well that worked out well

[Matthew Dames]

hello all! names brent and im from jsut south of Pittsburgh pa. currently finishing up a 250 class drone. was testing my 5030 tri-blades yesterday and the bullet nut came off at 90% throttle... almost had to go buy an eye patch for the wife...

 

[Motopreserve]

Wow! Sounds like you two were very lucky. Nyloc nuts are safest if you didn't have them already.

Are you making a 250 size FPV race quad? Or just keeping it small at first for learning?

Welcome aboard.

Have fun and fly safe!

 

[Matthew Dames]

extremely lucky. it was a 5030 tri-blade and it was def up to about 80-90% throttle on a 4s... so you can imagine the urgency that prop had when it came off. the endgame with this particular drone is a light as possible fpv racer. im not going to actually race it, but strictly for acro and tight-space flying.im keeping it fpv-free until i learn how to reliably keep it in flight without destroying it. ive got enough money in it already, dont need losing fpv gear added to that. id like to possibly upgrade the frame and esc's at some point. looking past this drone, id like to get into a 450-500 class heavy-lifter drone that i can get 30-40 minutes of flight time out of. (not sure if thats entirely possible but ill discover that when the time comes.)the goal for that particular drone will be a trade off in agility and speed for flight time and lifting capacity. ( i REALLY want to run a spotlight LED setup (10w white leds) and get nighttime video. all this stems from my passion for flying things and plus my 8 year old son LOVES it. hes got his own little $20 starter helicopter to learn on. ive shown him the bigger more advanced ones and he seems interested. so now that my lifestory is told haha

 

[Motopreserve]

It's great that you can share this with your son.

You'll find plenty of help here for making the move to the larger rig. And there are plenty of people building these FPV racers as well, so if you need help - feel free to ask.

 

[SleepyC]

Sounds like you have some cool RC plans! Post pics as you make the plans happen!

 

[Matthew Dames]

Thanks everyone! I def plan on it. I kinda need help now though, my ccw motors aren't spinning ccw. So I need to reverse the polarity. Could you take a look at my photo and tell me from top to bottom which wires are what? I'm afraid to cut and splice without knowing 100%

 

[Motopreserve]

If they're not running the correct direction, you just need to swap 2 leads. Doesn't matter which ones. If they are soldered, you'll have to cut them. If there are bullet connectors under that heat shrink, even easier.

 

[Matthew Dames]

I'm def planning on swapping the leads. But there's 3 wires. One is a signal wire, so I need to assure that I'm not swapping it.

 

[Motopreserve]

For the sake of the quick fox: In the photo, there are 3 motor wires connected to 3 esc wires. Forget the idea of signal (that's on the ESC servo cable).

Any 2 wires can be swapped and will reverse the direction on these 3 phase motors. Doesn't matter which two. Just as long as 2 are swapped from how they're connected now.

Make sense?

 

[Matthew Dames]

Makes perfect sense. I think it goes without saying I'm not the most technologically literate drone builder yet haha. Good news though, got the ccw motors running right! Got 2 liftoffs before breaking 3 props. It didn't have any problem whatsoever getting off the ground but its wandering backwards. The first time I caught my blanket and luckily saved the props. The second time it caught the wooden blinds... Not so lucky. Sucks because I don't have more props but its officially flying. Need to add a bit of counter-balance weight and ill be good to go!!

 

[Motopreserve]

Woah! Wait a minute. Are you trying to fly this indoors? That would be a problem right there, so let's have you step outside to a safe area when those new props arrive

If it's drifting, there may be something up other than the weight distribution. What flight controller are you running? Did you calibrate the throttle/ESCs?

 

[Matthew Dames]

Admittedly yes I did fly it inside. I was simply wanted to get it off the ground to make sure the motors were spinning right. I'm running the cc3d controller and went through all the calibrations on the gsc. I'm gonna need to look at it more closely. It did drift backwards both times

 

[Motopreserve]

Does the CC3D allow you to calibrate the ESCs from within the program?

Keep in mind you can test the motor directions with the props off. Put some tape on the motor with a "tab" sticking off the motor. That way you can feel the direction easier.

Also, your wife won't lose an eye that way

 

[Matthew Dames]

That's a great idea. Wish I would've thought of that beforehand haha. Good news is the motors are running right and the response seems smooth. I'm not sure about calibration abilities but I'm going to spend more time reading and researching. On a side note this thing is going to be scary fast. I don't even think I got it to 25% before it lifted right off the ground. 100% punch outs are gonna be wicked

 

[Motopreserve]

I'm sure you're aware that 50% throttle is the goal. While a racer may want a little more "juice" for the fun stuff, 25% may be too low. It will definitely limit your control a bit.

For esc throttle calibration, this video explains it fairly well. This would be the typical way, removing the FC from the equation all together. It will assure all motors/ESCs will be firing together.