Arducopter drifting a lot to one side, and loosing height when doing anything else

Hi finally was able to test my jDrones quad outdoors but I'm not sure everything is ok, but maybe, having never flew copter, this is the right behavior.

Behavior I noticed in the quad

First problem I've seen is that the quad drift quite a lot forward/left. If I don't touch any stick it move a lot to one side.

Also, after I take off it climbs, but then when I remove just enough throttle to stop the climb, it starts descending, and it feels like there is no sweet spot where it doesn't climb or descend.

Yaw on the other end works perfectly.

Another thing I noticed is that if I pitch or roll, the quad looses height and I have to correct with the throttle to keep it at more or less the same height: I would have expected it to just move, not also loose a lot of height.

I checked the frame and it looks ok, no obvious misaligned motor or arm. Only possible issue I found is that a motor doesn't oppose the same resistance when I turn it manually as the others, but not sure this is a issue.

Are these normal behaviors that I should learn to counterbalance or is there something wrong in my frame?

I've attached the log: if you have a look at it, you'll notice that I have a lot o roll/pitch even when not applying any stick.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thx

Simone

2012-12-19 21-08 14.log

A lot depends on the wind. Keep in mind your copter will act like a balloon and get pushed around by the wind. Manual altitude hold never really holds even if it's dead calm. The flight mode ALT HOLD should hold within 1 meter. Again winds makes a big difference. Change yaw will cause a drop in altitude because the motors are changing speed to turn the copter and you loose a bit of lift. The programmers might be able to fix this in the code. Not to sure, the code is way over my head. Even when I fly waypoints and change yaw I've notice either a drop or up lift when the copter changes yaw. I recommend you fly in stabilize mode and get a real good feel for how your copter responds. Then try ALT HOLD. Remember if anything happens you need be able to fly in manual mode. I've had some really crazy flights and crashes. Almost every time I saved my copter I did it in stabilize mode with me flying.

Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Richard

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Richard Boyhan December 19, 2012 at 4:23pm

A lot depends on the wind. Keep in mind your copter will act like a balloon and get pushed around by the wind. Manual altitude hold never really holds even if it's dead calm. The flight mode ALT HOLD should hold within 1 meter. Again winds makes a big difference. Change yaw will cause a drop in altitude because the motors are changing speed to turn the copter and you loose a bit of lift. The programmers might be able to fix this in the code. Not to sure, the code is way over my head. Even when I fly waypoints and change yaw I've notice either a drop or up lift when the copter changes yaw. I recommend you fly in stabilize mode and get a real good feel for how your copter responds. Then try ALT HOLD. Remember if anything happens you need be able to fly in manual mode. I've had some really crazy flights and crashes. Almost every time I saved my copter I did it in stabilize mode with me flying.

Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Richard

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Arducopter drifting a lot to one side, and loosing height when doing anything else

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