How unbrick Colibri FC in QQ190RTF Racing Drone
By trying to update the the flight controller using Betaflight, I somehow froze the flight controller, and neither my PC or Mac will recognize it in any software. The boot button does not put the FC in reboot mode, so the TBS agent won’t flash the firmware. What I can do to restore the firmware and connect to Betaflight?
Hi James, I am sorry that you are having issues. It sounds like you could have corrupted the processor fuses. This can cause all sorts of issues.
A few things to try first:
- Swap out your USB cable.
- Swap your computer for a friend’s computer.
- Make sure that your USB is firmly inserted into the top USB port of the powercube. (the Main USB Programming port) . The Agent software will not detect the flight controller unless you are on the flight controller tab.
- Check to make sure that your VCP drivers are installed properly if you are running windows. You can download the VCP drivers from here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4vs1qfDGt6AWnRrRFJZV3dEbjg?usp=sharing
- Did you use Zadig to change your drivers? If you did, can you undo what you did? Users of Zadig have had many problems- as it can mess your drivers up if you don’t know what you are doing with it.
- Check the device manager to see if the driver for the cube is properly installed. If it says USB port not recognized, this is OK- you should still be able to flash the Flight Controller.
- Make sure that you are in DFU mode if trying to upgrade the firmware. Do this by pushing the button on the top of the powercube while plugging it into USB.
QQ190 port diagram showing boot button and Colibri port layout
- Try flashing betaflight 3.0.1- does it work then?
- If all else fails, you can use DFuse to reset the fuses on the processor.
RESETTING THE FUSES
The Micro processor on the Colibri board in the QQ190RTF, as well as in many other flight controllers contains volatile and nonvolatile memory in the way of flash, eeprom, and ram. This is a well known fact about computers in general, however, there is also another another, ususally unmentioned memory that is installed in most microcontrollers called the fuses. Usually about 3 or 4 bytes long, the fuses contain very important information about how the processor is supposed to function and these settings stay saved when powered off. The fuses determine how the chip will act, whether it has a bootloader, what speed and voltage it is supposed to run at, ETC.
Although they are called “Fuses” they have nothing to do with over-current protection.
Long story short, If you corrupted a DFU flash, or flashed the wrong DFU to the board, you could have messed up the fuses along the way and your processor could appear bricked.
The fuses are resettable and can be re-flashed to the proper settings using the right tools.
You will need:
1. A known working USB cable (preferably one that works with another VCP flight controller.)
2. Dfuse installed on a PC
Dfuse is available from STM Microelectronics here: http://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stsw-stm32080.html
We have the .dfu file for the QQ190 RC6 hosted here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vs1qfDGt6Ad1dDbHlTc2pRMlU . You should be able to use that with Dfuse to reset the fuses and get everything back to the way it was when it shipped. Please note, that the above .DFU file is only for the QQ190RTF racing drone and it does not apply to the Colibri Race or any other flight controller. If you have a different flight controller, or a Colibri Race out of another drone, do not flash the above file or you risk messing up your fuses & bricking your board.
Once you have Dfuse installed, you should put the board into DFU mode by holding the bootloader button while powering on the cube (plugging in the USB)
Follow the instructions below:
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 1 & 2
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 3& 4
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 5 & 6
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 7
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 8
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 9
How to use dfuse to un brick a QQ190 colibri VCP flight controller step 10
Let us know if any of that works. We have had instances where we get a return and the cube just plugs in and flashes at QQ headquarters without incident- So please try all options above before resorting to Dfuse, and then try Dfuse before contacting QQ or TBS support.
Cheers,
Anthony
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Owner, QuadQuestions.com
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