Should you’ve ever confronted the irritating challenge of your FPV drone refusing to arm, you’re in the suitable place. I’m right here to information you thru troubleshooting and fixing this downside, particularly in case your drone makes use of Betaflight firmware. By understanding what prevents a drone from arming and studying methods to diagnose and repair these points, you’ll be again within the air very quickly.
New to Betaflight? No worries—right here’s a tutorial to get you began on setting it up for the primary time: https://oscarliang.com/betaflight-firmware-setup/
The First Issues to Verify
Alright, let’s dive into the primary steps to diagnose why your drone isn’t arming.
Unplugging USB Cable
Betaflight has a security characteristic the place your motors gained’t spin up if the flight controller is related to the configurator. So, disconnect the USB and provides it one other go.
Radio Receiver Verify
Guarantee your radio receiver is sure and dealing appropriately in Betaflight. Head over to the receiver tab to see if the channel responses match your stick actions appropriately. Oh, and be sure you’ve acquired the newest Betaflight configurator downloaded: https://oscarliang.com/download-betaflight-configurator/.
Arm Mode Task
Did you assign a swap in your radio for ARM mode? It ought to mild up yellow when activated, signaling all the pieces’s set appropriately. Unsure how to do this? See my tutorial on establishing Arm swap: https://oscarliang.com/betaflight-modes/#How-to-Setup-Arm-Change
Nonetheless no luck? Let’s dig a bit deeper.
Easy methods to Verify for Arming Points in Betaflight
OSD
Should you’ve acquired Betaflight OSD, allow “Warnings” in your display screen with “Arming Disabled” chosen. It’ll provide you with clue on what’s stopping the drone from arming.
You don’t have Betaflight OSD? There are different methods to verify for the “Arming Disable Flag” in Betaflight, let me clarify.
Betaflight Configurator
You probably have entry to a pc, you possibly can simply verify the Arming Disable Flag within the Setup Tab within the Betaflight configurator.
CLI
Alternatively, you possibly can verify within the CLI by getting into the command “standing”, the final line is the checklist of arming prevention flags.
Additional Studying: Easy methods to use CLI in Betaflight?
Buzzer Beeping
Should you don’t have a pc, however your quad has a buzzer, the beeping also needs to point out the disarm flags. Right here’s methods to decipher the beeping sample:
- 5 quick beeps for simply consideration, which could be ignored
- Quite a lot of lengthy beeps
- Quite a lot of quick beeps with lengthy intervals
Every lengthy beep represents 5, whereas every quick beep represents 1. The ultimate flag quantity could be calculated as 5 x <the variety of lengthy beeps> + <the variety of quick beeps>.
For instance:
- 0 lengthy beep and a couple of quick beeps = 2
- 1 lengthy beep and three quick beeps = 8
- 2 lengthy beeps + 0 quick beeps = 10
Arming Prevention Flags Lookup Desk
When you’ve discovered the arming disabled flag numbers or names, match them with this useful desk to decode the difficulty. The information is from the Betaflight wiki.
| Identify | Description | Beep code | Required Actions |
| NOGYRO | A gyro was not detected | 1 | You’ll have a {hardware} failure, if a earlier firmware model works then it might be a firmware challenge. Otherwise you may need flashed a fallacious goal. |
| FAILSAFE | Failsafe is energetic | 2 | Rectify the failure situation and check out once more. |
| RXLOSS(1) or RX_FAILSAFE | No legitimate receiver sign is detected | 3 | Your receiver is both defective or has no hyperlink to the transmitter. |
| BADRX(1) | Your receiver has simply recovered from receiver failsafe however the arm swap is on | 4 | Change the arm swap off. |
| BOXFAILSAFE | The ‘FAILSAFE’ swap was activated | 5 | See FAILSAFE |
| RUNAWAY | Runway Takeoff Prevention has been triggered | 6 | Disarm to clear this situation. |
| CRASH | Crash Restoration has been triggered | 7 | Disarm to clear this situation. |
| THROTTLE | Throttle channel is simply too excessive | 8 | Decrease throttle under min_check. |
| ANGLE | Craft will not be degree (sufficient) | 9 | Stage craft to inside small_angle levels (default 25). |
| BOOTGRACE | Arming too quickly after energy on | 10 | Wait till pwr_on_arm_grace seconds (default 5) have elapsed. |
| NOPREARM | Prearm swap will not be activated or prearm has not been toggled after disarm | 11 | Toggle the prearm swap. |
| LOAD | System load is simply too excessive for secure flight | 12 | Revisit configuration and disable options. |
