:00:05 PM »
When the board is powered up should any lights be on?  For me there are none. The cannon works but again, no motors and no smoker. When I connect the smoker it does nothing. This is all so odd since I had it working fine and I changed NOTHING.

Radio channels are mapped correctly and I reset centers and ranges and still the same.

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2018, 05:35:07 PM »
It sounds like there are several things going on, or that the symptoms are changing over time. Originally you didn't mention anything about the smoker. We need to narrow down the issue to one thing at a time.

It sounds like you have the radio setup correctly, so we'll assume that's fine.

If the TCB has detected your radio and you aren't moving, then the red and green LEDs on the board will be off. So that is normal. They only turn on if you are moving, or if the radio signal is lost, or if you are connected to the computer (here is the key).

You've tried the ESC in blinky and solid mode. That doesn't seem to be the problem either, so put them back to solid (crawler) mode and leave them that way.

Another very important thing when using XCar or any other hobby ESCs is to disable the BEC on the speed controller by removing the center pin from the servo leads that plug into the TCB AS SHOWN HERE. Make sure you've done that or you could damage your TCB or your speed controls!

If all that is good, let's start small and work our way up. Connect your TCB to your computer with the USB cable, and also power up your TCB with a battery at the same time. Connect the smoker to the TCB but leave the ESCs disconnected for now. Go to the Firmware tab of OP Config and connect to the TCB in Snoop mode. Can you turn on and off the engine from your transmitter? The TCB will print messages to the console window confirming that this has been done, if you don't see the messages then something is wrong. If it does say the engine has been turned on, does the smoker turn on? Does the smoker speed change with throttle? Do the green and red LEDs light up in forward and reverse respectively, as you would expect? Does the smoker stop when you turn the engine off?

If something doesn't work with those steps, we'll dig further. If they do work, we'll proceed to your ESCs.

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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2018, 12:59:47 AM »
I did disable the BECs, first thing I did.

I'll try snoop mode as soon as I can... can't get to the tank for a bit but I'll write back as soon as I've had a chance to try it.  Turning on the engine would occur when advancing the throttle right? I don't have a switch assigned to do that or anything...

Thanks for your help, I'm sure we'll get this going.


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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2018, 01:09:31 AM »
Reading a bit further into "Engine and Transmission Basics" it seems I need to have something start the engine and engage the transmission. I don't recall what settings I had there when it was working but I must have lucked into something that it worked... I'll set up some switches for this and let you know how it goes.

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2018, 01:32:32 AM »
Reading a bit further into "Engine and Transmission Basics" it seems I need to have something start the engine and engage the transmission. I don't recall what settings I had there when it was working but I must have lucked into something that it worked... I'll set up some switches for this and let you know how it goes.
Yes that's correct, but the transmission is automatically engaged when you start the engine (or shortly thereafter depending on the Transmission Engage Delay), so you don't have to explicitly setup a function for that. The only reason to assign functions to the transmission is if you want to manually disengage/engage, and the only reason you might want to do that is to rev the "engine" sounds without the model moving, which is a cool feature but unnecessary unless you're showing off to your friends.

So for your tests you can ignore the transmission stuff and just assign a function to turn the engine on. 
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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2018, 01:39:02 AM »
Another thought, there is also a setting on the Driving tab called "Auto Stop Engine when idle for:"

You might want to make sure that isn't accidentally set to some very small number like 0.1 minutes, which would turn off the engine every time you stop for a few seconds. Unlikely, but worth checking.
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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #12 on: January 21, 2018, 12:00:40 PM »
Woo hoo!  Got it all working and it's great! Thanks!

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2018, 12:49:01 PM »
If you have any idea what the original problem was, it might help to describe it so other people can avoid the same fate.
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Offline VOiDMiX

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Re: Odd behavior
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2018, 08:41:22 PM »
It was that there was no method of starting the engine.  One board I have had engine start programmed to the turret stick up and left (I think), this one did not. Put engine start and stop on a 2 position switch and all is well.

 

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