Can't get ArduCopter off the ground
My friends at DIY Drones:
Following the Arducopter online manual, I have finished building my first Arducopter, calibrated my ESCs, initialized it with the configurator, setup the RC, and ran successfully through the Pre-Flight test. As far as I know, I followed all the steps correctly.
In terms of parts and configuration, I have a pretty standard Arudcoputer:
Software: Arducopter_alpha_1.0
ESCs: Turnigy Basic 18A
Motors: KDA20-22L
Front/Back Props: APC 10x4.7 Propellers, lettering facing up
Side Props: APC 10x4.7-P Pushers, lettering facing up
RC: Futaba T10CHG Tx (in airplane mode) & 8-channel Rx.
Frame Arms: aluminum arms from beta kit
Frame center: several thin sheets of perforated aluminum, same size as beta kit
Battery: zippy 2200 3 cell lipo
Total Weight: 967 grams
I just did my first flight test. I arm the motors. Then I push the throttle forward. The front and back props spin proportionally to how far I push the throttle forward. The left and right props don't spin if I push steadily forward, but if I tilt the joystick to the left or right, then they'll come on, but at the same time, the forward and back props go off (even though the throttle is well on). As I move the joystick around, the front/back spin hard or the left/right spin hard, but seldom do they spin together (though sometimes rarely they do). My first question: Is this normal behavior? I guess I assumed all the props would be spinning more-or-less all the time to a greater or lesser degree. I wasn't expecting two props to go off when the other two props go on.
As I do this, even when when I push the throttle all the way on, the arducopter does not lift off. It's not even attempting or struggling to almost lift off. It's working extremely hard at something, but taking off isn't it. As I move the throttle joystick around (or the right joystick also) I can see the motors responding and the unit rocks back and forth, and tries to turn, as it changes the engine speeds, but no lift off at all.
My first thought was that I have the propellers on backwards or something, or the motors are spinning backwards, but I tried to be careful on those points when I assembled it (When I first built it, I did switch the direction of two motors by switching two of the ESC wires so that the motors were turning consistently with the diagram in the manual).
So, I'm not sure what the problem is. If any of this sounds familiar, or if you could help narrow my tests and diagnostics, I would appreciate it. It could be that you'll hear these symptoms and know from experience where I've gone wrong.
At this point, with out any further information, I'm going to start a general diagnostic process to see if I can isolate the problem:
1. When I got to the motor calibration step in the manual, I tried to do that properly, but the beeps are a bit hard to interpret (I come from the robotics world rather than the RC world, so ESCs and this type of brushless motors are new to me).
2. I'll double check all my motor/prop directions to make sure the right ones are CW and CCW, etc. Maybe in my attempts to make sure I got these on right, I did it exactly backwards or something.
Any clues you can provide to help me in my diagnosis of the problem would be much appreciated.
Tags: arducopter, no, take-off
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Robert Beatty on -
Bill,
Thank you. I really appreciative your positive comment. It's been a good journey so far. The site is great and provides a lot of very useful information.
Here's a bit of an update on my project:
A couple of days ago I had a crash and broke one the aluminum arms. I didn't want to wait around for the replacement arm, so I welded the two pieces back together (aluminum welding rods and a MAPP torch) and it held during today's test flights. The test flights went relatively well. It flies pretty nicely once I get it in the air. Changing to helicopter mode on my transmitter and adjusting the throttle curve has helped me a little bit with the altitude control. I also re-calibrated the ESC/motors, re-calibrated on the Configurator, and double checked a few other things. Now I'm working on learning how to turn and maneuver in a more controlled manner. Right now I tend to drift at the mercy of the environment, rather than really control it. I purchased the RealFlight simulator so that I can learn some basic helicopter flying skills. I actually find the ArduCopter easier to fly in real life than most the helicopters in the simulator, but crashing the simulator is a lot less repair work. :)
The one issue I'm still struggling with on my quad is the take off. My take offs are hesitant and often unsuccessful (the quad tips over in the grass or flips). It's weird because once it's in the air it's stable, but when it's on the ground and trying to take off it isn't. I'm trying to be careful, so I'm trying go up slowly and then touch down again, just for practice, but it tips or flips much of the time. It might be that I just need to really gun it and have faith the thing's going to fly (which it often does once I'm up).
Each day, I learn a bit more, gain a bit more RC experience, and make a few more improvements on my quad. Hopefully I'll get there.
Thanks again for the encouragement.
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JDronesPermalink Reply by Jani Hirvinen on -
Robert,
Yes ArduCopter is a lot easier to fly than helicopters, they are rather different. Helicopters are really unstable by their nature and if you think that flying heli in simulator or in real life is difficult. You are correct.. On beginning it feels rather impossible to fly helicopter (i know, i've been there). You might feel that no matter what you do, your heli crashes immediately and well to be honest. It is like that. When flying helis, you just need to be one step ahead of it's movement always if you are not = crash. But with a lot of practice you can get even helis up and flying really nice.
Then again ArduCopter by it's nature is a lot more stable than helis, it has similar control mechanism than helis but that's it.. Everything else it totally different. When flying ArduCopter in stable mode if something goes wrong just let go your control stick and it level's it self automatically. Heli's don't.. Ok ArduCopter might drift a bit after that but at least it's level.
IF you have some weird flipping problems etc then you might have some other problems too. ArduCopter should not flip on takeoff. You need to make sure that all engines are running before takeoff, they they are not... Do not takeoff.