| CALIB | Sensor calibration continues to be ongoing | 13 | Look ahead to sensor calibration to finish. |
| CLI | CLI is energetic | 14 | Exit the CLI. |
| CMS | CMS (config menu) is Lively – over OSD or different show | 15 | Exit the CMS (or OSD menu). |
| OSD | OSD menu is energetic | Exit OSD menu. | |
| BST | A Black Sheep Telemetry machine (TBS Core Professional for instance) disarmed and is stopping arming | 16 | Discuss with the handbook to your {hardware}. |
| MSP | MSP connection is energetic, in all probability through Betaflight Configurator | 17 | Terminate the Betaflight Configurator connection (disconnect). |
| PARALYZE | Paralyze mode has been activated | 18 | Energy cycle/reset FC board. |
| GPS | GPS rescue mode is configured however required variety of satellites has not been fastened | 19 | Look ahead to GPS repair, allow arming with out GPS repair, or disable GPS rescue mode. |
| RECOVERY | (wiki incomplete) | (wiki incomplete) | (wiki incomplete) |
| RESCUE_SW | GPS Rescue swap is in an unsafe place | 20 | Flip off the GPS Rescue swap to arm. |
| RPMFILTER(2) | Motor RPM-based filtering will not be functioning | 21 | A number of ESC’s are usually not supplying legitimate RPM telemetry. |
| REBOOT_REQD | Reboot required | 22 | Reboot the flight controller for settings modifications to take impact. |
| DSHOT_BBANG | DSHOT Bitbang will not be working | 23 | (3) |
| NO_ACC_CAL | Accelerometer calibration required | 24 | Calibrate the accelerometer or disable options that use it |
| MOTOR_PROTO | ESC/Motor Protocol not configured | 25 | Choose the ESC/Motor protocol to make use of on the Configuration tab. |
| ARMSWITCH | Arm swap is in an unsafe place | 26 | Toggle the arm swap to arm. |
Different Frequent Points
If Betaflight reveals no arming disabled flags, the issue is likely to be one thing else. Listed below are a couple of extra issues to verify:
Accelerometer Points
If the Most Arm Angle in Configuration tab is about under 180 (default worth 25), your quad have to be underneath this angle as a way to arm. In that case, guarantee your quad is on a degree floor, and calibrate the ACC on a degree floor.
If you want to have the ability to arm the drone regardless the angle it’s in, you possibly can disable Most Arm Angle by getting into 180. Some folks desire to do that because it permits them to arm the quad when they’re caught in bushes and so they may be capable of shake it out. However clearly this may very well be a security concern, so do that at your individual danger.
A defective accelerometer might additionally contribute to the difficulty, strive disabling accelerometer within the Configuration tab when you don’t usually fly in Angle/Horizon/Rescue modes.
CPU Utilization
When CPU load is simply too excessive, Betaflight will refuse to arm. You will discover out the CPU load on the backside of Betaflight Configurator.
Hold the CPU load under 80% (since BF4.3) by adjusting settings, comparable to decreasing PID loop frequency, and disabling pointless options comparable to LED and gentle serial.
Throttle Points
Guarantee your throttle is appropriately calibrated. When your throttle channel’s lowest worth is simply too excessive, Betaflight will refuse to arm. Ideally your channel endpoints must be 1000 and 2000. 10-12 under 1000 and above 2000 is normally nice, comparable to 988/990 – 2010-2012, however positively not above 1000 and under 2000, that’s unhealthy, by which case you may need to calibrate your radio endpoints.
Betaflight doesn’t arm in case your minimal throttle is simply too excessive (greater than the setting “Min_Check”). It is a security characteristic in order that the quad doesn’t immediately spin up the motors and damage you when it’s armed. You need to make sure that your throttle is decrease than min_check when it’s within the lowest stick place. Min_Check is 1050 by default.
Moron threshold
Some FC may need extra delicate gyro’s and the drone would refuse to calibrate and initialize after energy up, and due to this fact you possibly can’t arm it. By improve “gyro_calib_noise_limit” (initially referred to as Moron Threshold) in CLI can cut back gyro sensitivity throughout initialization. Strive setting it to 100 and even 120.
Conclusion
I hope you discovered this information useful! Let me know within the remark in case your arming downside was attributable to one thing else that wasn’t lined on this tutorial. In case you are nonetheless having issues arming your quad after following this information, please publish your query on our discussion board, our neighborhood is all the time right here to assist and study collectively. Pleased flying!
Edit Historical past
- Jun 2018 – Tutorial created.
- Feb 2024 – Up to date.
