Motors not starting XQuad

Lynxmotion UAVs / Drones
21

Ok,

I have used this link to rough out expected flight time.

multicopter.forestblue.nl/lipo_n … lator.html

Using values of 8 for the motors
A “normal” flight mode using 10Amps / Motor
I tossed 1 amp in for lights and FC and camera as a guess
Voltage is 11.1
mAh is 3500

The result comes back with a figure of 8 minutes.

What I don’t see in this calculator is any reference to the weight involved with my UAV, so how can this tell me how long it will fly?

I think I want a longer flight time, so I was going to parallel the battery with another one.

Yes, this adds weight, which is why I am struggling with trying to figure all of this out.

EOM (End Of Message)

Please read on if you are up to some more intense writing. :slight_smile:

According to some information I came across, one should try to have twice as much thrust as weight.

My UAV weighs in at around 1329.6 grams. Lets say it’s 1500 grams. According to the note above, I would need 3000 grams of thrust. Since that’s shared across all 8 motors, each motor needs to give me 375 grams of thrust. I didn’t find a chart that would give me the thrust for the recommended motor (2830 / 1000Kv), based on the props that I have so I’m kind of stuck there.

I will soon have another 2830 / 1000Kv motor as I am buying an extra one to do some specific research.

I bought a Benchmark series 1520. With one of my motors set up on the stand, I had no problem getting way over the 375 grams of thrust, but I didn’t have my actual propellers, so I don’t want to use those numbers.

The series 1520 gives me a direct readout of rpm, amps being drawn, and thrust being produced.

I could then re-run the tests with the 14.8v battery to see what the actual changes are. It would seem to me that with a higher voltage, it would require less amperage to achieve the rpm required to generate the thrust I need.

It will produce a spreadsheet which I can graph of the performance curve for the motor and prop. From the graph I can determine the most efficient setup of prop and motor to minimize the current draw for the thrust value that I want to achieve. Only then will I actually know the current draw that I seem to need to know to properly calculate how long I can expect it to fly on the 80% of max rule so I don’t kill the battery.

If you made it this far, I thank you for your investment of time. I can only hope you will tell me that I am way over-thinking this and that all I need to do is figure out what colour the motors should be.

Best,

Tim

22

Hi DiaLFonZo

I found the specs page for the motors.

At 216.5 Watts, this motor outputs 920 grams of thrust on a 3S battery.

I recalculated my weight with the landing gear in place. (It uses the 4 tubes I salvaged by compressing my original octocopter with the motor mount plates) and all of the tube holders that I originally used, so my weight is now 1647.3 grams.

If I double my weight and add 20% which I understand is a decent way to come at the requirements for motor, prop, esc, my UAV would require a minimum of 3624.06 grams of thrust and should hover with about 50% throttle applied. My motors / props would have to produce 453.0075 grams of thrust each (for the 8 of them).

Since they produce 920 grams of thrust the numbers are close enough to say that they will give me a 2:1 ratio of thrust to weight. That gives me enough unused potential lift to support the gimbal and camera.

I still haven’t come up with an understandable (to me) way to calculate flight time, but I am getting closer.

Best,

Tim

23

One nice site is eCalc it can give you a lot of info.

24

Yes, I found that site, but unless there are many more products that become visible once you pay, it doesn’t seem to have the same or equivalent products.

I guess I’ll sign up for a month and see what I can learn

Thanks,
Tim

25

Hi DiaLFonZo:

I took the wife and the OctoQuad over to the park today for it’s maiden flight.

It went through the requisite beeps when I connected the battery, but would not arm.

Right now, via USB, I can’t get it to arm. I put fresh batteries in the transmitter, but that didn’t help.

I know that it has to show as level before it will arm.

I thought I had a diagram of the LEDs on the Quadrino, but I can’t seem to find one now.

I have a stable green to the right of the motor connector.

I have a stable blue to the right of the GPS antenna connector.

I have red and green for communications.

I have a rapidly flashing blue light on what is marked as D31 on the diagram I have.

Status 2 and Status 1 are both out.

