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First Quad, need some help

Mind_boy

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Hey guys, I am in some need of some help. way back in christmas, I got the kingkong 210gt from hobbyking, but I received a DOA drone, I contacted Hobby King, but they said that they could not replace it because they were out. So we got our money back, and I purchased the parts parts for UAVfutures;
(This is a long post so please just hear me out ;p)

We ordered the parts form banggood and waited a LONG time for them to come, but once they came I put it together. but it didn't work. when I plugged in the battery it would give it power but then it would turn off, and it was really finicky, my dad and I really wanted to get this thing up and running, seeing that we bought it all the while back, to replace something for christmas, so we ordered a new PDB, but since banggoog takes forever to ship stuff we just got ordered it again from amazon, and so I have one, and another is on the way. I put in the new PDB, (Not bothering with FPV for right now) but when working with the PDB I accidently covered two pads with the same glob of solder, so when I plugged in my battery to test it sparks started flying. So I cleared the pads, and tried again, and everything seemed to be working. So then I plugged in my SPF3 board, and then plugged in the transmitter, but no cigar. So I unplugged the SPF3, opened up betaflight, and tried connecting it, but it couldn't connect to betaflight :/ keep in mind I have already flashed software to this board. So I tried flashing it again but it didn't work. So now do I have a broken racing board? I am not sure how I could have broken it LOL. So that is my problem, I would really appreciate it if you guys could help me, do I need a new racing board? Is there a way I can fix this? Thanks for your time in advance :)
 
There really isn't enough information here to be certain of what is going on with your quad, the FC could be broken, but flashing or connecting to the FC is one of the more troublesome issues you can run into, even if it was connecting before something could have changed like a windows update that may have broken comms. The second hardest thing sometimes is the get the TX-RX-FC comm working and adjusted for proper flight.

Let's star with some basics, when you plug the FC up to the PC with a PROPER DATA CABLE, not just a charging cable, does the PC make the da-ding sound of the driver being loaded? Do you get any LED's on the FC?
 
So if you short the boot pins on the FC and plug in the USB, the red LED should not come on at all meaning you are in Bootloader mode and you should see that in the top right of the Betaflight configurator Port should say DFU, does it?
 
Nope :/ I've tried multiple times, shorting the wires on the boot pads and plugging in, the red light still flashes, no attention from betaflight.
(I am in the states)
 
These pins right? And how are you shorting them? Can you post a pic?
Does the Blue LED come on also?

upload_2018-6-9_23-21-57.png
 

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Yes, I short both pins, but both lights still come on. nothing is different.
 
Then the board is not going into bootloader mode, I have had some trouble recently doing the same, but a dozen tries later it worked. I would try a few more times but maybe the board is bad. In 2 years of playing with these things I have never seen a bad FC but perhaps the sparks did it in. It would be nice if you had another quad to be able to prove that the serial comm and the configurator was working but the blue and red LED's say the board is fine if the red flashes a number of times and then goes out and the blue one stays on.
 
By the way, when you plug the board in, the redd LED should blink a number of times rapidly and then go out. When that happens it has loaded the flight control software from memory and is up an running waiting on commands, even if some damage may exist, this sequence says the CPU is up and running. If the redd stayed on solid it would mean that it was unable to run the flight control software and had halted, and when it doesn't come on at all it means the CPU never auto loaded the flight control software. If the red LED continues to blink slowly after the initial boot up then it means it does not see a valid receiver but is otherwise functional. Hopefully this can help you narrow down if the FC seems to be saying it is working from the red LED indications. Ask anyone on here, they will tell you, we have all had issues getting this to work even when things were fine last week. We have all fallen prey to a wrong USB cable or windows update or some other inconsistency, but you should be able to get this. I am Eastern US, if I can lend a hand let me know.
 
First off I would like to say thank you for helping me. Shorting the boot pins or not, it makes do difference. Blue light turns on and stays on, red light flashes quickly, then slows down but still flashes. I have tried multiple times. FYI I have currently desoldered it from the quad, no wires are coming out of it. And still no attention from betaflight.
(I am in northern Ohio)
 
Ok, it sure sounds like the FC is up and running, does not see a valid receiver signal of the type configured, so lets talk specifically about BF...

I did this all again last night to remind myself of what's what and how this particular FC responds )I have quite a few different ones now and they are all different and unique.

If the FC and the serial driver are installed correctly you will see the "CP210x USB to UART Bridge" in the Ports section of Device Manager, do you see it on yours?
 
OK, when I plug it in and go to devices it says CP2102 USB to UART Controller.
(driver is unavailable)
 
Ok, so that does mean your PC isn't right. I would try to re-install the 2 programs to see if that will fix it.
DO NOT load Zadig, just reinstall the first 2

upload_2018-6-13_13-54-16.png
 
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ImmersionRC driver fixer program may help here too
Yeah, I am keeping that for last as these SPF3 boards cannot be found by the fixer, so I am not certain it will make a positive change until the configurator can connect outside of boot mode. With the latest standalone configurator they don't even show as DFU anymore once in the boot loader, but they flash ok even tho most of the time I need to set Flash on Connect to get it started.
 

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