Introduction
Quadcopter throttle problems are pretty common in all types of quadcopters. But, there was a sudden rise in this type of problem back in May 2020. The reason was the new Betaflight 4.2 released back then. The issue must’ve been fixed with the later update.
However some of you still face issues, so we’ll clear it out for you today!
What to do about the quadcopter throttle problem?
Among the 4 solutions that we have for you, 3 of them can be done on Betaflight. And, one of them is on the BLHeli Suite. Start with turning off the d_min. If that doesn’t help then increase the D- gain. Increase the idle speed if it wobbles at low rpm.
This is just a brief description of the five solutions. We’ve gone into further details in the article. If you’re interested in knowing them, just scroll down and read the article.
4 Possible Solutions To Fixing The Throttle Problem
This throttle problem on quadcopters is a software problem. There’s nothing wrong with your parts. It doesn’t matter if you use INAV or Betaflight. You’ll need betaflight and BLHeliSuite installed for these fixes.
Let’s not waste any more time and dive right into the solutions-
Turning Off d_min
Turning off the d_min from betaflight is the first thing that we’re going to tell you. D_min lowers the D-term down when the quadcopter is stable.
The D-term is mostly needed when the quadcopter is moving quickly to prevent overshoot. Having a high D-term can seem like an unnecessary hassle. When the quadcopter moves straight and at a level, it introduces heat and unnecessary vibrations.
When you have d_min enabled, the pin controller reduces the D-gain when the quad is leveled. But it cranks up again when you start banging the sticks.
When d_min is tuned perfectly, it works really well. But, that rarely ever happens. If you just disable the d_min, your D-term will stay high all the time. And this can actually help stabilize the quad.
But, there’s a tradeoff here. If your quadcopter has too much vibration or too high D-gain, there could be other effects. Like, the motor can go from cool to warm or from warm to hot. So, turn off d_min.
Increasing D-Gain
The easiest way of increasing the D-gain is by going to the PID tuning. There, move the PD balance to 1.2. You’ll notice that the d-term changes while the p-term doesn’t.
You usually don’t need to go any higher than that. Now, do some throttle punches to see if it helped or not. If it didn’t, increase the P & D gain as well. It depends on your quadcopter about the number though.
Lower BLHeli PWM Frequency
This fix is on BLHeli Suite. If you connect your quadcopter and read setup, you’ll be able to change your PWM frequency. Most PWM frequencies range from 24k to 48k. Others can go up to 96k too.
Let’s discuss what the PWM frequency is at first. It stands for Pulse Width Modulation. When the ESC drives the motor, it doesn’t put a varying voltage through the motor. It actually uses a PWM signal which goes from full battery voltage to zero volts. And if your motor stalls while running, ESC desyncs can happen.
It spends some time at full voltage and some at zero. The more time it spends at full voltage, the higher the average voltage. This is being used to drive the motor. This is basically what PWM is. The frequency is how often it switches from full to zero volts.
One of them is a higher frequency but they could both have the same average duty cycle. The higher the PWM frequency, the smoother you’ll fly. If you want the smoothest possible motors, you should fly at 48k PWM frequency.
If you want to check the voltages, you can use a multimeter. But, you can use a multimeter to check ESC as well. A lot of people don’t know this, but here you go.
Increase Idle Speed
This solution will work for you if your quadcopter is unstable only at low rpm. And the solution is to prevent your motor from ever going into low rpm.
Go to the configuration tab and change the motor idle value. The default is 5.5. You can change yours to 7 prevent. You could even change it to 8 or 9 percent.
But there are some obvious disadvantages to doing that as well. For example, your inverted hang time will be reduced. It’s because the motors will be pulling down in the ground.
When you do a low throttle move, the quadcopter won’t just follow the quad’s motion. Instead, it’ll pull itself offline because the motors are rotating at 10 percent.
Making sharp turns will be extremely difficult with this setting. This is not for freestyle pilots as they prefer making sharp turns. But, it’ll still solve the problem.
Follow all these methods accordingly and you shouldn’t face any more problems. A lot of people prefer Cleanflight over Betaflight. But you’ll be needing Betaflight for this one.
FAQs
Question: What do I do if my drone wobbles?
Answer: Check if the self-leveling mode on your drone is turned on or not. If it’s on, check if the P-gain. If the P-gain is too high it’ll wobble. If it’s too low, it’ll be too slow to self-level. You need to be somewhere in between.
Question: What is the Antigravity on Betaflight?
Answer: Antigravity is not a flight mode. It’s a feature from Betaflight. This feature reduces your drone’s dips when you change the throttle rapidly. This feature raises the I-gain for a while when your throttle changes a lot.
Question: How can I know if my drone motor went bad?
Answer: The best way to do it is by using a multimeter. You’ll use that multimeter to measure the resistance of each phase. If the motor is fine, they’ll be the same.
Conclusion
This is just about everything you can do to fix your quadcopter throttle problems. Since all of these are software changes, you have no fear of damaging your drone.
If none of these solutions work on your drone, you should replace your motor.
Good Luck!
