Hello everyone,

I'm completely new to FPV drones and actually only trying to help a friend of mine. I have a basic understanding of the different components but I cannot seem to find a solution for this issue and kindly appreciate all help I can get.
To sum it up, the radio won't connect to the drone anymore. I got the Eachine Novice 3 here but unfortunately Eachine's documentation on it is really thin.
At first everything working just fine, the radio connected to the drone right away but after my friend had inserted a malfunctioning lipo battery into the radio, we couldn't get it to bind to the drone anymore. Of course we changed out the lipo and tried to initiate the binding by hooking up the drone to the pc without any battery connected. We then started the binding process by entering "bind_rx_spi" in BFC und turned on the radio whilst holding down the EXT button as described in the manual. The drone entered binding mode just fine and the radio's LED started blinking slowly as it should but stopped blinking after a while without a successful bind.

Betaflight configuration:

Firmware Version: BTFL 4.0.5

Receiver Mode: SPI RX support
SPI Bus Receiver Provider: FRSKY_D

I'm not sure on what else is important so if you need any more information, just tell me.
Right now, I'm happy about every idea I could try, so if anyone has some experience with the Eachine Novice 3, please let me know.

You may find the specs here:
https://www.eachine.com/Eachine-Novice-I...-1739.html

With kind regards,
Menaures

What is the details of a malfunctioning lipo? Could it habe damaged the radio? Is there anyway he can verify that the radio is working. Like binding to another receiver?

Thanks for your reply.
I just did some testing with a multimeter and found out that two out of three cells have been over-discharged and their voltage dropped below 1.2V, which in most cases permanently destroys a LiPo-cell and, at least with Li-ion-batteries, might cause short circuits within the battery itself. I couldn't measure a short circuit on the battery, but the overall voltage dropped way too low to operate the radio properly, which indeed might have caused some damage.

Unfortunately I don't have another drone to test the binding. I can only tell that all other functions of the radio work as expected.
Do you have any idea how I could test the radio without a second drone? As far as I know, it's not possible to connect it via USB to the PC directly. It does have a micro USB port though.

I would be surprised if you've damaged the transmitter with low voltage. If you had short circuiting of cells then you would have bigger problems to worry about than damaging the device it's connected to, so I don't think that happened.

What voltage is the new LiPo you are now using charged to? The reason I ask is because there appears to be a known issue with the Eachine ER8 transmitter whereby it exhibits range issues if its battery supply voltage is over 11.6V. In that scenario it may also exhibit binding issues too. So if you are using a 3S LiPo to power it then make sure its voltage is no higher than storage charge (11.4V), but don't let the voltage drop below 9V otherwise you will damage the cells. So that leaves quite a small voltage discharge window (2.4V). So if the LiPo you are using is over 11.6 volts then discharge it down to storage voltage and see if that then resolves your binding issue.

(22-May-2020, 03:46 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: I would be surprised if you've damaged the transmitter with low voltage. If you had short circuiting of cells then you would have bigger problems to worry about than damaging the device it's connected to, so I don't think that happened.

What voltage is the new LiPo you are now using charged to? The reason I ask is because there appears to be a known issue with the Eachine ER8 transmitter whereby it exhibits range issues if its battery supply voltage is over 11.6V. In that scenario it may also exhibit binding issues too. So if you are using a 3S LiPo to power it then make sure its voltage is no higher than storage charge (11.4V), but don't let the voltage drop below 9V otherwise you will damage the cells. So that leaves quite a small voltage discharge window (2.4V). So if the LiPo you are using is over 11.6 volts then discharge it down to storage voltage and see if that then resolves your binding issue.

The LiPo was fully charged, so I hooked it up to the transmitter and left it on for a while. I tried binding as soon as the voltage had reached 11.6V and continued trying down to below 11V without success.
Whilst testing I kept watching the voltage until it suddenly dropped down to 4.2V in a matter of a few minutes, it used to be on 10.9V the last time i looked on the screen. I checked the cell voltages which leads to the conclusion that the transmitter seems to draw current primarly from one single cell. I don't have an explanation for that behavior though and it doesn't seem reasonable for a transmitter not to check the battery cell voltages but only the overall voltage.  
I will have to wait and see whether that LiPo can still recover.
Meanwhile do you have any other ideas?

