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How easy is it to change GPS battery in Typhoon H, Q500 and Chroma?

Checking the ST16 is a good idea. The slider for Turtle to Rabbit has been behaving like it wants to stay in Turtle. However, I am not familiar with how to test it. Do your comments mean that I can self-test the ST16 thru its self-diagnostics? If so, I will give it a go and report back.
 
Turning on ST16 and tapping upper left corner of screen results in a blank screen except for an SD card icon in the upper right corner of the screen with "N/A" to its right. This is intriguing because I can see an SD card in its slot on the bottom of the transmitter. What does this mean?
 
Thank you for clarifying that I need to tap on Volts icon. CH01 reads 50% at null position of J1. In Rabbit, CH01 reads 72% at full up and 25% full down of J1. Depressing B1 causes CH01 to read -25% with J1 in null position. In Turtle, CH01 reads 66% full up and 25% full down of J1. These values would be consistent with my observation that my Typhoon was flying as if it was in Turtle even when I moved the side slider to Rabbit. What might this mean for the Typhoon's inability to take off or is it a separate problem?
 
First, do a calibration. The present digits aren't good. Here have a lot of videos.

Still, no one can clearly say how looks this inability. Do the propellers spin faster in response to throttle up or they don't?
 
Thank you for clarifying that I need to tap on Volts icon. CH01 reads 50% at null position of J1. In Rabbit, CH01 reads 72% at full up and 25% full down of J1. Depressing B1 causes CH01 to read -25% with J1 in null position. In Turtle, CH01 reads 66% full up and 25% full down of J1. These values would be consistent with my observation that my Typhoon was flying as if it was in Turtle even when I moved the side slider to Rabbit. What might this mean for the Typhoon's inability to take off or is it a separate problem?
This is definitely affecting your ability to throttle up.

Before doing the ST16 calibration use the Hardware Monitor to check that all buttons, sliders, dials, and sticks are functioning as they should. All four stick axes should follow your movements both fast and slow, reach full limits up/down/left/right and return to center position.

If all are functioning correctly then do the calibration, if not clean the potentiometers and recheck In Hardware Monitor.

Here is a video by @Steve Carr that explains the process of calibration. The most important part is the sticks, sliders, and dial being at center befor pressing Finish and Next in the first part of the calibration.

 
ST16 is recharging now. Thank you for the link to Steve Carr's ST16 calibration You Tube video. Will get a look at it and run the calibration by tomorrow.
 
Watched Steve Carr video and pulled my ST16 off of charge to run the calibration test. J1 failed. All other sticks, switches, buttons and sliders passed. Hardware monitor shows J1 settles slowly back to null point while other sticks snap back to null points. It looks Like my ST16 has a bad J1 but is it in addition to something else preventing me from flying?
 
Am happy to report that I finally got my Typhoon H motors to throttle up after motor start. My problem was a dirty throttle potentiometer in my ST16. It was out of spec and failed hardware and calibration tests until I cleaned it along with its cable connections. Many thanks to DoomMeister for his additional questions and suggestions that led me to resolve my Typhoon's reluctance to fly. That discussion thread is: https://yuneecpilots.com/conversations/arming-issues.9085/#convMessage-54190
The link was inoperable because it was to a Conversation which is private. I copied that exchange to post #35 of this thread.
 
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Just glad you are up and running again.

I’m not sure if others beside you and myself can see that Conversation.

Maybe another member can try the link and let us know if it works for them. If it doesn’t I’ll copy and paste the relevant info to this thread.
 
As you can see, I am still getting the hang of a lot of things including how to effectively navigate this forum. Thanks to Vaklin for finding that my posted link to the other conversation thread does not work. Good news now would be that I can now help another club member whose Typhoon refuses to start its motors by directing him to run the Yuneec GUI on his PC. Apparently, the only previous time I used a GUI was to check my Q500 4K and move its geofence out to 1200 feet from 400. The 1200-foot distance is all it has to fly to reach the boundary of our flight area to search for lost model aircraft.
 
It looks there will be plenty of opportunity get the two threads linked because my Typhoon's problems may not be resolved. Was going to drive to my flying club airfield this morning but decided to again open ST16 and clean J3 and J4 as well as their large connector to circuit board. That went OK. As with J2, my ST16 has J4 cable factory glued in its socket, so I did not do more than spray that potentiometer rather than remove the glue to spray the connector. Anyway, got it all back together. Did hardware tests - everything passed, so I thought I was ready to go put the Typhoon on a stump and calibrate its compass. However, I lost GPS lock. I powered off and restarted. Got lock and checked to see if motors throttled up. They started and throttled up. I quickly shut them down. Now I am going to go outdoors into breezy 28 F weather to see if calibrating the compass will help me retain GPS lock. I am wondering if I still have a bad FCB in my Typhoon. Time will tell. At least I did not drive to the airfield only to fail to fly.
 
Posted this on conversation with DoomMeister today: "It looks there will be plenty of opportunity get the two threads linked because my Typhoon's problems may not be resolved. Was going to drive to my flying club airfield this morning but decided to again open ST16 and clean J3 and J4 as well as their large connector to circuit board. That went OK. As with J2, my ST16 has J4 cable factory glued in its socket, so I did not do more than spray that potentiometer rather than remove the glue to spray the connector. Anyway, got it all back together. Did hardware tests - everything passed, so I thought I was ready to go put the Typhoon on a stump and calibrate its compass. However, I lost GPS lock. I powered off and restarted. Got lock and checked to see if motors throttled up. They started and throttled up. I quickly shut them down. Now I am going to go outdoors into breezy 28 F weather to see if calibrating the compass will help me retain GPS lock. I am wondering if I still have a bad FCB in my Typhoon. Time will tell. At least I did not drive to the airfield only to fail to fly."

After creating that post, placed Typhoon on level stone wall near stump, powered up, got GPS lock and calibrated compass. Then calibrated accelerometer. Toggled camera control and toggled from "Follow Me" to "Watch Me." The camera turned 180 degrees and watched me. Returned camera to Follow Me and locked it there by switching S2 to top position. As I stood there feeling like something had been accomplished, lost GPS lock. Shut everything down and went back inside. Put Typhoon in bay window and powered up. Briefly got GPS lock. Switched S2 and toggled camera to "Watch Me." It turned 90 degrees to its right instead of 180 degrees to where the TX and I were located. Returned camera to "Follow Me" and noted that Typhoon had again lost GPS lock. Shut down TX. Left Typhoon powered on in the bay window with intention to test GPS lock duration later this afternoon. Typhoon motors now throttle up because J1 is working OK. Based on the fact that I have been flying this Typhoon over a period of several months without noticing that it was losing GPS lock until it also began to fail to throttle up its motors, I know I still have a GPS lock problem, but I do not whether it is the FCB or the GPS module. Does anyone have any suggestions for additional tests?
 
There was originally some discussion about the area of use being part of the issue and that portion will be omitted.

AH-64D:
Just posted to my original query thread about replacing batteries that I ran ST16 calibration tests and then hardware monitor. The tests show J1 is bad. Hardware monitor shows it is slow to settle back to its null point. Should I blast that stick with CRC QD Electronic Cleaner and repeat calibration test several hours later?

DoomMeister:
I would suggest cleaning the potentiometers using the method outlined in the document attached to this post. It also covers things to observe about the mounting of the potentiometers. We have also found the small JST connectors at the stick gimbals to be part of the issue. My original ST16 was terrible about oxidizing and since soldering those wires directly to the board at the stick gimbals I am not having to spray the potentiometers anymore. If you are good at soldering it is not a difficult task, if not leave it to someone that is.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that cleaning and getting good response in Hardware Monitor should be done before ever doing the calibration.

Another thing came to mind. The slow return to center may also be related to the potentiometer for J1 being loose in its mounting.

AH-64D:

Very Good points DoomMeister. Saw a good YouTube video on opening the ST-16 case. Will look at the document you posted, open the case to clean the things from the inside and decide whether I want to solder the connections. I do have the tools and experience to solder the leads but the last soldering I did showed my age. I will consider that factor before heating up an iron.


Just checked and found I still have a decades old spray can of Cramolin B-5 PreservIT. Used to use it to clean electrical contacts of oxidation. Using it may have a better result than my efforts to solder closely spaced small wires. Will put some on a swab and check to see if it is OK for plastic of the gimbal assembly. However, first things first. Will first clean things with CRC QD spray and determine if that is enough to resolve my J1 problem.

DoomMeister:
Those wires are small and closely spaced. Requires a small tip, about 300 C for temp, tin the wires, get on and off quickly to avoid delaminating the pads. If I remember correctly I used pads near the ones that the connector is mounted in.

