My new quad - tarot 650 build

[tipsy trucker]

Here we go again 

Specs so far;

Tarot 650 frame, currently just manual landing gear but I'll be upgrading when I can.

Naza m v2 fc
Flysky radio gear
N3 osd
Boscam Vtx with eachine cloverleaf (in post somewhere)
Generic pdb
Gartt 5008 400kv motors
18" props
Vifly finder2 (in post somewhere)
Generic voltage alarm
Flysky voltage sensor
Hglrc 30A bl_heli dshot escs
4s 6000mah batteries
Hakrc storm 32 gimbal (apparently works with sbus but we'll see)
I'm stuck at the moment, I need long power and signal wires for the motors (escs) but they're in the post somewhere 

For now though I thought I'd share my progress, the props miss eachother, just.

[tipsy trucker]

This build will take quite a while yet; I decided I wasn't very keen on how close the props are so I have ordered some lengths of tube to make longer arms. The downside is the 3weeks or more I'll now have to wait.

I also ordered retractable landing gear though, quite excited about that.

[apollo7]

Nice, if you need any advice on the naza give me a shout, not an expert but got a rough idea, would it have been better to go with smaller props, maybe 15"
I am doing a new build with the S600, similar setup it can take up to 17" props but only going with 1355 as i really dont like bad propwash descending, hoping to get all the motors,esc`s and naza MV1 in sunday morning

[tipsy trucker]

The 18's were quite a bit more efficient according to ecalc, I'll only really know about the propwash once it's airbourne.

With the naza, I'm ok with it really so far but I may need a bit of a rough quide to tuning the gains when I get there - there's mixed views as to whether it'll even work ok with frames over 650mm but I'll have a good try before I cough up for a different fc.

I do have a difficult decision to make once my tube gets here, it's coming as 4 lengths at 500mm - it's very tempting to simply leave them at 500 and have a 1050mm frame  I'll have a think - an 800mm frame's probably more suitable really though - any thoughts would be much appreciated  ~

[ched]

One thing to consider is transport. Can you fit a 1m frame in your car?

[tipsy trucker]

my car, yes - might mean I can't borrow a car or travel in someone else's car though 

Soo, I guess the obvious question is; was I right to think 1/4" ish is too close? And, if so, what's considered the limit?

[ched]

my car, yes - might mean I can't borrow a car or travel in someone else's car though 

Soo, I guess the obvious question is; was I right to think 1/4" ish is too close? And, if so, what's considered the limit?

My guess, and it is only a guess is that 6mm is too close but it depends of how much side movement your arms have. Just checked my 5" quad and there is 6mm between props front to back, BUT they are 4mm thick carbon arms that are about 20mm wide!! So not much flex to close the 6mm gap.

Maybe try gently pushing motors towards each other and see if tips of props could touch. If they can don't risk it!!!!!

[tipsy trucker]

good thinking  they're pretty stiff but I wouldn't be surprised, it's not a long way to move after all

[tipsy trucker]

I'm getting there finally, a couple more days and I'll be ready for maiden flight hopefully.


I need a little help with something though: the leds I have bought are little pcbs about 8mm wide x 40mm long and I've come up with a plan to mount them using 8mm plastic (or alu) box section but ideally I'll be able to get it tomorrow- Any suggestions where to look? The best idea I've had so far is to try the pound shop and similar for something I can cut up (a toy or something) failing that, I can get a meter of alu box section from b&q for under a fiver but I was hoping for cheaper and something I can go straight to rather than lose half the day shopping so any ideas would be very welcome

[ched]

Can't you just cable tie the LEDs to the arms (insulating the backs as carbon fibre is conductive and pcb traces might be on back of LEDs)?
That way you can have different colours on different arms to help with orientation?

[tipsy trucker]

I can, just trying to make it look tidy I suppose. The idea was to glue the plastic/alu box section to the motor mounts and hopefully run the wires to the escs through that too to keep them tidy

[ched]

I see. You can't run the wires through the arms can you?

[tipsy trucker]

They already were mate, but they had to go back on themselves to get to the esc's

All done now though, I got 10mm Ali box section from b&q and cut little bits of it to take the wires under the motors and provide a flat surface for the leds.

