So, I recently got a pixhawk from aliexpress (a 2.4.8 version so they claim) and it worked perfectly on the first few bootups (not flown yet, only setting up). I did accidentally reverse-connect all the PWM outputs on it the first time (I thought signal was upwards as usual) but I quickly fixed it and it worked normally after that too. Then came the problem. I once turned it on like normal, and it booted but about 15 seconds in an esc BEC started to smoke and blew. I quickly unplugged everything before further damage occured.
These were previously tested battle hardened ESCs (I was upgrading from APM) and I have no clue why it happened (shorted inside pixhawk?). Anyways, I powered over usb again later and it worked as usual then too but the next day it refused to boot (FMU was working fine, all leds normal but on the IO side no leds lit up, not even power). Mavlink connects, reads parameters but the artificial horizon does not budge and shows “Check BRD_TYPE, failed to update IO firmware”. Tried reflashing firmware many times to no avail. (firmware flash success but no IO firmware update sound from buzzer.) No physical damage on the board at all.
I was wondering if it was saveable since the IO runs on the FMU processor (right? the IO is done over the firmware I think) so If the FMU works then IO should work. Will forcing / reflashing the bootloader help? And If so how to?
And shouldn’t I be able to fly from the backup processor if the main is fried?
Thanks a lot in advance!