Please help me with esc id assignment

[xxcysxx]

Hello everyone!
So I have this Intel aero drone and I crashed it in a mission flight with QGroundControl. One of the rear esc stop working and so I bought a new one. After attaching the new esc my drone now doesn't take off correctly anymore, even in manual flight mode with the transmitter. the esc is created by yuneec for intel, and I also got the yuneec programmer dongle, yuna100. But I could not find any documentation online about how to perform the esc id assignment operation. I tried to download the typhoon h gui windows app and as well as the typhoon 500 gui windows app. none of them was able to detect the drone through the programmer dongle. Unfortunately intel has discontinued support for the intel aero product and yuneec wouldn't help me either though email.
Could some body please me on how to do this so I can get my drone flying again.

Thanks

 

[PatR]

Take a look at Pixhawk and APM websites to locate the motor numbering layouts for various frame configuration. If your Intel is an H-8 you will have to do a little guessing using their base H depiction as a guide.

Where did you obtain the programming dongle?

BTW, ESC/motor assignment is normally done at the RC receiver by plugging the comm lead into the appropriate port.

 

[xxcysxx]

Take a look at Pixhawk and APM websites to locate the motor numbering layouts for various frame configuration. If your Intel is an H-8 you will have to do a little guessing using their base H depiction as a guide.

Where did you obtain the programming dongle?

BTW, ESC/motor assignment is normally done at the RC receiver by plugging the comm lead into the appropriate port.

Hi PatR, thank you for your responding. I got the dongle from yuneec website.
This one

ESC Programmer and Adapter Cable | Yuneec USA

us.yuneec.com

To be honest I've been stuck on this for several days already and really don't have any more ideas to try.
so right now the yuneec usb programmer dongle looks like this. It came with the 10 pin plug attachment at the end just like that, inside a zip lock bag with no usage manual or documentation.

And inside the dongle, it look like this

I tried to connect it to the drone on any socket that fits and it seems there's only two ports that will fit it. one on the peripheral connector board located on the compute board's case, and the other on the power distribution unit.
The intel aero drone uses a spektrum satellite receiver. its a serial type receiver. So you think I should connect the dongle to where the satellite receiver plugs into? How do I know if the receiver port has gnd,tx,rx like on the programming dongle? or if it has a gnd,pos,sig?
Also, what interface do I use to change the id of the esc, like what gui program do I use that will recognize the drone once I get it connected?

Thanks again for any help you may offer

 

[DoomMeister]

Hello everyone!
So I have this Intel aero drone and I crashed it in a mission flight with QGroundControl. One of the rear esc stop working and so I bought a new one. After attaching the new esc my drone now doesn't take off correctly anymore, even in manual flight mode with the transmitter. the esc is created by yuneec for intel, and I also got the yuneec programmer dongle, yuna100. But I could not find any documentation online about how to perform the esc id assignment operation. I tried to download the typhoon h gui windows app and as well as the typhoon 500 gui windows app. none of them was able to detect the drone through the programmer dongle. Unfortunately intel has discontinued support for the intel aero product and yuneec wouldn't help me either though email.
Could some body please me on how to do this so I can get my drone flying again.

Thanks

The dongle should have come with instructions according to the Intel website. Where did you purchase the dongle from?

 

[PatR]

That dongle was originally designed to serve the Q-500 so I don’t have anything to go on. In theory connecting the dongle would open up an access and settings program on a laptop.

As for where to connect, I would first look for a micro USB at or leading to the FC. I would not worry about grounds or pin outs. If it’s the wrong port it just won’t function, with a very high probability of not hurting anything.

As an aside, I don’t know how your ESC’s are set up. If they are a 3 wire arrangement and rotation is wrong the correct function might be achieved by just swapping any two wires.

Would you mind posting a picture of the drone? Thanks.

 

[xxcysxx]

The dongle should have come with instructions according to the Intel website. Where did you purchase the dongle from?

I got the dongle from that yuneec website that I posted the link above. I bought two of them, and they both came just like that in a zip lock bag and nothing else. There was no instruction or manual at all. I even called them on the phone and asked about it and they said that they made it according to intel specification and I should take it up to intel if I have any problems with it. but intel have discontinued support for this drone already.

 

[PatR]

The whole story had Intel discontinuing support of Yuneec.

 

[xxcysxx]

That dongle was originally designed to serve the Q-500 so I don’t have anything to go on. In theory connecting the dongle would open up an access and settings program on a laptop.

As for where to connect, I would first look for a micro USB at or leading to the FC. I would not worry about grounds or pin outs. If it’s the wrong port it just won’t function, with a very high probability of not hurting anything.

As an aside, I don’t know how your ESC’s are set up. If they are a 3 wire arrangement and rotation is wrong the correct function might be achieved by just swapping any two wires.

Would you mind posting a picture of the drone? Thanks.

So I tried to do that, swapping two of the motor wires if it spins in the reverse direction. unfortunately yuneec made the esc with uart protocol where all esc receives messages over single uart bus through the power distribution board. each of the esc has a unique id so that all the esc can operate and share the same uart bus. below are some photos of the esc and some additional components for insight purposes.

