Help connecting Devo7E and RX701

I’m having problems connecting my RC controller to my receiver/autopilot. As the title says, I have a new Devo7E and a new RX701. The autopilot is all working correctly, and everything bar the radio has been calibrated.

I believe the issue may be the receiver - perhaps dud?

Although not explicitly said on any manual, it would seem that by default if I turn both the TX and RX on, they should find each other within 10 seconds. They don’t. So I’ve followed tutorials/manuals regarding the binding (or unbinding) process of the RX701 with the bind plug. However, regardless of what I do, I cannot get any response from the red LED on the RX. It simply doesn’t light up at all.

The RX is connected to a Pixhack via the PPM encoder, which has a rapidly flashing red light, so that has power. The connection between the PPM encoder and the RX701 seems solid. I have tried this with both battery and USB power, so I don’t think it’s a power issue.

Any thoughts?

Sounds like your receiver is not getting any power (or its broken) since you are not getting any LED on it.

Could you try to first connect an ESC directly to your receiver on the throttle channel (just remove your props) and see if you can get it working that way. Reason being is the other possible issue is that the PPM encoder is not outputting power to your receiver. You might need to solder the jumper on the back of it to enable that

Perfect! Yes, was a power issue, by shorting the jumper the RX gets power and flashes. Will fix soon. I had assumed the Encoder was in a fixed case - I hadn’t tried to simply open it…

You note in that link that the regulator can be damaged if too much current is drawn. Is this current drawn by the RX701, and in that case is this likely to happen? I’m assuming from the supplied header with the PPM encoder it can power the RX701, I just need to fix the jumper.

It should not be a problem as long as you only connect your receiver to the ppm encoder.

You get some receivers that let you plug in extra sensors and devices so in those situations there is a chance of a problem if just powering everything from the ppm encoder.

So I’ve soldered the jumper, the receiver has power and binds correctly to the receiver.

However, I still appear to get no signal from it? When trying to calibrate, QGroundControl gives ‘0 radio channels detected’ and APM Planner gives ‘Radio control is not active or turned off’. So I presume the Pixhack is getting no data from the receiver?