I have a Diatone GT-m3. I decided to upgrade the FC to a Fury F4 so I could have an altimeter. I have an FRSKY R-XSR ULTRA MINI and a TBS Unify Pro HV 7P. I connected the Fury to my TBS ESC and I got the familiar 3 beeps, followed by 2 beeps, and configured the Fury via Betaflight conf - so far so good. BUT, when I soldered the connections to the RX, VTX and camera the Fury no longer boots - no LEDs, no second beeps. I can still connect to the PC via USB and configure it, but it doesn't work in the drone itself. The frustrating thing is that this is the 3rd time this has happened - the first time I got PWR/GND connection from the ESC wrong and blew it up. The second time I had all the components connected and working on the bench - I could see video in my goggles and the motors responded to my Taranis, BUT when I assembled the boards, the Fury blew again. At the time I thought I must have shorted something when I assembled, but now I am not so sure, as this 3rd time it blew prior to assembly. I think I must in theory have the connections correct, because things were working pre-assembly the 2nd time so I am at a loss to explain this latest blowing. Does anyone have any ideas/hint/tips so that when I order my 4TH Fury, I don't just blow that - I cannot afford for this to keep happening and I haven't been in the air for ages now 

I've had a few flight controllers where the 5v regulators die for no apparent reason. Try powering your board from an external 5v source, bec or pdb with 5v.

(25-Nov-2018, 03:55 PM)LagMan Wrote: I've had a few flight controllers where the 5v regulators die for no apparent reason. Try powering your board    from an external 5v source, bec or pdb with 5v.

Thanks - is there some easy way to do that on a mini quad?

FC are generally very robust. If you keep on blowing them, I would look into what you are doing. Likely it is human error.

Here are things I suggest before even connecting

Do you have a smoke stopper? If yes, did you use it. If no, make yourself one.

Do you check the negative and positive leads with a DDM for continuity?

How is your soldering skills? Are you using too much heat? Maybe post a photo of your soldering for us to critique.

Did you thoroughly inspect for solder balls? Do it under magnification if you can.

Did you double check your wiring? Maybe instead of wiring everything, then connect, you might want to check after each component you add.

Do you protect the circuit board from the carbon fiber. Carbon fiber conducts electricity.

Just some suggestions.

Great post, thanks - we may have hit the nail on the head - I just continuity checked my drone chassis - it conducts! I had no idea! I think it is highly likely a glancing encounter may have happened. So I think I shall go ahead get another board and try again - as you say connecting one board at a time - I had probed to check for gnd/vcc shorts and the other boards seem ok. Another question - what is a smoke stopper!?

Many thanks

Smoke Stopper - what it does and how to make one at the following link

https://oscarliang.com/smoke-stopper

Just to finish off this post - it turned out that I had not been blowing my FCs - the root cause was an intermittant GND connection between ESC and FC - so I was assembling the drone and thinking I had shorted something, whereas in fact sometimes the GND was going intermittant! Doh!

So you now have a few spare FC's? There are certainly worse things!

I have had issues with my soldering when I had my old iron...it was junk really and would allow me to make bad connections. Some of those would drive me CRAZY as everything looked great, but in fact was not. It is those things that help us grow in to better pilots and seasoned builders.

Glad you have it figured out!

(08-Dec-2018, 02:59 PM)kaitylynn Wrote: So you now have a few spare FC's?  There are certainly worse things!

I have had issues with my soldering when I had my old iron...it was junk really and would allow me to make bad connections.  Some of those would drive me CRAZY as everything looked great, but in fact was not.  It is those things that help us grow in to better pilots and seasoned builders.

Glad you have it figured out!

Yes, although now I have a new problem!!! See http://intofpv.com/t-esc-motors-fine-in-...controller