I had arducopter plugged in and connected to mission planner via USB. I kept getting a warning that the battery voltage was low.
I disconnected from mission planner then unplugged the usb cord.
I plugged in my lipo battery.
the board flashed the green light then quickly faded out.
I tried this again and the same scenario happened. I unplugged the battery and plugged in the USB. Same situation. I could smell a little something what a circuit had fried.
What’s going on? Did my board just fry itself for seemingly no reason?
** EDIT **
I checked my battery just in case and it’s at 12.4 (an 11.1v lipo) So it’s on the full end of charged. Also, still getting the green light with quick (.5s) fade.
The board has probably died but one check is to unplug everything from the board and then just power it from the USB. and make sure you use a PC Based USB not a HUB.
If it still fails to boot the board is faulty, if it boots fine something you plugged in is taking it down.
I had the same thing with mine a couple of days ago, first tests showed it was the MAVLink at fault as it booted fine with that unplugged, but it turned out the be the power distribution unit not supplying enough for everything plugged in.
So bizarre twist - I decided I would try to plug in USBASP to my mac to see what would happen. There was a POP and I saw smoke trickling up from the board. At this moment I knew it was toast.
I plugged the micro usb cord back into the board just out of curiosity and guess what? It worked! I fired up mission planner and that worked too. What in the world is going on here??
It sounds like you had a short on the board. There’s a solid state fuse that drops the current to protect the board when the current goes too high. The fuse will get hot when this happens. Hence the smell. When you plugged in the USBASP you bi-passed the fuse, so the rest of the board and the short got full current. Hence now the smoke. The power of the current surge blew the short circuit. In your case seems lucky as it was probably a whisker of solder that vaporized, and no other components in that circuit where damaged.