Just a little bit of finishing off to do tomorrow but I did manage to get a picture of my progress so far;

[tipsy trucker]

It's not gone well today 

My battery charger's decided to die 

And, I cant get the elevator bar on the assistant to go past the midway point: itll move in the righthand half of the bar but nothing at all past the middle even though the channel monitor on the tx shows 200 to -200 (an equal amount in either direction) - any ideas?

[tipsy trucker]

ignore that, it's sorted - I've no idea how I did it but all good  ::)

And, annoyingly, the battery charger's decided to start working too  the amazon guy's on his way with a new one.... hey-ho, I'll be able to charge two at once now, even if they're completely different batteries 

Not much achieved today but it's certainly looking nearly airworthy 

[tipsy trucker]

Anyone ever had naza arm motors but won't throttle up? :embarrassed any idea how to solve it?

in assistant, throttle goes from -1000 to +1000 as it should, it also shows 100% throttle on my osd

tx shows -100 to o to +100 on throttle too so that's all ok

I've recalibrated each esc  they're 28A each so should be plenty for what I'm doing according to ecalc

the motors will speed up without props but seem a little bit sluggish 

[ched]

I have had it not arm a few times but,if I remember correctly, it was a calibration issue. i.e. the throttle wasn't registering low enough.
I would say run through all the calibrations and if it's still arming but not lifting off plug in the assistant and see if there are any errors.
You haven't changed the motor settings for armed have you? Something like motors stop when armed.

You did say you had TX channel issues so maybe go through the calibrations on assistant for rx and check everything including the mode switches.

[tipsy trucker]

I've done all that unfortunately - it's beginning to look like the escs aren't what they claim to be; they're 28A peak and 24 continuous iirc

ecalc thinks peak will be around 18A  as far as I can see, everything else operates exactly as I'd expect it to  so, unless you can think of anything else, I'll get some bigger esc's ordered (these are about the size of a postage stamp so maybe 28A is a bit questionable  :huh

[ched]

I've done all that unfortunately - it's beginning to look like the escs aren't what they claim to be; they're 28A peak and 24 continuous iirc

ecalc thinks peak will be around 18A  as far as I can see, everything else operates exactly as I'd expect it to  so, unless you can think of anything else, I'll get some bigger esc's ordered (these are about the size of a postage stamp so maybe 28A is a bit questionable  :huh

I very much doubt all 4 esc would die same way.
I can't remember assistant but is there a way to test motors (PROPS OFF)? Are ESC calibrated?

If not only way I can think is to plug an esc into ch3 on your rx (if you can) and try and see if the throttle works that motor, i.e. cutting out the FC. I can't remember what TX/RX you are using but to directly connect a rx to esc you need it to be in PWM mode so each channel is on a seperate connector.
It may not be easy to do that but I think it's an fc or even rx/tx setting that is wrong.

There is a cheapy box that might help. It's called a servo tester, basically you put it on the control wires of the esc and power the esc via battery and you use the servo tester to control the speed of the motor. That proves that the esc/motor is working it's just the input signal (servo) that is wrong i.e. it shows if it's a esc/motor or fc/rx/tx issue.

Hope that gives you some clues but I seriously doubt you have damaged the escs.

[tipsy trucker]

-

[tipsy trucker]

Thankyou ched, I don't think I've damaged the escs - more like they're labelled as 28A but in reality they're something like 15 so they're sort of cutting out with the sheer effort of shifting such big motors/props?

Another thought I had was that my other tx had the option to change the frequency of the rx's outputs- iirc, naza needs 400hz - so would the escs have a hissy fit if naza's only getting 200 (I've no idea what the taranis/x8r does in this respect though) that said, the bars in the assistant all move fine so I think it's probably unlikely

I think the first thing I'll try today is to hook my other radio gear up to one esc independently and see what it does, if it's all ok; that'll narrow it down to either fc or radio gear I guess.

