CineApe25 wont take off

[Phin G]

Hey, its been a while since I last flew and at Christmas I got the cineape25 Cinewhoop frame as a replacement frame for my 3” which i completely destroyed the arm on. I put all of the electronics from my 3” thinking it would be as easy as that, turns out, when I throttle up, the drone only lifts off 10cm or so and lasts around 40 seconds. I have no idea what is wrong/ how to fix it. I bought some new motors for it sigh should have made it work but i still found the same problem. Is it a problem with my PID tuning/ or physical hardware such as the esc? Any help would be much appreciated.

Phin G

Ill upload some more information about electronics/ betaflight setup later tonight.

 

[Liam B]

If you've tried multiple batteries, sounds like an ESC issue.

 

[Piotrsko]

10 seconds sounds like something getting hot and going into protecting mode. See what is getting hot. Cant advise anything on PID, because I haven't sucessfully modified that, but I do know it can get squirrelly really fast.

 

[LitterBug]

Check each motor by hand to see if they all spin freely and with the same amount of force. If you have one or more dragging, it may be all the FC can do to keep the thing hovering even in ground effect and the dragging motor(s) could be running the batteries down quickly. Pictures would be cool. We like to see what everyone flys!

 

[Phin G]

Check each motor by hand to see if they all spin freely and with the same amount of force. If you have one or more dragging, it may be all the FC can do to keep the thing hovering even in ground effect and the dragging motor(s) could be running the batteries down quickly. Pictures would be cool. We like to see what everyone flys!

Thanks, i flashed Bluejay to the 4 in 1 esc and on the motor tab on betaflight one of the motors is spinning at a significantly slower rpm. I disassembled the motor and cleaned it as it sounded like something was rubbing but it only improved by 1000 rpm. For context the other motors are running at around 25006 rpm on full and the other motor is running at 21000 rpm. Ill try and replace the Fc to see if this fixes anything, ill also try to test the esc however on BL_Heli suite it says the esc is fine and i can flash all of the escs on bluejay. Am i correct in thinking that it isn’t an esc issue because of this?

Please do not zoom in to closely- the soldering is shocking 😂, im also waiting on a bunch of cable ties, especially for the camera cables

 

[LitterBug]

Make sure your mounting screws are not so long that they hit the windings in the motors. If they touch the windings, they will cause this issue. Those tiny motors can be super sensitive. I have a whole fishing box with different length fasteners so I don't run in to that issue. Sometimes just adding a washer is enough, other times it takes a different bolt.

Could be the motor, ESC, or wiring. A broken winding, shorted wire, or bad FET on an ESC can make motors sound gravely. Recheck the wires closely. Carbon Fiber is conductive, so if you have any bare wires, solder joints, etc... touching the carbon, that can cause issues too. Make sure you have non-conductive washers between the 4in1 ESC and the frame with plenty of standoff height.

The lighting/shadows and the angle make it look like things are close to the frame.....
LB

 

[Bricks]

Did you calibrate the ESC`s? How do you have your throttle cut set up?

 

[Phin G]

Did you calibrate the ESC`s? How do you have your throttle cut set up?

I honestly have no clue. How would you go about calibrating the esc. The Fc stack came from a 3” which was in perfect flying shape so i don’t know if that points to another problem

 

[Bricks]

What does BetaFlight show when checking motors?

 

[Phin G]

What does BetaFlight show when checking motors?

This is the motor tab in BetaFlight when using the motor mixer, one motor is spinning significantly slower than the rest. I don’t know if this is an issue with the motor, there is a grinding noise when the motors are turned on. I think one of the main reasons why it also won’t take off/ only hovers for a few seconds is possibly because of the batteries. I am using a 550mah 3s currently, would i be correct in thinking a 4s would give me more power and hopefully enough to make this fly well?

Edit- I also upgraded the motor screws to shorter ones and that has so far increased the rpm on the motor tab.