2 years stored, nothing works

[Oli540]

Hi all, been flying for about six years, my inspire hasn't seen daylight for two years. Everything was perfect last flight.. turned up to a job today and the controller beeps non stop flashing red, occasionally links to the aircraft but won't initiate any control, landing gear works to storage mode but won't go up or down as it should. I'm so confused, I thought the radio has de linked but the fact it allows storage mode tells me it is connected somewhat. When I finally got the craft linked to the phone, I couldn't pull up any info, battery showed zero and nothing worked. Have any of you fine pilots got any ideas? So far, I can't get the bastard to even link to my phone

 

[Jorge Vergara Latoja]

Hi all, been flying for about six years, my inspire hasn't seen daylight for two years. Everything was perfect last flight.. turned up to a job today and the controller beeps non stop flashing red, occasionally links to the aircraft but won't initiate any control, landing gear works to storage mode but won't go up or down as it should. I'm so confused, I thought the radio has de linked but the fact it allows storage mode tells me it is connected somewhat. When I finally got the craft linked to the phone, I couldn't pull up any info, battery showed zero and nothing worked. Have any of you fine pilots got any ideas? So far, I can't get the bastard to even link to my phone

Hello, I have no experience with the Inspire 1, but if with my Inspire 2, you say that you have had the drone stored for 2 years, my question has to do with the batteries of both the drone and the RC, did you keep them charged during that time.?…If so, that you have been able to charge both the RC and the drone battery, I think you should try connecting the Drone to your PC and check the Firmwere, perhaps recharge it, but previously make a new link between the RC and Drone and try, if no results, try Firmwere update, reinstall it for both Drone and RC. From what you describe, that they manage to link at times gives me the idea that there is a link problem. Do not comment if there is any error in the App. I will be attentive to your comments. Peace.!

 

[Donnie Frank]

Hi all, been flying for about six years, my inspire hasn't seen daylight for two years. Everything was perfect last flight.. turned up to a job today and the controller beeps non stop flashing red, occasionally links to the aircraft but won't initiate any control, landing gear works to storage mode but won't go up or down as it should. I'm so confused, I thought the radio has de linked but the fact it allows storage mode tells me it is connected somewhat.

This is classic firmware mismatch.

When I finally got the craft linked to the phone

AHA!!! The very first thing you would've experienced was a persistent message to update your firmware. You must have allowed this. There's no other explanation for the firmware mismatch.

, I couldn't pull up any info, battery showed zero and nothing worked. Have any of you fine pilots got any ideas?

Firmware mismatch.

So far, I can't get the bastard to even link to my phone

This is a completely different symptom. Just so I understand your problem completely, you're saying that with the drone OFF, you can't link the controller to your phone??? You should be able to link your phone to your device with the drone powered off. If you can't, this would be a hardware failure. Naturally, check the cable first. Second, try a different smart device to eliminate the controller's USB port as the culprit. But honestly, I have seen USB ports fail on remote controls that have been in long storage.

D

 

[Oli540]

Hi guys thanks for responding.
It's a weird one, it took me a long time to find usb settings on this new phone, found it, set to midi, restarted it, and then the radio linked to the phone only the once. I have not updated any firmware as I don't want to ruin what was a solid reliable problem free aircraft. The newest thing in the mix is the app on this new phone I guess.

Battery wise.. being intelligent self regulating batteries i naively just left them half charged, they drained themselves.. so I charged one to use for getting the craft going and taking these three pictures I had planned. The one time the phone etc connected up, I couldn't pull any data, battery read na, return to home was 0 and couldn't be changed, motors would not spool up, travel move would engage but 'landing gear' up and down would not respond. It did once but then didn't want to move again. When it did work, the motor sounded just as I remember so I believe the battery to be holding sufficient power. The radio beeps non stop flashing red except the one time everything linked up. I fly fpv often, if you know what all of that involves, I'm not exactly clueless as to what I'm doing.

I'm going to try setting up again when I can with my wife's old tablet I used to fly with, that should have old app on it, just to see you know.

Those who mentioned firmware update that I'm supposed to of seen, I have not. I've had no errors, no warnings, no firmware software update requests, not a pixel of such a thing.

I'll go back through your responses again and check some stuff out.

Thanks again all

Edit: cable is good, first cable I tried was not a data cable, second was. I have another brand new one now I bought one immidiately. The radio won't link to the phone, aircraft on or off. The aircraft itself gives me a solid blue light after power up

 

[RBP]

I'm almost certain you are going to need to check for updates on both the drone and transmitter. That should restore your links.

 

[niki]

Very interesting. Wondering how the fw will got messy without touching it, just by connecting a new phone?
The RC should be able to connect to the drone without any phone or tablet connected to it. If you really didn't do anything prior this problem I'll focus my attention to where and how the drone was stored, it could be humidity issue. For example if you are on the coast with hot temperatures the humidity and the salt in it could affect electronics trough the years that are not very well coated, board tracks, exposed and not very well coated soldering spots, the connection pins between battery and drone, gimble, usb ports on the RC and etc. It's not necesary one to be on the coast, just storing it in high humid room will do the same but slower.
Some years ago we had some expensive network equipment in our special IT room and it started showing errors. We sent it back for waranty service and were surprised that the service guys reported and show us a picture of the internals where everything wass a mess caused by humidity and denied the waranty as we were not using the equipment according their requirements. Interestingly all the other equipment didn't had any problems, just this chinese network switch. So no warranty at the end. Then we updated the airconditioning in the IT room and placed humid meeter as well.

All my storage and transport cases are full with silica gel packets to take care of the humidity.

 

[johtaja.kinnunen]

Hi there. I had almost same symptoms and it solved my problems when i tried to upgrade fw to aircraft... Cearch from internet guide how to upgrade the fw. Most likely fw upgrade will fail to solid beeeeb and red light on x5. Then shut down aircraft and look sd card. Thete should be result log file from update. And there are also hidden files created by aircraft . If the logs files show 0800 and 1500 communication error then you suffer classic media processor nand flash corruption. There is more info in github to cearch for da vinci media prosessor nand flash..
And most likely it is same fault in transmitter so transnitter wont connect to tablet and it can be fixed too when perform reflash but it will need some fine mechanic and soldering skills and windows pc with usb ftdi module with 3,3v logig level