CC3D Is it bricked?

[flybywire]

Hey!

I';ve just taken delivery of a Chinese origin CC3D board from: Goodluckbuy.  Ok, it was cheap, but as it';s just a bunch of components on a board, I figure it was worth a punt (ebay).

Just got it out of the box and hooked up to GCS (latest) and guess what?  It won';t connect.  The green power led comes on, but nobody';s home apparently.  The electrons are refusing to flow!

So, to recap;

I am running the latest GCS GUI, I started off on my iMac, but the software says "no controller detected".
Then moved on to my Macbook pro (cause some forum geezer said peripherals can stop it being detected).  No joy.

I then dual booted both machines into Win 7, and downloaded the GCS, plugged in the CC3D, Windows chimed up with "USB device not recognised, unknown device".  I also got "The USB device on port XX has malfunctioned" etc etc. 

I have tried 4 different known good USB cables, to no avail.
Logic tells me it';s bricked OOTB, the only question in my mind is about the driver.
The forums tell me that certain clones have non standard ftdi chips, so need special drivers, that';s as far as I got.

The seller has asked me in pidgin English "you install drive, load soft?" (sic)  Which my babel translator  come back with:
"Have you installed the Win 7 ftdi driver and run the firmware update through OP GCS?

As they haven';t offered me a link to alternate ftdi drivers, I can only assume that they should work with the silabs standard ones, that Windows would have in its driver cache would it not?

Can somebody teach me to suck eggs and make this thing work please?  ::) 

Yours, desperate from South Leics.

[Oakie]

Could you ask them for a link to a working driver?

Lets hope, does sound a bit lego like:(  how much was it?

whats the general construction like?

and one other chore maybe uninstall the driver. restart install driver.....

I don';t know the board but seeing others having good results on this forum. Thought i may try one.

[atomiclama]

Teaching to suck eggs  ::)

What USB chip is on the board?
You mention ftdi working with silabs no, no,

Different chips different drivers.

get the correct drivers from either silabs or ftdi and try again.

[flybywire]

Could you ask them for a link to a working driver?

Lets hope, does sound a bit lego like:(  how much was it?

whats the general construction like?

and one other chore maybe uninstall the driver. restart install driver.....

I don';t know the board but seeing others having good results on this forum. Thought i may try one.

Cheers Oakie.

Ok, I will ask them for a driver, but I';m sure the link will be to the open Pilot website.  I have uninstalled/reinstalled the driver several times, and tried another from the ftdi chip website, just in case.  As for the construction, it appears to be ok, nothing out of the ordinary really, all the components present and correct.

I will read more on the CC3D page, maybe missed something, but as far as I can tell, the process is:
1)Install GCS software
2)Connect board, then select ';hold'; (Windows) or ';Rescue'; for OSX.  This will read bootloader v. 
3)download correct version of firmware for bootloader.

BTW (unless anybody knows different) the driver is installed as part of the GCS GUI software, as I found no link to a separate driver.  The drivers appear to be in the GCS program folder, under...';drivers';!

I was wondering if anybody else had bought one from GLB? 

[flybywire]

Teaching to suck eggs  ::)

What USB chip is on the board?
You mention ftdi working with silabs no, no,

Different chips different drivers.

get the correct drivers from either silabs or ftdi and try again.

Ok, I said Silabs, but that was a mental typo, it was the ftdi from ftdichip.com.  Forget Silabs!

I cannot say what USB chip it is at mo, but will check when I get home.

Thanks for your input 

[flybywire]

Moving on...
It was bricked before I opened the sealed bag.  Reading on the Open Pilot forum, I only have myself to blame for opting for a sub £20 board from China!  Fair enough I suppose, you pay';s your money and all that.
Still, I opened an ebay support request from Goodluckbuy, and in fairness after two or three perfunctory ';have you tried this...?'; type mails, they held their hands up and apologised for the inconvenience and sent another board out.  Judging from the date of my last post on this topic, which was the 8th, allowing for a couple of three days for the time delayed messages, I would say 7 days, which is pretty good going.

Anyhow, I didn';t really care that much about the timescale, just wanted a decent CC3D board, which I can happily report that this is now what I have got!

I knew immediately as soon as I plugged the thing in to the mini USB port that it was a good-un, as unlike before, as well as a steady green led, the blue was blinking slowly.
Once I';d fired up the GCS software assistant and ran the connection/update wizard, it detected the board, and read the firmware virsion, as well as showing a schematic and real time stats etc.  I wasn';t sure if it was the latest fware (it was v2 Feb 2014, so think it was) so I clicked on update, and it flashed the board.  I repowered it, and joy of joys it came up fine.

I';ve started to lay stuff out for my little ';Wasp! 250'; (documented hereabouts on this fine forum  ::)) and after reading the bumf on Rx connection, the 12a Afro';s should provide BEC power for the board & Rx (hopefully!).  If not, I of course have the option to use one of the ';variable'; clean BEC outputs from my HK Quanum PDB, which has both a 12v clean & variable from 3-20v BEC output, a very nice touch I think.
Can';t rate this thing highly enough:

It also looks very neat on the bottom plate of the frame, saving on all that unwanted spaghetti 


I';m just waiting for the Afro';s from HK now, along with some sundry hardware like stand-off';s and slightly longer M2 motor bolts 

BTW the forum wiki also stated that the most common fault for a bricked OOTB board is that it has not been flashed from the factory, which can obviously be fixed, but requires a few components that I don';t have, plus fiddling time (which I also don';t have) so, if anybody out there wants to fiddle with it, just PM me and it';s yours for the asking.

Warning:  It will be binned after a week or so!

Cheers

Andy

[philtrum]

glad you got another one and had a better experience mate, I quite like those power boards, although i think some people have had issues trying to solder on to them in the past, so make sure its nice and clean (perhaps even a rub with wire wool on the connections to clear any lacqure etc

regarding cc3d, id like to try and get it to live ... sent you a pm

Cheers
Phil

[flybywire]

Hiyah Phil
I did pm you, but sorry it';d been snapped up. 

Yes, i';ll clean the tabs TBS, but without blowin'; me own truppet too loudly,  i can make solder stick to s*** if devil drives.  And i mean that most sincerely folks.     just ask my wife about that!

[bigandy]

One thing to try, which you may or may not have tried, and it may be a bit late now, is to connect the USB socket, and then power up the board as well (so it is getting power from an external supply, not just the USB socket).  I';ve had issues with one of my cc3d boards needing an external pawer supply to connect to the GCS properly.

It only did it on my laptop though, so I suspect it might be something to do with the USB ports on my laptop....

Andy

[flybywire]

One thing to try, which you may or may not have tried, and it may be a bit late now, is to connect the USB socket, and then power up the board as well (so it is getting power from an external supply, not just the USB socket).  I';ve had issues with one of my cc3d boards needing an external pawer supply to connect to the GCS properly.

It only did it on my laptop though, so I suspect it might be something to do with the USB ports on my laptop....

Andy

Thanks Andy, must have missed this post.  I';m sure i tried everything pretty much, but something to bear in mind for the future.