Low Flight time with 5000mah 3s

[Lee1]

I got my hands on a dji f450 dji motors and 300E esc's with naza v2 Gps flight controller for my 1st Quadcopter. After about 10 flights i am now finding myself flying around at full sticks most of the time. Maybe time for a faster motors esc's?
Anyway reasions for this post i am onlly getting around 4-5 mins flight time this is using a 5000mah 3s turnigy lipo flying in gps mode is this normal? should i stick to atti mode?
I have also just got a 4s 5000mah turnigy lipo.
I will also be getting some fatshark goggles after xmas.
Im new to this and any help is welcome
Thanks

 

[Rotorfreek]

There is a major problem somewhere - you should be getting 15-20 mins from that.

What are your voltage settings at? Setting 1 should be around 3.6 v per cell with about a 0.3 v loss.

What voltage are your cells after landing?

How many mAh are you putting back in after a flight?

I would really make sure that you figure out if your using all the energy in the battery, if the battery is shot, or if something else is up. Otherwise your bolting FPV and other expensive bits onto a system with a fault in somewhere...

Sent by my thumb, a trusty slave to my crazy mind. The above is the ramblings of a lunatic, and should be treated as such. Terms and conditions apply.

 

[PeteDee]

I would think that you have your voltage cutout set too low, most of us have stopped using the voltage cutout feature and just use the voltage from the OSD or time your flight for 80% usage.

 

[Lee1]

I will have to take it for a flight later but im sure after a flight their reading 3.83 - 3.90 v per cell. i have checked all conection and soldering conections and their all good. i put hot glue over the soldering joints so i no their not shorting out. i will get back to you on what v i have the cut out set to.

 

[Lee1]

My volt settings.

 

[Gary Seven]

My volt settings.

@Lee1, let me chime in here with a couple of points:
1. Your voltage settings are set extremely conservative. I tried settings similar to that when I first started flying my F450 and was ending up only replacing about 2500mA on a recharge of my Zippy 3S. So I set them to a more aggressive setting as you can see in this post:
Naza Lite RTH fail-safe crash (maybe related to altitude hold)
2. Did you calibrate your battery under the "Battery / Current Voltage" part of the screen? You do know that you need to take a fully charged battery, take a reading with your volt meter, then plug that reading in the box and click "calibrate", right??
3.In all honesty you should forget using the "Low Voltage Alert" and have one of these attached to your battery while flying:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...2_8S_Cell_Checker_with_Low_Voltage_Alarm.html

I use this and depending on battery manufacturer, usually set it to 3.6V or 3.5V (for starters you could set it to 3.7V, fly until the alarm goes off, recharge the battery and see how many mA you put back in, and make further adjustments from there). With my Zippy Flightmax 3S battery and the alarm set-point set to 3.5V, I will get about 15-17 min flight time and usually put back in anywhere between 3200-3800 mA on the recharge, depending of course.

All this assumes, of course, that your battery is healthy and that you don't have a cell going bad. But I can tell you from experience that you have you settings in "Voltage Alerts" set WAY too conservative. HTH.

 

[Lee1]

Just had a flight and recharged the battery only putting about 1500 mah back in. I didnt calibrate the battery when i first set it up.
I have just calibared it and copyed the protection levels from your other post. Will test this out tomorrow at low attitude. what level protection levels would you recomend for a 4s battery.
Thank you.

Just ordered lipo alarm