Can't get my quadcopter flying

Trey Hagg February 17, 2017 at 4:35am

I recently completely dismantled my quadcopter, and now I'm going to start over.

I'm going to start by doing away with the PDB I have on it (Probably should've mentioned that; It might've been the problem) and use the Flamewheels built-in power distribution board. I'm also going to clean up the wiring and make it nice and neat. I believe I have everything I need to get the poor drone working, and cleaning it up will make it look prettier and relieve some stress. I will also be able to have some fun in the process.

By the way, I have a swollen Lipo and I looked up how to dispose of Lipos, but it involves me making a discharger. I don't have the equipment for that. How else would I go about doing that?

Trey Hagg February 14, 2017 at 4:20am

Hello all,

I bought a new battery and propellers yesterday. In addition to being completely dead, the old battery was very swollen. It was on the bottom layer of the frame, so I only got to see its condition when I pried it out. I'm probably going to reconfigure the entire setup of the quadcopter.

The new props are ten-inch two blades. As it turns out, my little four-inch props weren't going to get me anywhere so I bought bigger ones.

If anybody has any advice on properly disposing of Lipos, please feel free to tell me.

Matej Miljko February 13, 2017 at 8:22am

Trey,

I think then the 0.5 might be in cm then :) Half inch is a huge hole.

Best of luck with your build.

Trey Hagg February 13, 2017 at 8:09am

Matej,

I did a little bit of research and found an answer for you.

There are three measurements to propellers. The first is, of course, the diameter of the prop. The second is prop pitch. This is how high the four props could lift the drone per revolution. Lastly, the third measurement is the diameter of the center mounting hole. I'm pretty sure that's what the 0.5'' means. Thanks, by the way, for helping me. It means a lot.

Thanks Jim, I guess I will go buy a new battery. I hope it's the answer to all my problems.

Matej Miljko February 13, 2017 at 7:50am

Also to add. 12.6V is a fully charged 3S lipo so you didn't overcharge it. The charger will automatically stop charging once it is at that voltage if you set it up correctly and you use the balance lead.

It could be that either you left the battery plugged in and that discharged it or the charger killed it. It is rare to get a dead battery, maybe a single cell but still I have never recieved a dead battery.

Those props still intrigue me. It is possible, depending on the weight of the quad, that they don't produce enough lift even if you get a new battery. Are they 6x4 six blade props or what is that 0.5"? Width?

http://lead.It/

Jim Torket February 13, 2017 at 7:40am

Its great that the charger works.

Battery - this is surprising, I would expect to have one dead cell. Not all of them?. I don't think you can do anything else but to buy a new battery.

If the voltages are so low, I would advise not to try to charge the battery. Safety reasons!

Trey Hagg February 13, 2017 at 6:17am

Update:

So with the battery on my quadcopter, I measured it before charging and it said 0.04V. I was a little surprised. I then measured each cell individually and the first cell read 0.01V, the second one was 0.0V and the last cell was 0.03V. Then, the charger wouldn't read the battery. Now I know for sure that it's the battery and the chargers fault.

If I have a dead cell, do I have to replace the battery? If not, what do I do to fix it? How do I get the charger to read the battery?

Thanks,

Trey

Trey Hagg February 13, 2017 at 3:54am

Hi Everyone,

So my charger came today and I used it on my transmitters battery since it is the same as my quadcopters battery, and it did amazing! When it was done charging, I measured it with a voltmeter like you said, Jim, and it overcharged a little. It said 11.7V. Is that bad?

I've been doing more research, watching videos, etc., and I found out I made another mistake. With my drone setup, I had put my battery on the bottom and fixed it with double-sided tape. I suppose I should have used a battery strap instead.

I haven't charged the battery on my drone with my new charger, which is the EV-Peak e4 Lipo Charger. I've only used it once so far, but right now I would rate it five stars.

Jim Torket February 7, 2017 at 5:29pm

Hi Trey,

Could be a battery problem but can be also some short circuit on the drone.

The best way is first to make sure your charger is actually charging the battery and that the battery is OK.

Not sure if you have any display and information on the charger itself. If not you can do that the old school way:

- take a multimeter / volt meter and check the voltage on the battery - 1S LIPO is 4.2V full or 2.5V max discharged (could be even lower than 2.5 but this means it would be over discharged and it is dangerous to handle). In your case with 3S battery you should be looking for about 12.6V as fully charged and about 7.5 depleted (Note that some batteries does not recomend discharging below 2.8 or even 3V)

- you can check the voltage before and after charging and find out if the charger is actually working.

- You could check the voltage on each battery cell via the balance cable. For 3 S battery you should have a 4 cable white connector. The first cable would be the ground cable and the other 3 are connected to each of the cells individually. So you can check the voltage between the ground and each of the other cables. This will give information of any of the cells are damaged or not balanced.

Then, if all of the above seems to be correct, I would look carefully on each power connection. There might be a wrongly connected cable or short.

If you don't have power line to your radio received, you need to provide that, but be carefull as most of them will require not more than 5V, while your battery is 12+ V. The Pixhawk has a number of power outputs which you could use. Not need for additional battery. This will be unnecessary weight.

Best

Jim

Trey Hagg said:

Hi Jim,

You know, I actually haven't thought about measuring the battery. The Pixhawk doesn't give an alarm, but when I connect the battery to the drone, and try to arm it, the battery stops giving power to the rest of the drone, and it starts clicking. I always make sure to disconnect it quickly, but I'm not sure if it's the battery or the charger's fault.

By the way, since the Pixhawk doesn't supply power to the servo rail, do I have to keep a battery connected to the receiver? I keep a Nimh battery on it when I try to arm it to keep it powered and bound to the transmitter, but the receiver also doesn't want to stay bound. Could you help me on that count as well? Thanks.

And to answer your question Matej, I am using a power module to power the flight controller.

Trey Hagg February 7, 2017 at 12:47pm

Hi Jim,

You know, I actually haven't thought about measuring the battery. The Pixhawk doesn't give an alarm, but when I connect the battery to the drone, and try to arm it, the battery stops giving power to the rest of the drone, and it starts clicking. I always make sure to disconnect it quickly, but I'm not sure if it's the battery or the charger's fault.

By the way, since the Pixhawk doesn't supply power to the servo rail, do I have to keep a battery connected to the receiver? I keep a Nimh battery on it when I try to arm it to keep it powered and bound to the transmitter, but the receiver also doesn't want to stay bound. Could you help me on that count as well? Thanks.

And to answer your question Matej, I am using a power module to power the flight controller.

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Can't get my quadcopter flying

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