TLDR drone won't take off because throttling causes mixed motor rpm

[red notch]

basically as seen in the video my quad won't take off due to whenever it throttling up some motors are spinning way slower than others and no motors seem to be at the same speed. The transmitter seems to be fine and outputting right as seen in betaflight and when throttling the motors up through betaflight the motors all seem to spin at the same rate. But one I connect the controller and throttle the drone up it's sending different signals to different ESC's front left seems to be getting the lowest while front right is getting a bit higher and the back is getting a significantly higher signal and rpm but still not seeming to be the same between the two motors at the back (when I say rpm I also mean the PWM signals sent to the ESC.

Idk what to do at this point like it just won't take off and I'm not experienced enough to troubleshoot this alone.

[abstract prism]

It’s quite likely that the drone is just trying to level itself

[red notch]

I’ve been testing it on fairly level surfaces

This is a vid of it trying to fly

[abstract prism]

I think that several of your props are spinning the wrong way. It’s a little hard to see the other three, but certainly the back right prop is spinning in the wrong direction.

[pulsar rivet]

Your props are upside down?

They look upside down

Yep

[red notch]

They were in this but I flipped them and made sure they were spinning the right way and it’s still having this issue

[pulsar rivet]

Upside down or backwards?

[red notch]

They were upside down

I’ve since made sure they were the right way up and not backwards and it’s still having the same issue

[pulsar rivet]

Does the 3d model tilt the correct way when you tilt the drone? You pitch forward the model pitches forward, etc

Cuz if they where spinning the right way I would expect it to do something like hop or attempt to fly

[red notch]

Yeah it does even with the drift it’s not turning in the model you can see that in the video

[pulsar rivet]

Not that model, the one of the setup tab

[red notch]

Oh, no that one’s flat

[pulsar rivet]

is this a new build?

[red notch]

Yes

[pulsar rivet]

so that 3d model on the setup tab doesnt move at when you move the drone, even after you calibrate it?

[red notch]

i misunderstood what you meant yes it does move when calibrating it

[pulsar rivet]

Ok good got worried

Scary

[red notch]

sorry about that

[pulsar rivet]

N

Np

I'm not really sure what to do for here, since when you give it throttle is don't do nothing, no hop, no failsafe nothing.

The osd say anything?

[red notch]

ill check

[red notch]

No it’s not

[tribal gulch]

The motor direction is wrong.

Wait.

Take a video again with them on correctly

Intuitively, if your quad is throttling up and not moving it's blowing air down ;)

[red notch]

It definitely is blowing air down it’s lifting Itself up a tiny bit

[red notch]

More with the props not upside down but still not actually taking off

[tribal gulch]

I'll need a current video

[red notch]

Gimmie a sec

[tribal gulch]

Think of it this way - these quads can blow kilos of air down. Maybe one or two props are blowing air down. But not all of them, we need all of em to

Otherwise it stays on the ground

If you can, take it in slow mo. I can usually identify for you both prop and motors that need changing

But you'll have to tell me if you intend to run props in or props out first

[red notch]

Yea I know it’s stupid to do this indoors

[tribal gulch]

I'm in the washroom, I'll let you know about this later.

[red notch]

Alright thanks!

[tribal gulch]

The blur's pretty awful. I only have 2 frames to work with. However, I do see issues.

By the way, in the case of your demonstration, have you considered that even one prop blowing air down could blow 3/4, if not all of the bullets away?

I've marked two motors with the direction in which they should be spinning in yellow, and the direction in which they are currently spinning in blue. Could you use Betaflight to confirm they are blowing air down?

[red notch]

sure

so this is what betaflight is saying I do have bluejay installed on the ESC. I'm unsure how much that would change anything though.

[tribal gulch]

No, that's the direction betaflight expects.

You have to run the motor direction wizard to tune the actual direction.

[red notch]

ahhh let me take the props off then I'll check

yes they are spinning in the right direction

[tribal gulch]

And still no takeoff?

[red notch]

Yes

[pulsar rivet]

Is there a throttle limit set maybe?

[red notch]

I reset them to make sure that they were spinning the right way I haven’t tried it with the props on yet I’ll keep you updated but I’m at school right now

[red notch]

It’s set to 60%

[pulsar rivet]

Very strange

[red notch]

Idk I need to test it again to make sure that I didn’t fix the issue but that’s going to take a couple of hours

[pulsar rivet]

What battery are you using? And what kv are the motors?

[red notch]

Motors are 2100kv and 4S 1300mah battery

[pulsar rivet]

So the motors are powerful enough, the quad just won't spin them

[red notch]

Idk

I was following a guide but they didn’t really say much on what to do in betaflight

[pulsar rivet]

You on the most recent beta flight?

Some recommend an esc calibration

Try this when you get back

https://youtu.be/1Z7H7NwURhs

PROPS OFF!

[red notch]

Yeah I know

Thanks tho I’ll try it out

[red notch]

this did not fix the issue i wish I had a recording but it did the same thing of not really taking off

This was the motors being armed and spun up immediately after I calibrated the ESC's

[tribal gulch]

I don't see the issue once again, you gave it a tiny blip of throttle

bidirectional dshot is working

[red notch]

aren't they all of the motors supposed to speed up linearly?

[tribal gulch]

Have you tried getting this thing airborne at all?

[red notch]

yes

it does not fly

[tribal gulch]

After correcting the motor direction and prop direction?

[red notch]

yes

[tribal gulch]

Okay. Strap the battery in and give it more power. Outside. Please record the results.

[red notch]

ok

[tribal gulch]

No, your flight controller is trying to correct your drone with 0 power.

[red notch]

ahh

[tribal gulch]

Is this the throttle maxed out?

[red notch]

Yes but the throttle is limited to 80%

All my motors are dirty

[pulsar rivet]

That sounds about right

Try changing you motor protocol to maybe dshot300

I don't expect this to work but worth a try

[tribal gulch]

Why is the throttle limited if you don't have the power to get out of the ground effect?

[red notch]

It’s from when I was testing to make sure that the motors/ESC wouldn’t blow up from a little while ago

[real shard]

what motors are these?

[red notch]

2400kv emax 2207’s

[red notch]

This is the motors with the output at 100%

[real shard]

you sure those are 2400kv?

or is your battery just sagging to shit or whats going on here?

[tribal gulch]

the logic is fine

it's either KV or the battery being trashed

what voltage are you seeing?

or the props are hilariously inefficient, but they looked correct to me

[real shard]

doubt that, you can hear it aint spinning at high rpm's

[tribal gulch]

agreed

[red notch]

The battery think was at 60%

[tribal gulch]

the voltage is what I want to know

the voltage per cell

[real shard]

but is the voltage dropping way down when you try to fly?

also, check receiver tab in betaflight.. when you move your throttle all the way up, does it go to 2000?

[red notch]

yes

it does

[real shard]

okay so try hovering and keep a look at the voltage in your OSD

[red notch]

the battery is at 15.1V

i can grab another one and check

[real shard]

15.1V when you are not flying

right?

[red notch]

yes

[real shard]

i want to know if that voltage drops significantly during flight

[tribal gulch]

I want to see DVR.

Goggle recording.

[red notch]

ok I'll try but last time I tried it didn't work

[tribal gulch]

https://tenor.com/view/money-anime-pay-cookie-wataten-gif-25753294

one DVR please

[red notch]

ok

both of my batteries are fairly low let me charge them first

[real shard]

no need, 15.1v is plenty to see if that voltage drops significantly during flight

[red notch]

ok

[real shard]

like, if you see it drop down to the 13's while hovering etc, something is wrong

[red notch]

ok

[red notch]

DVR no worry so phone recording

[tribal gulch]

it's barely pulling 10 amps

[red notch]

Yeah I noticed

[tribal gulch]

But it clearly pulled more when it hit the ground

[red notch]

Yeah

[tribal gulch]

Something is stopping it from flying up

Do you have a blackbox you can send?

[red notch]

No

I will try and get that set up tho and test again

[tribal gulch]

THanks

[red notch]

it's giving me this error

[real shard]

send a screenshot of the "PID Tuning" tab please

these 2 windows

[real shard]

there we go

you've limited the max throttle to 25%

[red notch]

shit I'm a moron

[pulsar rivet]

[red notch]

I'm so fucking stupid

[real shard]

Sometimes you can get so blind looking at the same settings over and over again

glad i could help

[red notch]

well thank you it's at 100 right now

[real shard]

careful when you go fly now, it's gonna return straight home to china with the same amount of throttle you used previously

[red notch]

yeah

I have around 70 hours in a sim but sadly the large open field is occupied rn

[red notch]

it took a somewaht medium hit and now three motors won't spin the ESC seems to bootup somewhat normally but doesn't play the last beeeep beep right it plays it one normal length then one quicker do you know what happened?

did I kill my ESC?

[tribal gulch]

That was fast

[red notch]

yeah

i thought I had it set to land not just drop

[red notch]

can you help though?

[tribal gulch]

Not by much. Have you tried reseating the plug between the ESC and flight controller?

Just make sure that wire is all the way in there and not at all loose.

The last beep beep is flight controller connection. Is your flight controller powering on on battery plugin?

[red notch]

Yea it is

I’m able to spin up only one motor though

All the others show up in red lettering in the motors tab accept motor 1

[tribal gulch]

No communication between the FC and those ESCs

But you say they're making the beeps?

All of them?

[red notch]

Idk it’s hard to tell

The ESC isn’t that expensive it’s just I don’t want to have to go through the trouble of replacing it

[tribal gulch]

My guess is that they're burnt, but you can wait for a second opinion. I've never had a crash take out ESCs.

[red notch]

Alright we’ll thanks for the help

[real shard]

oh no, what happened 😭

[red notch]

we had an accident

i tested the failsafe and its supposed to land not drop... guess what happened

[pulsar rivet]

Oh lord

[red notch]

idk why the audio is off

[real shard]

that doesn't look like a failsafe test, more so a full chooch disarm
but sorry for your loss regardless, that sucks.

[red notch]

I DIDN'T LOSE I REPLACED THE CABLE FROM THE ESC TO FC AND IT WORKS

I'm so happy