Carbon fiber props in medium-high wind?

[Tmarter]

So I've been flying my spedix 250 quad mostly with DAL 5x4 props...in both low wind speeds around 3-4mph, and in high winds 10-15mph. I have had pretty good performance in low winds, but have been having an issue in higher winds...yes I know it's pretty obvious...but I also know when not to fly, and anything 15mph+ is about the cutoff point, because my control is a lot more limited. I fly with full FPV gear, a mobius, and either a 3S 2200 30C or 2600 30C LiPo, just as a reference to the weight I'm flying with. I'm mainly flying pretty spirited, doing a lot of coordinated turns, low speed passes, maneuvering obstacles... etc.

Try to picture my scenario, bear with me here...
My issue is when I'm doing a relatively smooth (not sharp) coordinated U turn (ex: about the same path as on the shorter end of a running track at a football field), at a moderate speed, my Yaw/Rudder will be pretty sharp when turning INTO the wind, but will seem sort of unresponsive when flying the same path in the opposite direction.

My question... is it sounding like my issue is related to turning into the wind? And would using my 5x4.5 carbon fiber props in this case, help immensely, OR... would their stiffness put too much stress on the motors in moderate wind like 9-14mph?

Other factors and ratings are...
12A ESCs
3S 2600mAh 30C
2204 2300kv motors

I need to get some sort of OSD soon, to see the current I'm drawing under load, as it's starting to become even more important when trying to decide if other outside factors like wind would take more current than what my current setup can handle. Until then, I'll just ask everybody else! haha

Let me know if you have any suggestions thoughts or opinions, Thanks

 

[Tmarter]

Well, the carbons helped out a ton. BUT...it's because there was also like no wind at all, but I'm not complaining! It definitely took a lot of slop out of the turns, and a lot more responsive. I probably wouldn't use them if I was flying SUPER crazy, but they didn't do bad at all. I lost just a tad of flight time, maybe about 30 secs without wind, I'd imagine med high winds like I was flying in earlier would draw a lot more current, so there might just have to be a line drawn there...Also, you can watch the flight here:

 

[Longbaorder23]

My suggestion is to your flight controller and firmware. Im still using an old naze rev5 and i literally have next to no problems with flight control. are you running a cc3d? IMO, cc3d's are getting outdated as they are pretty old, older than the naze. and they arent quite able to keep up with some of the new powerful stuff. then, either try other PID controllers in your tuning solftware or install *betaflight*. if youre new to it, search it up. its by far and away the best program ive ever flown, and its won me some races! All my guys run it. its literally also 90% tune free, instantly working so well.
As for the props, it shouldnt make a difference, nor should wind. I fly in very heavy winds sometimes with my blackout, i flew during a windstorm happily. If youre concerned and dont want to install beta or mess with all that, my first bet is to raise your Yaw P gain. I personally need a very snappy and responsive yaw, and those pids related to just the yaw can go very very high and remain stable, just by nature.
but really. betaflight. so beautiful lol. for real, its THE best. When i started doing 360's, thats when i started to see my yaw should be better, and changing a few numbers made it literally perfect. good luck!

 

[Tmarter]

My suggestion is to your flight controller and firmware. Im still using an old naze rev5 and i literally have next to no problems with flight control. are you running a cc3d? IMO, cc3d's are getting outdated as they are pretty old, older than the naze. and they arent quite able to keep up with some of the new powerful stuff. then, either try other PID controllers in your tuning solftware or install *betaflight*. if youre new to it, search it up. its by far and away the best program ive ever flown, and its won me some races! All my guys run it. its literally also 90% tune free, instantly working so well.
As for the props, it shouldnt make a difference, nor should wind. I fly in very heavy winds sometimes with my blackout, i flew during a windstorm happily. If youre concerned and dont want to install beta or mess with all that, my first bet is to raise your Yaw P gain. I personally need a very snappy and responsive yaw, and those pids related to just the yaw can go very very high and remain stable, just by nature.
but really. betaflight. so beautiful lol. for real, its THE best. When i started doing 360's, thats when i started to see my yaw should be better, and changing a few numbers made it literally perfect. good luck!