I have a memory that when I used the throttle stick down and right to arm, lights flickered on the quadrino.

I have nothing.

I’ll keeping plugging away, but I’m not sure where to look at this point.

I’m charging the main battery even though I don’t think it’s been used since I last charged it.

I did leave it plugged into the charger although I unplugged the charger from the wall.

Could that have drained the battery? It’s the 18watt charger and it’s been going for a while now. 2 green lights out of three, but not done yet.

Thanks,

Tim

26

Hi DiaLFonZo

I have redone the setup in FCT - again, and dropped back to 4 motors

At rest, all 4 motors show 1025 which is my setting in Min Command.

I have Min Throttle set at 1220.

When I turn on the transmitter,

Throttle 1009 - 1921
Pitch 1090 - 2001
Roll 1090 - 2002
Yaw 1092 - 2003

Arming still does nothing from the sticks.

I will boost up the Min Command

These are SimonK 15A ESC (the recommended units for the Q500 Lynxmotion Kit).

It was working, so I don’t understand why it quit. I don’t recall making any changes, but the PC did upgrade to the latest version of Windows 10
(when in doubt, blame Microsoft!)

Best,
Tim

27

News:

I took each ESC individually and cycled them through the throttle channel.

Transmitter set to full throttle, connected battery.

All escs gave three tones at max, but no later long tone and three tones at min (I was expecting one?)

I suspect my escs are corrupted?

If I move up the throttle all motors start and stop with the throttle control on the transmitter.

I put each ESC back on the Quadrino 1 at a time. When I connect the battery, I get three rising tones, but not the fourth that I am used to

When I connect all the escs back on the Quadrino. 3 beeps, but no fourth,

I’m not sure where to go next with this.

Thanks,

Tim
config.h (71.2 KB)
profile.xml (1.01 KB)

28

Can you attach your WinGUI settings export ?

  • If an “Arming” mode is set in the “RC Control Settings” it will bypass the transmitter stick arming.

  • Which settings do you have in the FCT for “Motor Stop” ?
    The “Motor Stop” setting if “checked” will not have the motor spin when you arm the copter. They will start when you apply some throttle.
    I personally fly with “Motor Stop” unchecked which start the motors to “Min Throttle” upon arming.

29

Hi DiaLFonzo

Thanks for getting back to me.

I’m getting a message that whatever extension I rename the file to is not allowed for upload.

What do I do?

I do not have any arming mode set in win gui (that I am aware of)

The arm light never turns green.

Motor stop is checked. That has been my default as I like the safety aspect. I can certainly uncheck it.

Thanks

Tim

30

Hi Tim,

You can “zip” the file and attache it, that should work.
About the “Motor Stop” setting, i found it easier to make mistake by having the board “Arm” but not spinning and hit the throttle thinking it was not armed.

:slight_smile:

31

Hi DiaLFonZo

Thanks for the zip suggestion. Never even crossed my mind. Just about everything else was tried though.

I’ll flip the motor stop flag.

With the software switch off for motor stop.

I have powered off the FC and disconnected the USB

Transmitter On (with fresh batteries)

On connection of battery I get three notes rising in pitch in a fairly short even pattern.

I used to get a 4th note, lower and longer. I no longer get that.

If I disconnect everything and start over with the throttle set to max and plug in the battery, I get the same three tones. There is no fourth.

Best,

Tim
172423-1124.zip (757 Bytes)

32

If you do not hear the last note that might be the “ESC’s” do not see a low enough signal to arm themselves.
Those ESC’s have a protection so if by mistake someone connect them to a signal source which is higher than zero and power them up they will not spin until seeing a low signal first.

This is done by “Min Command” which is the signal sent when you power up the Quadrino Nano.
Try to raise it a little like to 1050 to see the result.

But since you calibrated your ESC’s using the Transmitter/Receiver i would suggest doing the calibration with MultiWii prior to do anything else.

For your “RC Control Settings” i would not do like you did.
Usually one will want to have a “no mode” setting and a “stabilized mode”.

