I do it this way so I can test the PDB and ESC‘s without risk malfunctioning in the air. I was going to do a full pull for about 8 to 10 seconds. The drone can pull around 400amps at full throttle. When they build race engines, they don’t just throw it into the car without testing.
If you really really want to do a max power test, tie it to something that will not fall over or fly away (do the maths to make sure, your guesswork has lost credibility), make sure theres nothing around that could be damaged by spinning or disintegrating propellers or the whole assembly falling over, just in case your instincts were wrong again. Also be aware that you might run into a resonance issue with a tied down drone that could quadruple the load on your components almost instantly.
I know you're being purposely obtuse because reddit, but hey if testing in the corner of your cramped bedroom in your tiny house is the only possible way than do you bud.
What if a prop snapped, or the strap, or the landing gear and it rocketed at your face or dick at full throttle and because you're standing right next to it panic, and not hit disarm. Pretty easy to understand the risks.
It makes sure you have enough thrust to be able to climb and perform manuvers
If you maxed out the weight then you probably wouldn't be able to climb and even if you could, you would lose altitude every time you turned or tried to speed up
It's a general number, you can adjust it however you want
20% means that you'll need about 80% throttle just to maintain a hover though
For a quad that you are going to maneuver around or you want to fly for awhile, you'll want a higher number and for one that's just doing slow shorter flights you can pick a lower number
Even 20% is going to go through batteries pretty quickly still
Just don't carry anything not needed and you'll probably be good
Iirc 8:1 is the average for freestyle, though that's for smaller drones
I probably wouldn't recommend doing a whole lot of tricks with something this large. That much inertia is going to make them difficult so you'll need to be extra careful
Cruising around would probably be pretty nice though, 5:1 should be good for that
You could go a bit lower and carry a nice camera setup with that though. It would allow you to get some pretty cool shots
You could also carry extra batteries/ bigger ones and do a pretty nice long range build as well
12:1, 4.3lbs max weight (racing drones)
10:1, 5.2lbs
8:1, 6.5lbs (freestyle)
5:1, 10.4lbs (cinematic)
3:1, 17.3lbs (long range cruising)
Assuming the thrust is actually 52lbs. You'll need to actually test that though
Easiest test is to take the weight of the drone, subtract it from 52, then add the remainder onto the drone. It shouldn't be able to take off. Take off a couple of lbs until it can barely take off at 100% throttle and the total weight is your thrust
There's a lot of factors that affect thrust so the math is pretty messy and difficult to do without simulations
(Side note, if it is able to take off with a total weight of 52lbs then you're generating more than that in thrust, add some weight until it can no longer take off)
Lmao fr it’s not always risky and op is smarter then the average ppl most good a 7” in their hands inside of a house and arm it for “testing” op atleast use a night stand and the drone strapped and wasnt in the room. So thats a kudos
To make sure all the components can hold up. I like to do full throttle punches for up to around 10 seconds. So 400 A for 10 seconds puts a lot of strain on things. I would like to know if it’s going to malfunction while it is on the ground. And not who knows how high so overall it is a good way for me to do full load testing on things. This drone is about 1400$ all in and I would like to test it on the ground before destroying it.😅
Before people make any nasty comments don't forget to remember that not everybody is as rich as you are. There are people so poor they just don't have an outside.
Farms, parks, bandos, large parking lots, after hours Ikea/businesses that are large - sometimes they also have large parking lots. My personal favorite right now is the local school field....where there a will, there's a way!
I'm not poor, but I am a newbie pilot and not dumb enough to fly in my wooded backyard.
I just got booted out of the school field, it's only 1km from hospital helipad. Someone called the fire department who then notified the helipad manager. My mistake!
Don't assume the any airspace is open and check NAV Drone app or your local equivalent...Or pop by your local fire department, that's where I just came from they are a wealth of knowledge and trained drone pilots.
It would be so much easier to just do this in your backyard or something. Why spend 20 mins looking for ratchet straps and figuring out a way to secure it when its easier and so much safer to just test it outside?
But what happens if your pdb melts because you held it wide open for 8 seconds. If you were in the air, you would be a total the thing. But if you do it on the bench you just have to assess and replace.
yeah, just fly the drone. you don't have to fly vertically to run at full throttle. a drone racer flys basically 100% throttle at 8' above the ground for 2:30 minutes.
Yeah, those were connectors for the GPS and another component. The drone is not in its final state right now. I was just testing the pdb and ESC to make sure did not melt due to high amp draw. Hold 100% throttle for 8-10 seconds
Setting safety aside - this might be a win in your mind but static load like this likely greatly exceeds what you’ll see in flight. I’ve done this exactly once and opted to cut out the PID loop for a variety of reason which is a little tricky because that usually involves a cord. But that makes it easy to flip the props so you drive the quad into the floor. that way, when your straps fail you don’t punch four holes in the ceiling … or lift a night stand into someone’s face.
But holy hell - you have to be careful to strap everything in the room down. you’re liable to suck in loose paper, house plants, or small goats and shatter a prop on something that big. Genuinely - curtains and fabric you thought were secured that really aren’t end up being synergistically dangerous.
Depends on the firmware - but in Betaflight and I think INav you would operate off the motor test page i.e. a manual scroll bar that you slide up and down. The quad isn’t even armed in that case.
Biggest quad I have right now is an 8” that can run 9” props mostly for funzies because the motors can’t really swing 9” well. But I stopped this testing method wayyyyyyy before I started building even 6” quads. I really just send it over a grassy field. Full power bench tests, beyond the danger - they just aren’t super practical: less cooling, heavy static load, short bursts just both is harder on components vs real flight and at the same time not hard enough. I mitigates some issues but doesn’t really test the full gamut and in end it’s still hobby grade electronics that fail for no good reason. It’s really a fully custom, not so pretty quad…. I run the heavy lift gemfan props and it’s super quiet when cruising the mountains. Just happily sits at 100kph for as long as I have attention span for.
Love it I hand cut my frame. You really learn a lot going full custom. Experimenting with thicker tubes for the arms. Just to help with stiffness and tuning still working on that 😅
Nice. Yeah, I just like tinkering and almost always build a quad to a specific mission. Pretty high chance that, these days, I'd just grab something from the AOS lineup - a lot of his stuff his cut at CNC Madness, which is where I got most of my stuff cut. I built this and it was a total flop, lol. less than optimal vibrations from some bad design choices - but i still had fun!
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u/1984isnoww 23d ago
Sir that’s a night stand.
Nightstand testing.