I've been looking around at other flight controllers, mainly because I already have to disassemble the dang thing like 20 times while trying to find settings I'm comfortable with. I mean I'm not looking for a shortcut, but it does get tedious when other controllers simply have a mini usb port and allow a lot more refined tune and more features. The support is also a factor too... although I can eventually figure it out myself, it's never a bad thing to have a strong community around what you use. That's an understatement. haha

It may still be that I haven't adjusted settings that may actually solve my issue...I'm right with you, as I might not be confident enough to start entering contests yet...but I'm trying to set it up to be very responsive and snappy as well. I'm still in the process of messing with a few more settings, but i know I'm not getting any oscillations or anything like that, and it's responsive but it's not snappy...if that makes sense. Almost like it wobbles under turbulence when trying to power through a turn, instead of being smooth like it should.

I've adjusted my gyro rate and accelerometer rate to maximum, because to me, it sounds like if you are doing acrobatics, you don't want to exceed the maximum range of the sensors, otherwise the FC won't know which way is up, and could cause some obvious unwanted problems.

I've adjusted stick scaling to my liking, because I noticed quickly that I was mashing the sticks to try and get it to respond as quick as I wanted. I don't think that would have much effect either.

Really the only thing that's slightly vague is dialing in the p-limit and I-limit. the gains seem obvious enough to tune, and how to tell when you have problems there...still in the process of reading up on it when I can, but only so much time in the day.

Last thing I want to do is start changing numbers I dont know about, and so far that's it, everything else seems to make pretty good sense.

 

[Longbaorder23]

hmm... what flight controller is this in question? i would recommend a naze, a newer flip32, or any f3 controller, but i totally get it if youre not willing to dump in the cash of course. But, like the new flip32 racing edition is TINY, 2 grams, and runs just like a naze for $20. I fly only acro, meaning my naze literally doesnt know where up is anymore, it doesnt need to. it sounds like youre using auto-level of sorts? That shouldnt affect the performance, but being that ive only ever flown acro, i am not a good source as to how the pids change when modes are swtiched. Also, your sensors have a range of motion they work in? ive never heard of such a thing... Ideally, no sensor should have a maximum readable angle or something, but you may have it set up such that the maximum *angle* of your quad in flight is set somewhere which is a reasonable setting.

If your flight controller can be flashed, again, seriously recommend beta. worst case scenario, your quad will already fly 95% perfectly, no joke. thats the worst case scenario! and you dont have to mess with the numbers, because i am certain the machine would be flyable with the stock numbers. I am also certain it would take out 95% of your current yaw issues and wind issues. FOR SURE.

So what flight controller currently running?
(if applicable) what firmware?

 

[Tmarter]

hmm... what flight controller is this in question? i would recommend a naze, a newer flip32, or any f3 controller, but i totally get it if youre not willing to dump in the cash of course. But, like the new flip32 racing edition is TINY, 2 grams, and runs just like a naze for $20. I fly only acro, meaning my naze literally doesnt know where up is anymore, it doesnt need to. it sounds like youre using auto-level of sorts? That shouldnt affect the performance, but being that ive only ever flown acro, i am not a good source as to how the pids change when modes are swtiched. Also, your sensors have a range of motion they work in? ive never heard of such a thing... Ideally, no sensor should have a maximum readable angle or something, but you may have it set up such that the maximum *angle* of your quad in flight is set somewhere which is a reasonable setting.

If your flight controller can be flashed, again, seriously recommend beta. worst case scenario, your quad will already fly 95% perfectly, no joke. thats the worst case scenario! and you dont have to mess with the numbers, because i am certain the machine would be flyable with the stock numbers. I am also certain it would take out 95% of your current yaw issues and wind issues. FOR SURE.

So what flight controller currently running?
(if applicable) what firmware?

I run a KK2 Flight controller, latest revision which is kk2.1.5 v3, firmware is 1.19s1 Pro It's what it came with all the info is in the menu of the screen on the KK2, which I literally just checked myself...

I bought the quad cheap second-hand from a buddy... I'm triple checking that the FC has the latest firmware, it was only bought at a local hobby shop from the first owner, about 4 months ago...so I'm assuming it had the latest firmware when it was included in the BNF kit, as the latest firmware was released for the KK2 about 4 years ago back in 2011 as far as I know. Just to be safe, I might go to my hobby shop and see if they carry the flashing tool (most likely they do), or see if one of the guys knows if they came with the latest firmware in the kit.

Obviously if I would have bought it myself, I wouldve chosen the CC3D version, but water under the bridge...haha