Drone flipping on takeoff - Help!

[hollopeter]

Hi all,

Other than a whoop style drone, I am a noob but wanted something for outside. I purchased a (very dusty box!) Blade Conspiracy 220 from a hobby store about an hour away. Bound it to my Spektrum NX8 following all the recommendations in the manual. Without props everything seemed to spin up the right way but a motor or two would sometimes just sit there on the workbench. So before trashing parts I took it back to the hobby store. They assured me everything was fine and my setup was good. So we put props on and they took it out into the parking lot to verify it flew good.

Which it did. Not much, just a few feet off the ground in the self leveling mode to verify pitch, roll, yaw, throttle. All is well.

So... back home to have some fun. Put it on the ground, arm in self leveling... and it flips over at the slightest throttle.

Nothing has changed since the successful flight at the hobby store. I've looked around the web and found lots of suggestions, but nothing that makes sense. It was working and all it did was change location.

Any ideas? I'm quite lost and would like to avoid 2 hours on the road to go back and forth to the hobby store.

 

[Merv]

Double check the props are in the correct position. I’m guessing several are not correct.

 

[hollopeter]

They were all correct - again, nothing had changed since the hobby shop successful flight earlier today.

Did some more experimenting - put on the 2 blade props since I consider them to be a bit more sacrificial. Then went on the driveway instead of the grass. Was able to take off and fly around a bit in all modes, then the battery went down. Changed batteries and the takeoff problem continued. I did have luck getting airborne in acro mode then switching to self leveling and flying around a bit. Will do some more tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

One thought - I'm flying on 1300mAh 75C 4 cells. The test flight was on a 1800mAh 60C 4 cell. I can't use that for flying with FPV because the battery is too big and covers up the VTX antenna port. Horizon's battery recommendation only goes up to a 65C. Would having 75C matter at low throttle positions?

 

[hollopeter]

So... a few more (eventual) flights and the problem is continuing. On a completely full battery, it flips over on takeoff. But once I've messed with it for a bit I can get it to fly in all 3 modes. But it's hard to not chew up/break props and antennas this way.

 

[Liam B]

Can you post a video from a spectator POV? There are a few things this could be.

 

[hollopeter]

Some warm Michigan weather allowed for a first-of-the-year trip out to the flying field yesterday in hopes of getting some video of the problem and... it worked fine. Lots of takeoffs/landings trying to reproduce the problem and it was perfect. Burned through the 2 batteries I got for it with safe, controlled flights, bopping around the sky in all 3 modes for 3+ minutes each.

Theory time that I'm curious if other people have experienced - with my fixed wing planes I've had some issues with some motor 'stuttering' on brand new off brand batteries that after a few discharge/charge cycles tend to disappear. Anyone else noticed this with brand new batteries?

FYI these are Tattu 4S 1300mAh 75c. I've never had an issue with E-Flite or Spektrum Smart batteries but I was unable to find any in this size so I went with an off brand.

 

[Liam B]

Some warm Michigan weather allowed for a first-of-the-year trip out to the flying field yesterday in hopes of getting some video of the problem and... it worked fine. Lots of takeoffs/landings trying to reproduce the problem and it was perfect. Burned through the 2 batteries I got for it with safe, controlled flights, bopping around the sky in all 3 modes for 3+ minutes each.

Theory time that I'm curious if other people have experienced - with my fixed wing planes I've had some issues with some motor 'stuttering' on brand new off brand batteries that after a few discharge/charge cycles tend to disappear. Anyone else noticed this with brand new batteries?

FYI these are Tattu 4S 1300mAh 75c. I've never had an issue with E-Flite or Spektrum Smart batteries but I was unable to find any in this size so I went with an off brand.

That shouldn't have anything to do with batteries. Tattu is a name brand, but not always super consistent.