Can't connect BLHeliSuite with 4in1 ESC/Durandal FC

ArduPlane Plane 4.6
1

Hi there!
I am now building OctoPlane with Durandal FC.
I bought two Aocoda-RC 2035 4in1 ESCs which have BLHeli-s FW for the VTOL motors . I am intending to controll motors through PWM not DShot.

I tried to connect BLHeliSuite with these ESCs but failed. There was following message.
“Connection to Flightcontroller failed! Please check usb/serial Port -und power-connections to the interface!”

BLHeliSuite recognizes Durandal FC because there are COM8 Duranadal and COM7 Durandal SLCAN messeges in the Port.

Please help me to resolve this issue.

2

This will help for sure: The Mother of All BLHeli Passthrough Fixes by andyp1per · Pull Request #29590 · ArduPilot/ardupilot · GitHub

3
  1. Why would you need to connect to BLHelisuite if you are using PWM?
  2. You need to configure for Dshot for passthrough to work.
4

Thank you rfriedman for your information.
But I don’t want to use the Passthrough function because the Durandal uses IO processor to which the Paththrough does not work.

5

Thank you Dave,
Followiongs are my answer for your questions.

  1. I want to change the motor parameters such as motor direction, brake and so on by BLHEliSuite.
  2. My FC(Durandal) uses IO processor to which the Passthrough does not work.
6
  1. You cannot make these changes with Blhelisuite if configured for PWM. None of them.
  2. So what? Passthrough is useless to you if configured for PWM.

Read the docs:
Warning

For pass-through to function, the autopilot must be configured to use one of the DShot protocols. If you wish to eventually use one of the other protocols (e.g. PWM, OneShot125) that the ESC supports, you may still configure the ESCs using Pass-Through (e.g. change motor directions, set min/max values, etc) but then finally re-configure the autopilot to not use DShot. Once the autopilot and ESCs are rebooted the ESC should auto-detect that the ESCs are no longer using DShot.

7

Thank you Dave, this is very important information for me!
Now I understand that I can’t use the Passthrough function because of the Durandal FC which has IO processor F100 and this means that BLHeliSuite also can’t be used for my FC.

8

Why don’t you put the 8 motors on the AUX outputs and configure them for Dshot. Then use the main outputs for control surface servos.

PWM Output

The Durandal supports up to 16 PWM outputs. First first 8 outputs (labelled “MAIN”) are controlled by a dedicated STM32F100 IO controller. These 8 outputs support all PWM output formats, but not DShot.

The remaining 8 outputs (labelled AUX1 to AUX8) are the “auxiliary” outputs. These are directly attached to the STM32H743 and support all PWM protocols as well as DShot.

9

Dave,
This manual statement is in mistake. Durandal has 8 Main and 5 AUX outputs. So, I must use at least 3 Main outputs for Octplane.

10

Are we talking about the same Flight Controller?

Durandal

11

Yes, You can confirm that 5 AUX outputs by the Pinout drawing and the picture.

12

I see that in the illustration but there seems to be 3 different configurations noted depending on the source.
That link says 8 AUX
The readme.md file in the Hwdef directory says this:
The remaining 6 outputs (labelled AUX1 to AUX6) are the “auxiliary” outputs

And the Hwdef.dat file says this:
# PWM AUX channels
PE14 TIM1_CH4 TIM1 PWM(1) GPIO(50)
PA10 TIM1_CH3 TIM1 PWM(2) GPIO(51)
PE11 TIM1_CH2 TIM1 PWM(3) GPIO(52)
PE9 TIM1_CH1 TIM1 PWM(4) GPIO(53)
PD13 TIM4_CH2 TIM4 PWM(5) GPIO(54)
PD14 TIM4_CH3 TIM4 PWM(6) GPIO(55)
# we need to disable DMA on the last 2 FMU channels
# as timer 12 doesn’t have a TIMn_UP DMA option
PH6 TIM12_CH1 TIM12 PWM(7) GPIO(56) NODMA
PH9 TIM12_CH2 TIM12 PWM(8) GPIO(57) NODMA

So, I don’t know what to believe.

But anyway, if you are using PWM for the motors none of this makes any difference.

13

Holybro HP says that the Durandal has 13 PWM outputs (8 from IO, 5 from FMU).
Overview & Technical Specification | Holybro

14

OK, so the Ardupilot docs are in error.

It’s interesting that it says F100/F103 for the co- processor. Do you have a BRD_IO_DSHOT parameter in the full parameter list?

Some boards with F103’s support Dshot on the Main outputs by enabling this. Won’t work for F100

15

Unfortunately my Durandal has F100 co-processor because I bought it at the early stage of Durandal development.

16

Seems the better question to ask is, “which autopilot best supports an Octo configuration with BlHeli ESCs?”

The answer to which includes, but is not limited to the Holybro Pixhawk 6X and CUAV v6X.

17

Yea, or a board w/o the annoying IOMCU.

18

Dave,
I read the document’s warning again and have changed my undestanding.The warning says " If you wish to eventually use one of the other protocols (e.g. PWM, OneShot125) that the ESC supports, you may still configure the ESCs using Pass-Through"

I think it must be OK not to use Pass-through. i.e. direct comunication between BLHeliSuite and ESC must be possible by disconnecting MissionPlanner but still USB is connected.
The reason why I think so is that if you can’t use BLHeliSuite when you select PWM protocol, there is no way to configure ESCs (change motor directions, set min/max values, etc). This is very strange as the old-type ESCs have program cards by which you can configure them.

How do you think about my understanding?

19

That’s what I have been telling you. The Blheli configurator requires a Dshot protocol to communicate.

20

Then, do you mean there is no way to configure BLHeli ESCs when PWM protocol is selected?