[rimen05]

First of all, this is my first post; so, hi everyone. My name is Ricardo

That said, we (a group of friends and I) have a problem with our first configuration CCD3 - LibrePilot.

We are building our first quad. I believe we have chosen good motors sizes, spinning directions, propeller, ESCs, etc. We are designing a light body on cardboard for now. We have the CCD3 flight controller. We followed the following video for the configuration, https://youtu.be/p1EhSYNa0pM?list=FLGDnWL7RG4Mv1Qr3BgbR8nQ, and everything went smooth. That video is made for CCD3 Revo, though.

The problem is that when we try to fly, we give maximum power to the props (maximum throttle), but the drone simply won't take off. It is like the power is not enough, even though the quad is light (below 1Kg)  and the total thrust of the props is more than enough 2.4 Kg. We chose generic quad, and the FJI f450 models for the parameters, but we experience the same problem in both cases. The FJI F450 is similar to our design, except we are using a 3S battery instead of a 4S.

We really do not know what happens. Perhaps something to do with the Fligh Mode Switch?... which we did not configure because the guy in the video didn't either.

Any comments?

Regards,

[al]

ESC calibration?

[suzali]

Do the motors spin up, when you raise throttle?
If so, did you mount propellers in the right direction??? Sounds crazy, but can happen 

[rimen05]

Hi guys!

We did calibrate the ESCs according to the video. I.e., waiting for the "beep" with the high and the low pulses.

The motors did spin up when we raised the throttle. We checked the direction of the props.

It is an strange behavior.

Regards,

[NicholasDavid]

When it has you go through and set a lowest stable throttle value. What are yours set to. Most are between 1020-1060/1070 for a minimum start value. Any higher than that and I would say you need to go back and re-calibrate. Wait longer for beeps. Depending on which brand and/or firmware(blheli/simonk) the beeps for calibration can be different. For instance. I'm running 20A SN20 BL20A oneshot escs. When I calibrate them they beep once then beep in a way that says hey I'm being calibrated, then beeps differently to say I'm at full throttle. Then I hit stop. And it resets and goes back and does its normal startup tone. So I wait a good 4-7 seconds before I'm ready to unplug and it beeps quite a bit. My minimum motor start value after calibration is 1029 on all four. They actually all started spinning at like 1027,1028,1029 and I just set them all to the high one.  That's just how these escs work. I'm not worried about messing up the actual setting on the esc cause I use a usb linker tool to set all that stuff. This is only for throttle range and it sounds like your only setting your escs for a really narrow low throttle range

My other copter is running 12A SimonK escs and they all start in the 1054-1062 range. Same reciever and radio on both so esc and motor combos can vary greatly. Yours should be starting to spin in the 1030-1080 range I would think. If not re-calibrate and try again. I've had problems with these 12A ones where sometimes I would mess it up and they wouldn't spin till 1140-1160 or something and that wasn't good. I had the little bar at that screen almost slid all the way to the right to get them to start to spin.

[rimen05]

Excellent answer. We will try it, and report.

Regards,

When it has you go through and set a lowest stable throttle value. What are yours set to. Most are between 1020-1060/1070 for a minimum start value. Any higher than that and I would say you need to go back and re-calibrate. Wait longer for beeps. Depending on which brand and/or firmware(blheli/simonk) the beeps for calibration can be different. For instance. I'm running 20A SN20 BL20A oneshot escs. When I calibrate them they beep once then beep in a way that says hey I'm being calibrated, then beeps differently to say I'm at full throttle. Then I hit stop. And it resets and goes back and does its normal startup tone. So I wait a good 4-7 seconds before I'm ready to unplug and it beeps quite a bit. My minimum motor start value after calibration is 1029 on all four. They actually all started spinning at like 1027,1028,1029 and I just set them all to the high one.  That's just how these escs work. I'm not worried about messing up the actual setting on the esc cause I use a usb linker tool to set all that stuff. This is only for throttle range and it sounds like your only setting your escs for a really narrow low throttle range

My other copter is running 12A SimonK escs and they all start in the 1054-1062 range. Same reciever and radio on both so esc and motor combos can vary greatly. Yours should be starting to spin in the 1030-1080 range I would think. If not re-calibrate and try again. I've had problems with these 12A ones where sometimes I would mess it up and they wouldn't spin till 1140-1160 or something and that wasn't good. I had the little bar at that screen almost slid all the way to the right to get them to start to spin.