Angle is obsolete, i don’t suggest using it at all.
multiwii.com/wiki/?title=Flightmodes

One switch with “MAG” and “HORIZON” at the same time and with nothing
One switch with “BARO” ON and OFF
One switch with GPS features

33

Hi DialFonzo

I had not set the switches before I sent you the WinGui file.

I still struggle with setting things on the RadioLink AT10II transmitter.

By default, channel5 is preset to Attitude. That takes over Switch C on the transmitter, which is Aux 1 in the WinGui display.

In WinGui, I set the middle position on Aux1 as Horizon.

Aux2 in WinGui is controlling the combination of MAG and BARO which is on Switch E. Low is Baro, High is Mag and Middle is both.

If Switch E is in Low or Middle position (Baro (L)), (Baro and Mag (M)), I cannot arm the motors with the sticks.

If Switch E is Hi (Mag Only), my motors arm and disarm properly with the throttle stick.

Aux3 in WinGui is controlling the GPS options. Low is GPS Home, Hi is GPS Hold and Middle is nothing. This is on Switch G of the transmitter.

So, I thank you so much once again for your help.

I’m not sure if this is right, but it seems to be working. Max throttle is 1922 which sounds a tad low, but I don’t have any props on it, so I’m not sure that’s a problem.

I did switch the main model selection mode over to QuadCopter instead of Airplane so that might explain what’s going on with Channel5 being preset.

If you don’t mind looking at the WinGui file again to see if you see anything I need to fix / change, I’d appreciate it.

Best,

Tim

Edited to add that I lowered Min Command to 1050,
172724-0227.zip (757 Bytes)

34

Tim,

The Horizon + Mag are usually something you want to trigger together. It’s either you fly without or with.
I suggest to set your transmitter in Airplane mode, the ATTITUDE will have you in trouble.

I would do something like the following image.

AUX1 on a 3way switch:
LOW - Nothing
MID - Horizon and Mag
HIGH - Horizon, Mag and Baro

AUX2 on a 3way switch:
LOW - GPS Home
MID - Nothing
HIGH - GPS Hold

:slight_smile:

Untitled.png
Untitled.png992×564 35 KB

35

A few days ago, I finally had the maiden flight of my quad.

I am impressed at how smooth the flight was and surprised (nicely) that it is quite quiet.

I’m sure I had the switches set for GPS Hold and I expected the unit to try to maintain it’s position in the air.

It did not. Basically, from takeoff, it began tracking forward as it climbed.

My wife and I had to duck to avoid getting hit.

So, important safety note:

Try your first launch with the drone facing away from you, or from the side. :slight_smile:

I have gone back into FCT and set the slides away from the defaults toward max computer control. I hope to try again today.

Any idea what might cause this behaviour?

Best,
Tim

36

The “GPS HOLD” need to be triggered while in flight and after the gps is locked.

37

Thanks

I shall make it so!

Tim

38

:slight_smile:

39

This isn’t really in line with the rest of the post since the quad is cooperating for the motors.

All is well there.

As stated earlier, my quad pretty much did it’s own thing when launched for the maiden flight. It flew forward as is was climbing.

I know we discussed when to engage GPS hold and it makes sense that it shouldn’t be engaged while sitting on the ground. Obviously you wouldn’t want it to hold position there.

I am afraid of launching it at this point as I fear it will do the same thing (launch moving forward - not a huge tilt, but certainly at least a foot forward for every foot up)

I found this video and there is a point in the video where the author calls up a utility “compassmot”, You can track the video to 1:09 for the start of this piece.

youtu.be/njshOmXHTTk

What hit me with this video is that my GPS is sitting directly beside the Quadrino nano. Two of the ESCs are very closely mounted to the GPS as they are vertically attached to the plates between the upper and lower decks.

Could interference be causing me grief? Every video I watch, the quad spins up and launches straight up. When I look at the actual prop rpm using WinGui, it is showing the same numbers front to back. That should take the drone straight up, should it not? Why is mine moving forward?

Please advise,

Best,
Tim
edited for spelling

40

Hi Tim,

If it was me to maiden this i would set two modes on a switch.

I would not worry about the GPS antenna location or interference at this stage.

:slight_smile: