Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 Hey everyone! My build is just about RTF my charger is in my city and will be in my possession today! Along with another battery. Clean flight is on my spf3 (clone) tx is configured motor tests all work! I haven't given any details about my build, it's not the best quality parts I used but for being completely new to this I think it's pretty good. So today after I charge up 2 packs, if there is light left. I will do LOS flight for now I'm pretty confident because I have been on the sim for a few weeks now. So is there any advise you all could offer regarding pre flight checks and line of sight tips for my Maiden flight? Thabks eveyone! ![[-]](https://intofpv.com/images/collapse.png) • Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 Test failsafe before your maiden flight. Make sure that if you arm the quad so that the motors are spinning and you then turn the radio off that the motors stop spinning within a second or two.
When you are ready to take off, do it quickly. Don't try to lift off slowly as the quad will be really unstable trapped in the turbulent air coming back up off the ground.
Take spare propellers and a tool to change them!
Line of sight is much more difficult in acro mode. I fly line of sight in angle mode for a maiden flight. Then, when I have a little more confidence that the craft is performing as it should, I switch to horizon mode for some flips and rolls.
Keeping orientation is hard when you are starting off because you tend to think from your position on the ground and as soon as the rear of the quad isn't facing you any more, the controls don't do the same thing. If the quad has the nose pointing to your left, pitch forward becomes 'fly left' instead of 'fly forward', etc. So, don't get too far away or too high up.
If you are confused, it's better to drop the throttle and hit the ground than lose control completely.
Fly over grass, not a hard surface.
Good luck! Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 (02-Nov-2017, 02:31 PM)unseen Wrote: Test failsafe before your maiden flight. Make sure that if you arm the quad so that the motors are spinning and you then turn the radio off that the motors stop spinning within a second or two.
When you are ready to take off, do it quickly. Don't try to lift off slowly as the quad will be really unstable trapped in the turbulent air coming back up off the ground.
Take spare propellers and a tool to change them!
Line of sight is much more difficult in acro mode. I fly line of sight in angle mode for a maiden flight. Then, when I have a little more confidence that the craft is performing as it should, I switch to horizon mode for some flips and rolls.
Keeping orientation is hard when you are starting off because you tend to think from your position on the ground and as soon as the rear of the quad isn't facing you any more, the controls don't do the same thing. If the quad has the nose pointing to your left, pitch forward becomes 'fly left' instead of 'fly forward', etc. So, don't get too far away or too high up.
If you are confused, it's better to drop the throttle and hit the ground than lose control completely.
Fly over grass, not a hard surface.
Good luck! THANK YOU! The flight was successful! I rushed home to grab the charger and charge the battery during the time I did what you said! Took about 20 min to charge. So I thorw everything in a box and I drive a block down the street to a field and throw the battery on, arm it, and punch the throttle and nothing but grass flying around....... turns out I had the props on wrong. I couldn't figure out what it was because I have ccw one color and cw another color.. anyway I had about 10 minutes of light left by the time I got the thing up in the air.. it feel really sensitive at first. I couldn't keep it in one spot. I go home happy as hell it can fly, and I look at my tx and realize i never turned on the second aux channel so angle mode was not on.. fixed that and went out front in my grass poped the lights on and I could hover in that yard the whole time and not move. It was a great feeling seeing my creation fly thabk you for the tips!! Btw I have another question. Sometimes when I bring it back down or cancel a launch one Motor will spin very slowly even with the throttle all the way down. Also I notice if I only give about 25% throttle not all the motors turn. Punch it and it'll be fine.. what's causing that all points in clean flight are 1000 1500 and 2000.. any ideas? • Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 Two things:
First, it sounds to me like you have not calibrated the ESCs. You should do that. Once the ESCs are calibrated, you should use the motors tab to find the lowest throttle level where the motors start to spin reliably. That level, plus another 20 points, is what you should enter as the minimum throttle value on the Configuration page in Cleanflight.
Secondly, unless you turn on the "MOTOR_STOP" feature, your propellers should spin at idle when you arm the quad. This is an excellent safety feature as it shows both you and any onlookers that your craft is armed and ready to take off. • Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 (03-Nov-2017, 09:29 AM)unseen Wrote: Two things:
First, it sounds to me like you have not calibrated the ESCs. You should do that. Once the ESCs are calibrated, you should use the motors tab to find the lowest throttle level where the motors start to spin reliably. That level, plus another 20 points, is what you should enter as the minimum throttle value on the Configuration page in Cleanflight.
Secondly, unless you turn on the "MOTOR_STOP" feature, your propellers should spin at idle when you arm the quad. This is an excellent safety feature as it shows both you and any onlookers that your craft is armed and ready to take off. Okay I will do that! Do i need to calibrate the esc in bl heli? How would I do it? • Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 You can either use BLHeliSuite or you can just use the motors tab in the configurator.
It goes something like this:
0. Remove your propellers!
1. Connect USB to flight controller.
2. Go to motors tab, enable motor control, click the 'master' slider button.
3. Press the 'Home' key on your keyboard to raise all motors to maximum.
4. Plug in flight battery.
5. Listen to the ESCs. They will make their normal startup tones and then beep a few times ending in a sequence of four ascending beeps.
6. Press the 'End' key to drop the motor signals to zero.
7. The ESCs will make a few double beeps and then give four descending beeps.
Done! • Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 (03-Nov-2017, 02:34 PM)unseen Wrote: You can either use BLHeliSuite or you can just use the motors tab in the configurator.
It goes something like this:
0. Remove your propellers!
1. Connect USB to flight controller.
2. Go to motors tab, enable motor control, click the 'master' slider button.
3. Press the 'Home' key on your keyboard to raise all motors to maximum.
4. Plug in flight battery.
5. Listen to the ESCs. They will make their normal startup tones and then beep a few times ending in a sequence of four ascending beeps.
6. Press the 'End' key to drop the motor signals to zero.
7. The ESCs will make a few double beeps and then give four descending beeps.
Done! Thank you sir!!! The motors are so smooth now and all spin at the same time! Arm it and motors spin instead of spinning when I got the throttle. Thankyou for all your help. sorry for being so late with the reply work killed me yesterday and today 14 hours yesterday then woke up and did another 8.. my goggles come in tomorrow so the fpv stuff will be put on my quad tonight! Or should I stay LOS for a while? Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 I'm glad to hear that getting the ESCs calibrated solved the problem. If your goggles are arriving, get them on your face and go FPV.  14 hour work days? I hope they pay you well! • Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 (05-Nov-2017, 09:32 AM)unseen Wrote: I'm glad to hear that getting the ESCs calibrated solved the problem. If your goggles are arriving, get them on your face and go FPV.
14 hour work days? I hope they pay you well! Yeah it's good money! But It was only 14 hours one day. I'll work like that when we are busy.. I'm a plumber so it Changes alot. With all my bills and a family totake care of I need the money. Anyway today was exciting and depressing. I checked and checked everything over and over before I took my first fpv flight. Had my whole family at a huge field, it was perfect. The first 4 mins went very well everyone was impressed and I was loving the fpv experience. Then I made a terrible decision to try a loop. I looked right into the ground.. burned a motor, another motors top cap flew off, vtx got ripped out, the sma port ripped out the solder joint, my tx receiver died. So took her home checked everything else, fixed the vtx and ordered a new set of motors and receiver. I'll be back in the air Saturday! I learned a huge lesson though... baby steps and buy more parts! Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 And of course, you just had to have the whole family there to watch your turn your quad into a pile of components! Commiserations. When trying new stuff, altitude is your friend. A second quad is also a good way to save you from being grounded while you wait for parts. • Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 (06-Nov-2017, 07:28 AM)unseen Wrote: And of course, you just had to have the whole family there to watch your turn your quad into a pile of components!
Commiserations.
When trying new stuff, altitude is your friend. A second quad is also a good way to save you from being grounded while you wait for parts. Yeah they all wanted to see it fly! It's all good Amazon is my beat friend now I'll have the new stuff today. I don't mind waiting I can't fly till the weekend anyway it gets dark now at 455 and I don't get done work until 5 on a good day. So there will be no light for me to fly Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 Dark at 16:55 eh? Luxury! Sunset here tomorrow is at 15:40. In just one more month, the sun sets an hour earlier than it does now.  The building season here is long... • Posts: 122 Threads: 6 Likes Received: 77 in 48 posts Likes Given: 93 Joined: Aug 2017 Reputation: 4 This is why I bought a night eagle 2 and some IR lights. Legally I can only fly 30 min after sunset, but it can make the difference between flying and building. Flying: Talon 6S 6" 2407s 381g no bat, Martian 3, 5" 2205s sooo heavy + gopro session 5 573g AUW, Aurora 5" 2205s 280g no bat, Druckbaer 3" 1404s 172g AUW 3S 550, BQE Megapixel 2.5" 1107s 139g AUW 3S 550, BabyHawk R 2.5" 164g AUW 3S 550 (stock except microeagle, CRSF, 2.5" arms) and maybe 3 more, for now...
• Posts: 31 Threads: 5 Likes Received: 12 in 8 posts Likes Given: 3 Joined: Oct 2017 Reputation: 1 (06-Nov-2017, 05:48 PM)unseen Wrote: Dark at 16:55 eh? Luxury!
Sunset here tomorrow is at 15:40. In just one more month, the sun sets an hour earlier than it does now.
The building season here is long... Awl man that sucks where Do you live? I don't mind the weekends being my fly time, I work too much during the week by the time I get home it's too late even if the sun stayed up till 8 • Posts: 2,286 Threads: 38 Likes Received: 1,527 in 995 posts Likes Given: 1,881 Joined: Apr 2016 Reputation: 72 (06-Nov-2017, 09:13 PM)Jo3d26 Wrote: Awl man that sucks where Do you live? I don't mind the weekends being my fly time, I work too much during the week by the time I get home it's too late even if the sun stayed up till 8 Stockholm, Sweden. The other side of the coin is that in the middle of the summer, the sun just dips slightly below the horizon for an hour or so around midnight and it never really gets completely dark. • |
