Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sebastian Gralla on December 8, 2010 at 11:35am

There seem to be some soldering issues with the motor connections...
Check them twice

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Randy on December 8, 2010 at 5:26pm

NG is being tested by the dev team at the moment and it's reasonable to expect an official release in the next couple of weeks. As it's a work in progress, changes are going into it all the time so it gets broken from time to time.

10minutes of hovering is pretty good. I think 7~10minutes is the average.

The motors suddenly stopping certainly sounds like a hardware issue although I once had a similar issue in which my quad would fly for about 30 seconds and then drop out of the sky. It was because I had wired things up incorrectly (i.e. not according to the wiki pages - http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/Quad_Radio ). My mistake was that I had plugged the power from the Power Distribution Board into the two power pins on the back-right of the APM instead of plugging it into the right-angle-pins on the back of the board (i.e. should have been plugged into one of the Servo Output pins). The difference is that if you use the two pins on the back right of the APM, it goes through a 5V regulator which consumes some voltage and this resulted in the APM board not receiving the power it needed.

-Randy

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Permalink Reply by Riccardo Kuebler on December 8, 2010 at 11:21pm

Hi Randy,

thanks or answer :)

So motor stopping sounds like an APM feed problem. I already connected it to right angle pins from start, so this seems not be the problem. I could suspect a BEC then.
I have two BECs already wired (separately !), one in preview for videocamera using. Will try to switch between them and report.

Ric

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Permalink Reply by Riccardo Kuebler on December 9, 2010 at 9:17am

Hi,

I did another 12' two flights (RC_01). I was able to restore the faulty ESC (?), so now I'm using all the same. I tried to swap between two different BEC.
There are some glitches on motors. Those are randomly on three motors (what I was able to notice) : front left and right and rear left (rarely). Sometimes they are very short glitches (motor suddenly changes rev and copter oscillates quick), sometimes they are enough to ground the copter on one side. Swapping between the BECs did not change anything, I guess I can rule out then a BEC issue.
It seems a brownout on ESC, but why randomly on different motors ? This suspect could be confirmed by the fact that (only) once an ESC reboot.
Or cold it be an IMU issue ?
Do make sense to test it with NG firmware ?
Thanks for help,

Ric

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Permalink Reply by Sebastian Gralla on December 9, 2010 at 9:33am

if you think it is because the voltage breaks down, solder a capacitor (or two) onto the power destribution board

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Permalink Reply by DougB on December 9, 2010 at 9:45am

Riccardo,

I had the same problem with my quad and found that the connectors between the ESC and the motors was causing the problem. I put the Quad on the ground and added just a little power and then wiggled the connections and found the motor's would cut in and out. I replaced all the ESC and motor connector with Castle Creation connectors and the problem is now gone. Quad fly's fine now.

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Permalink Reply by Riccardo Kuebler on December 9, 2010 at 9:58am

Doug,

thanks for answer, I was just waiting for this one :)
So it is not only my impression that those ESC are not very suitable.
I just checked that again and holding the copter in hands I had several ESC reboots, simply by powering motors at full throttle. I had a lot of ESC reboots, but only on two of them. I tried moving cables to check for bad contacts, but reboots did not match with cables moved.
ESC reboots even without touching anything.
If an ESC reboots it seems more a power cable issue, rather than a motor connection.
Anyway I was wondering the same, putting four better ESC, but this will become expensive, so the concept of a cheap quadcopter is being erased.

Best regards,

Ric

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Permalink Reply by DougB on December 9, 2010 at 10:17am

Riccardo,

I'm using the stock ESC's and they work fine after replacing the connectors. If the ESC's are rebooting you most likely have a power supply problem. Maybe a bad solder connection on the power distribution board. I don't think you need to replace the ESC's. If the problem is on the power board and you replace the ESC''s you'll still have the same problem. Also make sure your battery connections are good to. Also, is the APM board rebooting to or just the ESC's? You may have a connection that is working fine when there is a low draw of current but when you advance the throttle which increases the current draw this causes the connection to open up and then the ESC's will reboot when the power comes back.

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Permalink Reply by Riccardo Kuebler on December 9, 2010 at 10:44am

Doug,

could you please point me toward the connectors you are using ?
I have to unmount again all the electric part. I guess that having only one ESCs rebooting and two (three ?) glitching, it should be a connectors problem.
I checked for power consumption and get more than 50A at full throttle (average 45A. I got a peak at more than 80A, but this could be normal). So battery connection seems good. I never noticed an APM reboot.
Summarizing, motors glitches could be ESC motor connections issue; ESC reboot could be a power board ESC connection or a faulty / broken ESC.

Thanks for your inputs,

Ric

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Permalink Reply by DougB on December 9, 2010 at 12:47pm

Ric,

I apologize I didn't remember this before. I also replaced the red Deans style connectors on the end of the ESC's and the ones being used on the power board. The felt like they were tight but the spring on the male side was not pushing the connectors together well enough to make a consistent connection. That would cause your ESC's to reboot. I went to the local hobby store and bought a full set of real Dean's connectors and replaced them all, I think this may be your problem. The connectors I used on the ESC to motor side were 3.5mm Castle Creations ones.

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Permalink Reply by Riccardo Kuebler on December 9, 2010 at 2:46pm

Doug,

this is very useful info indeed. Thank you. I will start changing all the Deans male connectors. I will report my results.

Best regards,

Ric

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Permalink Reply by DougB on December 9, 2010 at 3:11pm

Ric,

I know it's more work, but I would and did change both the male and female Dean's connectors. With the nature of the way a Quad works the electrical connections must be perfect.

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