I have been poking this build with a stick occasionally as I was working on my Power Wheels Rover project in the meantime. But now I am back to working on this quad.
Build list:
- QAV500 frame
- APM 2.5
- SunnySky 2814-10 motors
- Hobbymate 40A ESCs
- Graupner E-Props 10x5
I have had a hard time getting this thing to play nice, and last night while reading more about ESC timing I realized that may have been my problem. I was having occasional motor spurts, and sometimes one or two motors wouldn't spin up initially, they would pulse and behave strangely. Early this morning I set the timing on the ESCs to low, and unsurprisingly it fixed the issues I was having.
I did a full config reset running 2.8.1, with motor size set for medium (0.110). Flight is a LOT more stable than it has ever been, and had a slight breeze too. All is left for me is to get more flight time, and practice, practice, practice!
More photos etc at: http://projectable.me/post/35643555854/more-tweaks-to-the-qav500-platform-i-moved-all
Comments
it weighs a little under 2KGs
Weight distribution is very strange with the QAV500 frame. I played a LOT with PID tuning, any variation just made things worse. And until I made the ESC motor timing change and 2.8.1 default settings I too had really bad forward/backward roll issues.
Another thing I have found is that you MUST keep the weight as low as possible. I initially had the gopro inside its waterproof case, as well as the clean frame mounted slightly higher so the ESCs could fit between the 2 frames due to them being too large to fit where intended. This made the prop line about mid way on the clean frame and made it terribly unstable in any direction. I have since flipped the dirty frame, ESCs are mounted on the underside now and everything is very close to original spec.