 

[xxcysxx]

Also, this is the power distribution module of where all the esc are connected to.


the three pins on the 11pin port on the left is the uart pins connecting to the compute board. the three pins on the 10pin port on the right is where the uart pins that connects to the peripheral module. and it look like this

 

[xxcysxx]

Here's a picture of the drone

 

[PatR]

Based on appearance I would look at the manner Pixhawk assigns motor locations.

 

[h-elsner]

First I have to say, I have not experiences with Intel Aero.
But I have a Blade 350QX. This drone is controled by Spectrum RC and has a spectrum receiver with serial connection. But you can replace it with an SR24 receiver from Yuneec. Means for me, the serial bus is the same.
@WTFDproject made a very good overview:


If the USB to serial drivers are working you can see in the Device manager. If you connect the dongle you should get a new device with a COM number:

This COM number should used by the GUI program.
If you tried already the GUI from Typhoon H and from Q500, a minimal chance maybe the GUI from Blade 350QX but this one is very near to the Q500.

https://www.horizonhobby.com/pdf/350_QX_PC_Interface.zip

br HE

 

[h-elsner]

I found a document "Getting started" here:

https://www.intel.com/content/***/s...aero/intel-aero-rtf-drone-getting-started.pdf

It says, that you should use QGroundControl to setup the drone. Have you tried the ESC assignment with QGC?

br HE

 

[h-elsner]

If nobody else knows what tool you need, I think or better I hope the best help you may get from @Pöllö.
You can try to send a PM.

br HE

 

[DoomMeister]

There is some information from Intel here Support for Intel® Aero Products

 

[xxcysxx]

I found a document "Getting started" here:

https://www.intel.com/content/***/s...aero/intel-aero-rtf-drone-getting-started.pdf

It says, that you should use QGroundControl to setup the drone. Have you tried the ESC assignment with QGC?

br HE

Hi elsner, thank you for assistance.
I've tried qgc to assign the motors, unfortunately it doesn't work. I think it use to assign motors on UAVCAN bus protocol. so I don't think they're compatible with uart protocol.

I've also downloaded the blade 350qx interface you provided and it look exactly like the q500 gui interface. so I have a feeling that the two interface software is likely to have a hard-coded product identifier that recognizes the product its connected to. unfortunately, intel doesn't provide one like it to program their drone's esc.
do you know of a generic way I can read/write the uart settings from the esc without using any propriety software?

 

[h-elsner]

It's really a surprise for me that nowhere in internet a information about ESC assignment is available. Strange. Usually it is hard to cover all tracks in internet, but Intel seems to be very successful with its Aero product?
After long search I found only this unanswered question:

https://developer.yuneec.com/forum/general/request-instructions-using-intel-aero-esc-programmer-assign-esc-id-new-esc

Hmm. If I would know, what I have to look for, I would try the Archive.org way back machine. It stores old websites and I found there in the past drivers for old soundcards that are no more available on the product site of the manufacturer.

I hve no glue how to address the ESC and did not found something meaningful in the wiki or software repository on GitHub.

br HE

 

[xxcysxx]

It's really a surprise for me that nowhere in internet a information about ESC assignment is available. Strange. Usually it is hard to cover all tracks in internet, but Intel seems to be very successful with its Aero product?
After long search I found only this unanswered question:

https://developer.yuneec.com/forum/general/request-instructions-using-intel-aero-esc-programmer-assign-esc-id-new-esc

Hmm. If I would know, what I have to look for, I would try the Archive.org way back machine. It stores old websites and I found there in the past drivers for old soundcards that are no more available on the product site of the manufacturer.

I hve no glue how to address the ESC and did not found something meaningful in the wiki or software repository on GitHub.

br HE

Thank you again for your efforts in assisting me. I have reached out to Pöllö as you have suggested.
over the past several days I think I have exhausted all ideas of trying to get it to work.
Your comment about the blade350qx interface software provides another insight that I wasn't aware about. So it seems the interface software might be generic, clearly shared between yuneec and horizon hobby. would there be a source code for it somewhere?
Would you know of any generic way to directly access the uart bus and communicate with the controller. it would be useful to read what's coming out of it to see whats going on.

 

[Pöllö]

Hi xxcysxx and h-elsner,

Hmm, this could be a bit more difficult one. Here are something that came to my mind:

The Q500 Typhoon GUI, available here: Downloads - Typhoon Q500 4K, but that might need a complete Q500 drone. Worth trying still, I think, if it could behave a different way when an ESC is attached, instead of a complete drone (well, likely not..). I used to do some things with Aero few years back, but I do not recall any ESC ID assignment command. Could there be a command-line tool inside the Aero's Linux system for assigning the ID?



Here is the TAP_ESC driver from PX4 that drives the Yuneec's UART ESCs, however I did not find anything of interest regarding setting the ID in there: PX4/Firmware

Try that Q500 GUI first, let's think our next steps after that.

Br,

Toni

 

[DoomMeister]

@Haydn ,

Any chance you may be able to find the instructions that would have been included with the ESC programmer listed in this link Intel® Aero Ready to Fly Drone Spare Parts.

Support has ended with Intel, and the parts for the Aero RTF provided by Yuneec were to include them, but Yuneec now says they have no involvement. Just thought you may have some contacts that may be able to provide the instructions.

Appreciate any help you might be able to give.