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

Views: 543

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robert Beatty on December 15, 2010 at 7:19am

Mauricio:

I did get mine off the ground soon after I opened this topic and we figured out the problem. The problem turned out to be that I had the Pusher and Puller propellers in the wrong positions on the arducopter. I had pullers where the pushers should be and vice versa. The one particular diagram I was looking at in the wiki manual was incorrect (it was immediately corrected after we discovered this). After switching my propeller positions, I was able to fly, and I've been flying ever since. During the course of my corrective action, I also re-calibrated the ESC/motors.

 

I, too, am in the mountains, but the Blue Ridge Mountains (North Carolina), so my elevation is 2680 FEET rather than meters, which obviously isn't as high as you. I remember reading about other people flying arducopters at high elevation, so I don't think that's your problem, but you might want to do a search on the forum for "elevation", etc. By the way, I've only been to Colombia briefly on a bird watching expedition, but I love it. Beautiful country.

 

--Robert

Permalink Reply by Taylor Cox on December 15, 2010 at 7:25am

The easiest way to test the propellers is to spin each up up and feel which way the air flows.


ModeratorPermalink Reply by Sgt Ric on December 15, 2010 at 9:12am

@Taylor:  Mistakenly installing the pusher and tractor props would not be that easy to diagnose just by feeling the airflow... it just wouldn't be optimized and adequate for flight.

(many of us did the same on our EZStars, and knew to feel the airflow... just had the wrong prop with the wrong airfoil curve to them)

Permalink Reply by Taylor Cox on December 15, 2010 at 9:17am

Well whenever I feel the airflow, it's pretty obvious which side is pushing out more air.


ModeratorPermalink Reply by Sgt Ric on December 15, 2010 at 9:30am

Sure, but a correct prop pushes a lot more air than a pusher or a tractor on backwards, so just changing the ESC wire and therefore the direction of the motor doesn't always work, if you've messed up the right prop.

(they can both be made to push air in the same direction, but if the curve of the airfoil is reversed, you don't get the correct amount)

Both props move the air, but not the same volume.

Permalink Reply by Taylor Cox on December 15, 2010 at 9:45am

Gotcha

Permalink Reply by Mauricio Gaviria on December 15, 2010 at 12:04pm

Robert

Thanks for the advise..

Problem solved that way. 

Regards,

Mauricio

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