Yes you should always make a quick takeoff at least to altitude of 0.5 - 1 meters. This is because close to ground you are affected thing called groundeffect. What that is, well there are a lot fancy explanations how that affects but let's put it simple way.. Close to ground you have a lot of turbulence and because of that it's difficult to control your helis/quads etc.
Ok ArduCopter can handle rather well close to ground flying but it also needs some input from pilot so my suggestion is that before you know better of how to control your quads, don't fly too close to ground. You will learn it later...
You also might need to change a lot of your PID settings to make it more stable to fly, this all depends on your frame you use, weights, motors, propellers, esc and it's only you who can find proper settings for them.
Check our WIki pages on how to tune PID to get you started.
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Permalink Reply by Andre Moraes on -
Jani,
I'm having some problems too to get off the ground. It doesn't go up leveled it starts to go to one direction, if I remember correctly, it goes left. I tune the PID Settings using the configurator trying to make most be = 0 and the
Here's my setup:
.1 Beta frame
.4 Turnigy 2217 16turn 1050kv 23A Outrunner $13.28
.4 Turnigy Plush 30amp Speed Controller $14.3
.1 Rhino 2150mAh 3S1P 20C Lipoly Pack (I've a bigger battery but using this one now since I can't even takeoff .1 Oil Pan with GPS u-blox + Mag
.2 APC 12x3.8 Pusher Propellers
.2 APC 12x3.8 Propellers
.1 TX Spektrum DX7
.1 RX AR8000
.2 xbee not installed yet
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by John Church on -
Hi,
Can you try your bigger battery? Your current battery can reliably supply 43A . Your setup will ask for a max 92A . If the draw on your pack makes for a situation where voltage drops too low, one or more ESCs will stop functioning and may be your problem. With all of your motors running 12" props, I'm guessing that your current draw is up there, causing an ESC to drop out because the 2.1A pack can't keep up.
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Permalink Reply by Sebastian Gralla on -
did you calibrate the Acc offsets?
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Permalink Reply by Andre Moraes on
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Sebastian,
They were never showing 0
some were changing from -1, 0, 1 close to 0
My artificial horizon was almost flat and the values on the bottom were changing, I disconnect the configurator, reset the gyro - connected again and was almost flat, don't recall the value
I follow the instructions on the rc groups Arducopter Build Thread # 1286011:
To be honest I could not find good instructions about calibration in the quad wiki, it doesn't say what it should be or what to aim for anyway in the site above it says:
5. Configure your copter
- go to "Initial Setup" and click on "Initialize EEPROM"
- in the status bar it should say "Initializing done"
- Go to the "Calibration" screen and set the following values:
You only need to adjust the PID values for the accels.
Leave the others untouched for now.
To set the values you'll have to choose "Calibration" from the upper right drop down menu. You can lower or higher the values on the right hand side and press "Update" each time.
Lower Pitch = Lower Values
Lower Roll = Higher Values
Lower Z Axis = Higher Values
Accel Roll & Pitch have to be near zero, while Accel Z should be near 408.
Also check the artificial horizon. If the gyros are playing rollercoaster it's time for a rrreeesssettt. But disconnect from the Configurator first or it will hang.
- Go to "Transmitter Adjustment" and check if your commands are displayed correctly
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Permalink Reply by Andre Moraes on
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Hey guys... Perhaps I've a problem in my DIP switches.
What are the DIP switches that I'm supposed to use and recommended settings for the dx7?
Thanks a lot for the help so far
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JDronesPermalink Reply by Jani Hirvinen on -
DIP switches on IMU board are not in use on our latest and official software release. On our development code we are test using one DIP switch. So I doubt that it's this. Unless you are talking about some other dip switches.
Make sure that you get all those flashing lights etc when you are rebooting your IMU board, if you don't get them, move SW2 to another position and reboot.
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Permalink Reply by Andre Moraes on
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Thanks Jani,
I revise everything and discover that one motor was rotating in opposite direction as it was supposed.
Copter took off but I was afraid of hit the pergola in my back yard, perhaps firsts flight it's better to be in a nice open space. End up that I reduce the throttle and the copter turn off the engine I think or close and then crash in grass. Big issue was in one of the aluminium bars. I'll need to replace it.
Anyone know what can be done in terms of altitude hold to avoid a similar problem in the future?
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Permalink Reply by Mauricio Gaviria on -
I am having the same problem the copter stays on the ground even full throtle
Mine weigths 1005 grams
Propellers are correctly oriented, EVERYTHING runs perfect, i have double checked everything, propeler orientation, motors direction of spin, ..... .
Holding in manually it responds exactly as expected to changes in attitude...Battery is 3c 2200ma 30c and does not appear to be short of current.. The motors speed respond very well and acordling to the throtle command
I am located in Bogota, Colombia at an altitude of 2680 meters above sea level...... Air is thin here .....
Help would be very much appreciated ???
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Permalink Reply by Riccardo Kuebler on -
Are you using NG soft ?
Manual / Position hold and Stabilized / Acro switches are reversed. I had to put stabilized to ch6 and Manual / Position hold on ch 5. If this is the problem, you have to reverse Position hold switch channel. If not it will try to hold the ground position.
Could this be your problem ? Check anyway the right switch behavior and position with the leds. They are all well shown.
Ric
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Permalink Reply by Taylor Cox on -
I would wait until NG is officially released because of possible bugs. Chris said it was supposed to be during this week.
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