Discussions

Hello,

I have a Steadidrone 2014 QU4D RTF (from steadidrone-usa) and I am trying to diagnose possible Motor/ESC problems.   It would be helpful to know what I should be expecting for throttle levels for a hover, but my study of forum posts lead me to believe that I may have hardware problems.

My quad has the Alexmos SDBG4 2-axis gimbal, a hero3 camera, and the 5200mah 4S battery.  It weighs in at 2.164 Kg with a 5200mah 4S battery on-board.  For those less familiar with this quad it is configured with T-3506 650Kv motors, APC 10x4.5 MR props, an APM 2.6 flight controller, 3DRUBlox GPS/Compass, Frsky Taranis X9D/X8R radio and a Hobbywing quattro 25A ESC.

Here are my observations:
When I hover (altitude hold or loiter) I notice that my throttle out values are near 800. I have attached a screen shot of the throttle input and output values for a long loiter.

I have also attached a plot of the real-altitude (GPS), Barometric Altitude, and commanded altitude (WPALT).

Finally I have attached a plot of the 4 motor outputs.

I have been having flight problems after about 4-5 minutes -- the craft would drop to the ground and then recover and repeat. This behavior coincides with the throttle on motor4 being maxed out. 

I had had a couple of minor crashes -- mostly drops at slow forward velocities into the grass. All told I damaged the ends of 2 props when the arms folded and the blades hit each other. Thus I thought that perhaps I had a bad motor (#4) which was requiring greater drive and not producing sufficient output -- forcing the other motors to compensate. I replaced motor 4 and motor 3 which had the highest values. This made some small improvement, but my throttle levels are still quite high.

Could this mean that I have a bad ESC, or might these normal levels for this quad?

I would be grateful for guidance on this question...

Thank you.