F450 Lousy Flight Times

[teecee]

I picked up a used F450 and upgraded it to Nava V2 and 4S 3700 mAH lipos. The LED never flashes yellow but instead goes straight to red flashing after about 3.5 minutes of not too aggressive flying. At that point I check and they are usually around 63%. I can fly for another 3 minutes or so to 13% for a total of about 7-7.5 minutes. Seems like I should get better times and why no yellow flashing LED? Did the Naza V1 not have a yellow LED (that is the LED board)? Yes, I have the FC set to 4S. I am running the recommended 8" standard props, 30amp ESCs and DJI kit motors. All is off the shelf spec as far as I can tell. What else can I do to get better times?

TC

 

[rilot]

How many mAh are you putting back in to your batteries when you charge them after the flight?
What are your first and second level voltages set to?

 

[OneStopRC]

Turn off that pesky battery monitor and by a cheap $5 lipo alarm, I got much better times from my 450, 550 when I did that. I have not used that feature in a very long time, it is dangerous and semi-pointless.

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

I picked up a used F450 and upgraded it to Nava V2 and 4S 3700 mAH lipos. The LED never flashes yellow but instead goes straight to red flashing after about 3.5 minutes of not too aggressive flying. At that point I check and they are usually around 63%. I can fly for another 3 minutes or so to 13% for a total of about 7-7.5 minutes. Seems like I should get better times and why no yellow flashing LED? Did the Naza V1 not have a yellow LED (that is the LED board)? Yes, I have the FC set to 4S. I am running the recommended 8" standard props, 30amp ESCs and DJI kit motors. All is off the shelf spec as far as I can tell. What else can I do to get better times?

TC

What voltage have you set your cutoff to? (I dare you to say default!)

You get voltage drop in flight. The cheaper of lower C lipos have a larger drop. You only want the led warning to go off as a last resort. You should know how long a lipo should last by timing it and checking how much mah you put back in. Telemetry really comes into it's own here!

Ideally you want to be coming home to land when you're getting 3.65v per cell in flight (thats with a voltage drop of just over 1V). So for 4S your first warning should be something like 14.6V. What is your setting at the moment?

 

[savolion]

Mr Kenobi, can you reccomend a good entry level telemetry packages for voltage? ive seen a few on HK which use a 2.4ghz but not sure if that would cause interference with tx/rx

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

Well I use Spektrum telemetry on the transmitter and the DJI iOSD Mark II on the video. On my small F550 I use the EZOSD with current sensor.

The EZOSD or the newer Team Black Sheep OSD are great. I've had my EZOSD for a couple of years and the current sensor is my favorite feature. You can use every last mah during a flight and ignore the timer!

Don't mix two different 2.4GHz systems together! Sorry, had to say it.

What equipment are you using by the way?