[rimen05]

I think we figure out the problem, but we still cannot solve it.

As NicholasDavid mentioned, it seems that our ESCs are not being calibrated at all. The lowest stable throttle values of the motors are beyond 1120. We have the following SimonK loaded ESCs: http://www.dys.hk/ProductShow.asp?ID=50

We realized that there is no beep of calibration when going through the Configuration Wizard, neither when going to high nor low pulse. We waited a lot for the "beeps". It is strange. We even disconnected everything and attempted to go through the "manual" calibration procedure (without flight controller) as indicated by the manufacturer in the following document: http://www.dys.hk/Download/ESC/speed%20control%2020A-30A-40A.pdf

, but we did not succeed.

What we attempted to do is:

***
1.) Temporarily Remove the propeller, or secure the airplane in case of accidental motor start.
2.) Power on transmitter, move throttle to full ON position.
3.) Connect your battery to your model.
You will hear the controller beep in sets of two each of the following:
Single beep = Auto Lipo (3V per cell)
Double beep = NiMH (.8V per cell)
Triple beep = Brake/No Brake
4.) Move the throttle to OFF at the option you’d like to select.
***

But the motor never made any noise indicating the calibration worked with full or minimum throttle.

Any ideas about what to do now? Is there any possibility we can fix those ESCs?

We don't think it is a problem related to the TX/RX combination, since we have one other ESCs (other brand) that goes without problem through the calibration.

Regards,

[NicholasDavid]

Ok good, well at least we know what we are dealing with now. Let me ponder on this for a bit and I'll get back to you. Hopefully somebody else will chime in and comment. We have a lot of really smart people on the LP forum.

[NicholasDavid]

Ok when you try an manually calibrate the escs. You unplugged them from the controller. All of them. Then one at a time,while still hooked up to the motor, and plugged the servo lead directly into your recievers throttle channel. Gave full throttle on radio , plugged in the battery and nothing? The three not plugged into a reciever should make a normal power up tone(count cells ect). Or the three that don't have their servo leads plugged in may not make a noise at all. the one that's is hooked directly to the throttle channel on the RX should start the process. Most escs have the 5v1a bec on them. The red wire between the black(brown) and white(yellow) wires? Does your have this or are they an OPTO esc? It may not matter. Curious.

[rimen05]

Hi NicholasDavid, thanks for your help.

"Ok when you try an manually calibrate the escs. You unplugged them from the controller. All of them. "
- Yes, we did.

"Then one at a time,while still hooked up to the motor, and plugged the servo lead directly into your recievers throttle channel. "
- Yes, one at a time.

"Gave full throttle on radio , plugged in the battery and nothing?"
- It did make the normal power up tone.

"The three not plugged into a reciever should make a normal power up tone(count cells ect). Or the three that don't have their servo leads plugged in may not make a noise at all. "
- We disconnected all the ESCs from the power distribution board. We just energized one ESC at a time, so we could not  strictly compare the sounds.

"the one that's is hooked directly to the throttle channel on the RX should start the process. "
- Apparently, the process was not initiated with any of the four ESCs we tried.

"Most escs have the 5v1a bec on them. The red wire between the black(brown) and white(yellow) wires? Does your have this or are they an OPTO esc? It may not matter. Curious."
- These ESCs are not OPTO, and they do have embedded BECs. We connect only one BEC to the flight controller, i.e., disconnect the red cables of the rest of the ESCs, but for the calibration test, we did energize the RX with each red cable of the ESCs.

Strange.

We will continue thinking.

Regards,

[TheOtherCliff]

There is an article in the wiki that explains exactly how to do it.
It is always different if there is a flight controller between the RC receiver and the ESC.

https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/ESC+Calibration

[rimen05]

Hi Cliff:

We will try to do so.

Regards,

There is an article in the wiki that explains exactly how to do it.
It is always different if there is a flight controller between the RC receiver and the ESC.

https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/ESC+Calibration

[rimen05]

The quadrotor flew! 

By following the last tutorial given by Cliff, the quadrotor finally flew... and very nicely. We had to put special attention to the acceleration curve provided by LibrePilot. We set the maximum acceleration to 100% instead of 90%.

Best Regards, and thanks for all the help.

[Brassman]

good thing you got it to fly but if you have to put the trottle curve to 100% something is wrong. its best to have it at 90% becouse then you have a 10% buffer the fc can use to stabilize the quad. how much does your quad weight. how many grams is the battery. wich motors do you run? props, escs, lipo?