(17-Aug-2017, 07:00 PM)sloscotty Wrote: Is something amiss with the Chrome app?

I thought that too Scotty, but I think it's just a way of taking one more possibility out of the equation.....that's my guess anyway.

(17-Aug-2017, 07:00 PM)sloscotty Wrote: Is something amiss with the Chrome app?

Maybe, maybe not but I have seen some comments in the past that the flashing side of it isn't as reliable as the BLHeliSuite program.

This may or may not still be the case, but given the very odd things that sirdude has been experiencing, it makes sense to use the official program to eliminate any possible cause of trouble.

(17-Aug-2017, 03:45 PM)sloscotty Wrote: Well, my new possible theory may not hold water.  (I first thought of it thinking maybe you were using PWM.) 

But here it is anyway: my thinking is that maybe BF is not honoring the disabled "Program by Transmitter" setting in BLHeli.  But just in case the ESCs are not honoring it themselves, what might have happened (remember this is just a theory) is that you had your throttle stick just slightly advanced when you plugged in and the ESCs read it as entering calibration mode - then you bumped it down and it calibrated the new max throttle.  I seriously doubt that's it, but IF it IS, you can duplicate it.

First connect to BF and go to the receiver tab and move your throttle to 5 or 10 below min throttle.
Then disconnect, but leave your throttle stick where it is. Turn off your transmitter.
Then turn on your transmitter, plug in a battery and see if it happens again.

I can't think of anything else to try.

Tried out your theory.  When I plug it back in it just refuses to arm (arming is on a switch) until I bring the throttle back to the stop. Then it acts normally.  It was a good thought though, thanks Scotty.

(17-Aug-2017, 04:59 PM)unseen Wrote: The "programming by TX" option has nothing to do with Betaflight. It's purely an ESC function and programming mode (or calibration mode) is initiated by the level of the throttle signal that the ESC sees when it powers up.

So, either it's enabled or it isn't.

What's even more disturbing about this is that all recent versions of BLHeli_S have a change that should refuse to store calibration values if there is less than 250 in difference between min and max values, so even if the ESC wasn't honouring the "programming by TX" setting, it should not have been able to set max throttle lower than min throttle.

The only thing I can think of is that there's some problem with the code the ESCs are currently flashed with. I'd suggest that you re-flash the ESCs with the latest BLHeli_S code using BLHeliSuite and not the Chrome app.

I tried re-flashing with BLHeliSuite v. 16.614.9.0.3.  No difference...everything appears normal.  One other thing I thought of and it's a stretch......these ESC's are capable of delivering bidirectional rotation....if for some reason they thought they were in the 3D mode, wouldn't they have interpreted the bottom of the stick range as full throttle?  Never flown 3D before, but as I understand it, center stick is 0 throttle with each end of stick travel being full throttle in opposite directions.  Not quite sure how that could have happened......just a thought....

Nice theory, but the ESCs are only in 3D mode if you specifically configure the "Rotation" parameter to bidirectional. In bidirectional mode, "Programming by TX" is automatically disabled.

When you re-flashed the ESCs, did you note what version of BLHeli_S they were originally programmed with?