Esc calibrates, but won't arm

ArduCopter Copter 3.2
1

So I’m using an APM2.8 on a quadcopter and having issues with one of my ESCs (Turnigy Plush 25A). When I calibrate them, either individually or all at once, they work fine. I get all the correct noises and, when calibrated all at once, they all react to the throttle input properly. However, when I get out of calibration mode and reconnect the battery one of my ESCs beeps (roughly 2 seconds in between beepings indicating throttle signal is abnormal). When I arm the copter, the other three motors will spin, but the one with the beeping ESC does not. The beeping ESC is connected to output pin 4 of the FC. If I connect this ESC signal wire to a different output pin it works fine, and if I connect a different ESC signal wire to pin 4 it beeps. I find it hard to believe that something is wrong with the FC output pin as I can calibrate the ESC through it and it will respond appropriately to the throttle input. I also tried resetting the entire board and going back through the initial setup with no luck. Any thoughts?

FYI. I had the copter flying yesterday with no problems. Last night Mission Planner updated and stopped working for me, so I had to reinstall it.

2

I [have had a few strange faults in the past with the APM and found that refreshing the firmware fixed it 75% of the time.

Does the log show RCout to that channel?
Does everything else in the log look ok?

3

Thanks for he quick reply! I did try refreshing the firmware. I installed the Arduplane firmware and then reinstalled the Arducopter firmware (easiest way I could find to insure that EEPROM was cleared). I have minimum experience with the log files. Should I be looking for an RCout value to that specific output pin, or just a general RCout value? Honestly, I’m not going to be able to say whether or not everything else looks ok. I just don’t have that knowledge at the moment. Would it be possible to attach the log here so that someone could look at it, or is that not allowed?

4

According to my log file, the outputs are functioning. I also just noticed that on the Failsafe tab in Mission Planner, it appears that RC1-4 are outputting correctly. For some reason, though, the signal is either not actually being sent to RC4 and Mission Planner is lying to me, or the ESC is not picking up the signal. Again, the ESC and motor on RC4 will work when connected to a different output pin, and the RC4 output pin will work while in ESC calibration mode.

5

For a quick fix, I just connected the ESC to output pin 5 and set the parameter RC5_FUNCTION to 36. I got that particular value from here:

RCx_FUNCTION parameters

This will work for now, but I would still like to figure out the initial issue if anyone comes across this.

6

For all support questions it is recommended to include a .log file or .bin file from the flight controller so others can see what is going on inside the controller.

It’s often impossible to discern a fault from user descriptions with additional information.

even pics of the wiring and setup helps.