F450 New Build Lack of power.

Aran

Junior Member
Hi All,

Finished building my F450 today, Naza Lite with my Turnigy 9x TX and RX. Motors are DJI 2212/920KV with 30A ESCs with stock dji props (8045), battery is a turnigy 2200mah, voltage alarm showed cells as full.

First flight in back garden was great, so we took it to the beach. On take off in Full GPS mode the throttle was 80% before it even started to lift off. Then upto 100% it really struggled to climb. There was a slight breeze, but not much. Generally, it feels like its lacking in power.

I have a F550 which is much heavier, especially with the landing gear, gimbal and go pro. The F550 is good to go at a little over 55%.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to diagnose the problem? I built following instructions and can find my way around the hardware, but to be honest the software side of things is a little daunting :(

Cheers
Aran
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
Have you checked the throttle scaling on both the Tx and the NAZA?

The props are a tiny bit on the small side, but they shouldn't be that much of an issue to make you aware of so much loss of power.
 

rcspaceflight

creator of virtual planes
An 8 x 4.5 prop on a 920kv motor seems kind of small. Usually a low kv motor like that can handle a much bigger prop. I don't know what prop is recommended for that motor, but if you're running a 2S battery, you're only looking at about 8.11 oz of thrust per motor. A 3S battery would be 20.45 oz of thrust per motor.

I have no idea if any of that was helpful.
 

Aran

Junior Member
I have some 10 4.5 props. I'll look into that if the throttle scaling doesn't produce the goods.

Great advice though, much appreciated.
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
The DJI motors are made for 3S battery with 10" props and 4S battery with 8" props.

Will not work well otherwise.

Thurmond
 

Aran

Junior Member
Just a quick update.

Checked out throttle scaling. All looked great. I put some 10x4.5 blades on a et voila we have power!

Thanks all for your help and advice. Much appreciated.
 

Hionimi

Sky Pirate
They also released 10x3.8 props, claiming to be tougher and more efficient, reading some good reviews about them too, saying in case you'd like to try those too. :)
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
APC now has a multirotor prop line that resemble the highly coveted and many times unavailable Graupner props.
But as with ALL APC props they cost a bit more.

Thurmond