When using the QD to clean the potentiometer spray it then vigorously stir it. You can also swap the stick gimbals to see if the problem follows the gimbal or stays with J1.

AH-64D:

The QD spray can lacked its small tube for directing spray at a restricted area. The Cramolin can had its nozzle tube and a test wipe showed that it did not harm the plastic TX parts. I used Cramolin on J1. I removed and replaced its cable 2x at J1 but was unable to free the other end of the cable where it attaches to the mixer (?) board. I wiggled that connector as I sprayed it. Hardware test showed some J1 improvement, but it still flunks the calibration test. J1 seems to lack the necessary range to pass the test at this point. It does now settle quickly at null position, but its width at null is wider than J2 in the hardware monitor. I have opened the ST16 back up for another go. The Typhoon most likely did fly with J1 bad based on its noted "Stuck in Rabbit" flight behavior. I think I will install the replacement FCB in the Typhoon when it arrives and learn if a bad FCB is the problem.

Thank you for the soldering tips. My related best solder job was replacing an internal 1/4 wave wire antenna of a 350QX with an external half wave dipole antenna by removing the wire antenna from its board and soldering a UFL socket in its place. My worst solder job was attaching the ESC leads of a quad to its power distribution board in a "Build Your Own Drone" class. Since the class was much more recent than the 350QX solder work, I concluded that age does not improve soldering skills. I will only solder as a last resort.

Swapping the stick gimbals would be edifying, but it would also require me to disconnect and reattach the larger cable connectors at the mixer board. That may break something.

Got everything to pass after another go at cleaning J1. It passed hardware and calibration tests. The hardware monitor shows its width of position at null the same as the other controls. Now have to do compass and accelerometer calibrations if I find that I can get GPS lock when I turn on my Typhoon. To try that out, will have to charge a flight battery.

Oh, almost forgot to mention - This time, was able to disconnect the big plug that couples J1 and J2 to the mixing (?) board. I just had to figure out how to unlock the connector. Cleaned those connections also, using both QD and Cramolin.

Curiosity got the best of me. I turned things on with the Typhoon sitting in the bow window seat. It quickly achieved lock. I started the motors and got them to throttle up. Got 5 motor warning very quickly so shut down and prepared to charge batteries to do necessary calibrations...

DoomMeister:
That is good news! All three JST connectors for each gimbal have a tendency to get the invisible oxidation on them. They still appear shiny, but are not as shiny as they should be. Part of your issue with J1 could very well have been with the larger connector on the mixer board.

Way to stick with the troubleshooting and working until you get rid of the problem.

AH-64D:
Just added to other thread that I had calibrated compass and accelerometer while in GPS lock today; verified lock by getting camera to watch me only to then lose lock as it sat in my yard. I believe that I have been flying for months without noticing that I had GPS lock problems and only began to question things when my Typhoon was grounded by J1 issues.
 

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There is a notice in the manual on the LED STATUS INDICATIONS page that reads: White blink between solid flight mode indicat4es enough satellites for Watch Me/Follow Me. I was dumbly confusing this white blink every 3 seconds with the 3 times per second blinking Green or Purple light indicating loss of GPS lock in Smart or Angle mode. I apologize for wasting a lot of your time and discussion space. You did help me solve my lack of throttle up problem by suggesting that I clean the stick potentiometers. Thank you.
 
If you lose GPS lock, the ST16 will vibrate and a warning pop up will appear on the screen telling you to take manual control of the aircraft.
 
You have mentioned a couple of times about getting the 5 Rotor Warning. You will get that every time you throttle up with no props mounted. It's normal operation.
 
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I figured that was why I got the 5 Rotor Warning. At this point, cleaning the stick potentiometers has solved my takeoff problems. I ran a number of calibrations during troubleshooting and was not pleased that gimbal calibrations left my camera tilted slightly down instead of horizontal. This rainy morning, I put my Typhoon H in my bow window and carefully leveled it with shims. Gimbal calibration with Typhoon H accurately leveled resulted in a satisfactory horizontal tilt of the camera. The lesson learned was that surfaces that look level are not necessarily really level. If the manual specifies that the Typhoon must be resting on a stable level surface for calibration, use shims and a level to verify that the surface you choose is level. Thanks again for all your help in getting my Typhoon H back into the air.
 

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