Calibration of the battery monitor necessary was so we can get some accurate measurements.
How many calibration flights did you make? How low were you able to get the difference between logged and charged current?
I need a DETAILED EXACT list of EVERYTHING in your build. I need to know the battery weight, capacity, and cell count (3S, 4S) and C rating. I need to know the EXACT weight of the aircraft without the battery.
And post you current data flash log and post some pictures that show the motors and props…
When I have all of that data I may be able to figure out what is really going on.
The hardcase battery adds needless weight but I don’t see any problem with the performance of your craft. A bit of tuning is all you need but even that isn’t terrible as is. You might see a small increase in efficiency but using Dshot protocol. You have the ESC’s for it, no reason not to. If you do read the Wiki 1st because you will have to change the motor outputs to the Aux outputs and configure Arducopter accordingly. There are a couple other parameters that need to be set also.
Each motor is pulling about 3 amps and you are getting a grams/Watt of 9.7. This works out to a flight time of about 20 minutes using 80% of the 5200mAh battery capacity.
Now that we have the battery monitor calibrated we need to make sure you have the low battery failsafe setup. Make sure the battery capacity is set to 5200mAh, and the reserve capacity is set to 1040mAh. Initially I set my warning voltage to 3.5v/cell, or 14V for a 4S.
Since you are running 4S, you might try using some 10" x 4.5" props, but before you do that measure the motor center to motor center distance between adjacent motors and subtract 1". This will give you the maximum prop length that you can run safely.
If you can run 10", this should bring the motor currents down a tad which will give you a slightly longer flight time. This will also bring Hover Throttle down and give the flight controller more head room for stability control.
To get the wobble sorted out try re-calibrating the accelerometers. You need a spirit level and some playing cards. Put the level on the frame and shim the landing gear with cards until the frame is level in roll and pitch. At that point connect to Mission Planner and run the calibration.
When you get the ACCs calibrated, take the aircraft outside and calibrate the compass using Stick Gestures. To do this you power up normally and when Pixhawk completes the boot process you hold the Left stick Up and to the Right. Pixhawk will make one long beep and then beep once per second. At this point pick the aircraft up and rotate it around each axis: Compass Calibration Stick Gestures. NOTE: If you go to a different location to fly, run the compass calibration again.
Another thing that will help is to make sure the aircraft is balanced in roll and pitch with the battery installed. When you get the aircraft balanced, take it out for a flight. When you arm the motors, hold the left stick in the arming position until the main LED cycles Blue and Red. This indicates that Auto Trim is active. Establish a stable hover and wait for the LED to turn Solid Green, and then land. Wait a few seconds for the settings to save and then take off. Hovering will be much easier…
I tried using the Dshot protocol and the drone felt more wobbly so I went back to the standard one. Do you think this is normal or may I have done something wrong?
Wow, thank you so much for the detailed response!
I have now calibrated the failsafe.
I put the 10 x 4.5 props into ecalc but it was giving me worse ratings because they were GemFan props. I was unable to find any better props on amazon. Do you have any suggestions for 1045 props for DJI style motors that I may be able to find on amazon?
I’ve recalibrated the accelerometers and I did the stick gesture calibration.
For the last thing, should I do autotrim when I do a hover manually or using loiter?
Do the AutoTrim in Stabilize. Pixhawk will “read” your stick values and save them.
For what its worth, eCalc is real picky about the data you enter. The first time I tried it the results it gave me were total crap. Then I found out I was making a mistake with the battery data.
For the props, you need to get something that is stiff enough to minimize “thrust bending.” I use GenFan 6030 Nylon/Glass fiber props on my 250 racer, and GemFan Flash Polycarbonate 3052-3 (tri-blade) props on my Tyro 79 3 inch racer. For the “big boys” I use "T-Motor style carbon fiber.
With that said, something like this may work for you: 1045 Polycarbonate. They also have GemFan Glass Fiber Nylon 1045, but for those you need to use the regular prop nuts that came with your motors.
Its not normal. Configure for Dshot 150, switch your motor outputs to aux 1-4 (servo 9-12). You may have to turn off Low RPM Power Protect from BLHeli suite. Try it with default setting 1st.
Cool, I’ll give that a shot for sure! However, for the second set of props, it looks like they have a round hub which unfortunately wouldn’t fit my motors since the have the DJI style hub with 2 flats. I’ll see if I can try and order the first set.
Thanks!
Is there some sort of ESC calibration that I need to do with the Dshot protocol? I feel like I’m missing something haha. Even with basic tuning it doesn’t seem to help much. I think it may just be that I need to keep working with it, but just want to make sure there is some step that I’m not missing.