Do the transmitter channel settings matter when it comes to binding?

Channel settings have no affect on binding.

Maybe you just have a faulty transmitter. Where did you get it from? It might be time to contact the vendor and try to get a replacement under warranty.

(23-May-2020, 05:57 PM)Menaures Wrote: The LiPo was fully charged, so I hooked it up to the transmitter and left it on for a while. I tried binding as soon as the voltage had reached 11.6V and continued trying down to below 11V without success.
Whilst testing I kept watching the voltage until it suddenly dropped down to 4.2V in a matter of a few minutes, it used to be on 10.9V the last time i looked on the screen. I checked the cell voltages which leads to the conclusion that the transmitter seems to draw current primarly from one single cell. I don't have an explanation for that behavior though and it doesn't seem reasonable for a transmitter not to check the battery cell voltages but only the overall voltage.  
I will have to wait and see whether that LiPo can still recover.
Meanwhile do you have any other ideas?

Do the transmitter channel settings matter when it comes to binding?

Have you found a solution yet?

Most likely you experienced the "bad eeprom" issue, that results in not beeing able to bind anymore. Personally I got a partitial refund from Banggood and intergrated meanwhile another receiver and bind with a FrSky transmitter...

The issue is decribed here
https://www.drohnen-forum.de/index.php/T...verbinden/

Wonder if you resolved the binding/connecting issue. Have the same issue after similar problem with the battery. Randomly failed when on the charger and wouldn't charge anymore with error MSG's on the charger and later nothing at all. Tried to plug it onto drove to verify and nothing worked. Surprisingly found a different charger that I bought separately and that charged the battery just fine. Now stock EACHINE Novice 3 charger reads voltage on this battery and charges it. Seems like there is some kind of issue with the charger.
But Drone stopped binding to the stock radio. Props not spinning when push sticks on th3e controller.
Connected drone to betaflight drone and controller is showing and reads but not by itself. Maybe somebody have any suggestions. Just started flying such a bummer

Sometimes when you drain the battery too much, some charger will not charge. Because in theory, the battery is damaged.

I see that you are having problems with your quad not working, I recommend you start a new thread with your issue. Post a dump and diff all files. Details on the receiver you are using.

Had the same issue. I bought a eachine novice 3 from eBay. When I received it it wouldn't bind to the radio. What I had to do was reset the FC in betaflight. Then set motor protocol to dshot600. I'm not near my drone right now but under the receiver protocol select frsky i beleive frsky_D and it bind right after. dont forget to turn on your LED strip aswell. I didn't know the LED were addressable till i turned them on and set them to different colors. hope this helps someone.

(13-Nov-2021, 12:49 AM)evo9mr24 Wrote: Had the same issue. I bought a eachine novice 3 from eBay. When I received it it wouldn't bind to the radio. What I had to do was reset the FC in betaflight. Then set motor protocol to dshot600. I'm not near my drone right now but under the receiver protocol select frsky i beleive frsky_D and it bind right after. dont forget to turn on your LED strip aswell. I didn't know the LED were addressable till i turned them on and set them to different colors. hope this helps someone.

I have a similair problem connecting my Jumper T-lite to the novice 3 (lost binding after a crash). 

Could you describe in more detail what steps I should take in Betaflight?

Controller is set to MODEL1 (with which it was bound to the novice 3 in the RTF package), but the red LED is blinking on the novice 3

Cyclone FPV had done a blog on this: https://www.cyclonefpv.com/blogs/tutoria...sky-non-eu

Probably your FC reset during the crash and lost all the settings.

Try and follow the process he has outlined and let us know if that helps.

Cyclone FPV has also posted a copy of his Betaflight cli dump here: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0088/4...1596118237