[tipsy trucker]

well, what I know up to now;

It's just the same with the other radio gear, missing the fc and everything else out. I measured the actual rpm at full throttle with a lazer rpm measurey thingy (tachometer) and got ~650rpm 

I've gone back to ecalc and it's saying almost exactly 10 times that 

Is it possible I have the wrong kind of esc? It just seems a bit suspicious that the figure stands out like that

I'm running (should I say trying to) Gartt 5008 400kv motors with bl_heli d-shot esc's 

[tipsy trucker]

More info about the esc's;

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fOIQEmFrL7u9ot1pKhFuamsv5Bjo70mC/view?usp=sharing

I've found the motors do about 650 rpm with the prop on but 6500rpm with it off (with either set of radio gear or through the NAZA)

What I did notice on the ebay listing (in link) is the ppm max throttle - is that what I need the transmitter to be doing? it's normally set at -100 - +100 but this is all a little bit unknown to me 

Anyways, these esc's are apparently 28A constant, 38A burst so I'm starting to doubt it's a current issue  I'm stumped frankly

[ched]

Just a quick reply for now. If I remember correctly the esc have to be compatible with the naza. I can't remember what protocols are needed but you might be able to change the protocol on your esc to match naza.
Anyway search naza and esc and protocols hopefully that will help. I will look properly later.

[ched]

Just had a bit more of a look and it appears naza doesn't talk to blheli escs!!! I don't know if you can get firmware for your esc to use say SimonK protocol that should work with naza.

Alternatively you need 30A SimonK ESC ideally Opto ones or if they have BEC then remove the red (5v) line from the servo connector as that would give 5v to the naza which is very bad!!!!
There are 30A SimonK ESC with BEC on ebay for about £2.25 each that maybe buying 1 would prove that that would solve the issue!

[ched]

Sorry not to have spotted the blheli esc issue earlier. It's just generally when we build quads we are using much newer fc that run Betaflight/Butterflight fw and we all try to push for newest tech as some people need the performance. Blheli /S /32 fw is very good as they can use digital commands (Dshot) and respond very quickly and do clever things like braking and even esc telemetry etc.
I doubt you would be able to find SimonK FW for your esc as the processors will be much newer and probably no one has written it for them. It was a long time ago (probably 3-4 years ago) when things were very much more difficult and we were trying everything just to get things to fly easier and flashing esc was a small help. Things generally have moved on so much but mainly in acrobatics and racing.

[tipsy trucker]

I wish that were all it was mate; these are the same escs that I had on my old quad (one's brand new, the others were scavenged from the wreckage) using the same naza fc (also rehomed from the wreckage).

All I can think now is that they just don't go with these motors for some reason - the current should be fine, I've no way of measuring over 10A but ecalc says roughly 20A which is plenty below 28 (continuous) and 38 (burst)

Any idea how to decide on new escs? It's about the only hope I have at the moment

[ched]

Well 2 ways I can think of:
Get a servo tester like this https://amzn.to/2SCpenH Then give it 5v power and connect to the control (servo) wires of the esc. Power the esc from battery and see if the motors spin nat the speed you expect.
And/OR
Buy a cheap 30A SimonK esc like : https://amzn.to/2L5IQ17 attach a motor, fc, battery and servo wires and test. REMOVE red wire as they are BEC ones!!!!!!

These should tell you which is faulty or not working as you would expect. I chose Amazon stuff that had Prime option as that way you know they are UK stock and you can get them quick if you want. They are not the cheapest, I think both are on ebay cheaper but delivery times seem to be 10 days, which suggests to me they are not actually in the UK.

It does seem a bit weird that these components were working on old model. Have you checked the voltage at the esc input (red and black) to make sure you have battery voltage, especially under load?

[tipsy trucker]

I have, it's battery voltage minus about 0.10v which sounds about right to me. It doesn't really drop any lower than that with the motor running, loaded or not, maybe 0.25v at the most.

To my mind, it's narrowed down to either; the motor and esc don't work together or the motors are faulty- which seems unlikely for 4 brand new motors all to have the same problem.

If I'd said I was building a quad with naza and 5008 motors with 18" props, presumably you'd say get 30-40A Simonk escs? I'll have a think about whether to just take the plunge and hope a set of escs will solve it or keep looking first

[ched]

OK so looks like it's not a voltage issue. If the voltage was dropping then there could be a soldering issue.
If the FC is not connected and it's only battery, esc, motors and rx connected then my guess is there is something wrong with the rx/tx setup. I know very little about Taranis but there are many settings that can change the output range. You did say you had issues setting the tx up so I wonder if somehow that has created an issue?

I would just get a servo tester then you are just testing battery, esc and motors as the servo tester is supplying the control signal that either the rc or fc would normally. That way you eliminate the rx/tx and can see if the esc and motors are working, which I think they will be. As I can't really see all 4 dying the same way at the same time.