I learned this the hard way. If your quadcopter flips or pirouettes on take off, there could be three reasons for this:
- The motors are spinning the wrong way. Use the motors tab in Baseflight or Cleanflight to check the motor directions. To reverse a motor, switch any two of the three motor wires. *Take off the propellers before testing*
- The propellers on incorrectly.
- If the flight controller, in this case the Naze32, is mounted any other way than the arrow pointing to the front of the quadcopter, the “Yaw Adjustment” in Baseflight or Cleanflight in the Configuration tab needs the correct angle offset value.
The screenshot below is for Cleanflight. The Board Alignment setting in Baseflight is on the bottom of the Configuration tab.
Correct Yaw Adjustment for a Naze32 mounted with the arrow pointing to the right.
Thanks So much for this.. You made my day, as i couldnt figure out why it was flipping on takeoff
My quad flies very nice but when I activates Angle mode it starts toggle in elevator direction and then flips over. My card is mounted 90 degrees and I have adjusted jaw offset. Any ideas?
Hi Daniel, not sure what you mean by “toggle in elevator direction”
Didn’t found the correct word…
It starts to wobble with the front and back motors and finally flips over.
I don’t think this is a Naze32 orientation problem. Sounds like the I is too high in your PIDs. Try flying on stock PIDs and see if the problem goes away.
I have the seriously pro f3 board and my qav 250 flips on take off trying to hover .my motors and props are all right ,I’m flying the stock pid values and I think something is too high. Can someone tell me what I should lower in order to calm my quad x down .I have tried everything and can’t seem to figure it out .I’m useing firmware 1.9/spf3 stable release ,is this the prob,?should I go to 1.8 seems folks might be having better luck with that update.I’m stumpfed.I’m using clean flight and I can’t figure out what it could be other than my pids being too high.not sure,someone help
Hi Chris,
If you are able to “ever” take off. Do you see your drone spinning to the right just like an UFO? I have a similar problem to yours. My set up consists of SP3, QAV250, Kiss 30A, Cobra 2206 and HQ 5040 props. I can not seem to fix this no matter what.
I flip on take off right now. But I have a motor that appears to be noisy and loose. Things were good until I started messing with settings in cleanflight. I think replacing the loose motor and following the above will work for me
Thanks a lot for sharing this.
I have a weird problem. I can take off and fly fine in Angle mode.
But when I land, and switch to Rate mode and throttle up to take off, my quad pitches up and flips over.
I can’t seem to take off in Rate mode. So what I end up doing is taking off in Angle mode, let it hover, switch to rate mode, then fly normally.
What seems to be the problem?
Could it be my PIDS? I tuned my PIDS while in Angle mode…not sure if that’s correct….
Thanks in advance for any help!
that’s normal, haha. I almost always take off in angle mode then switch to rate after takeoff. I’m guessing what you are probably doing is adding forward pitch in rate mode during takeoff. That’s basically telling the quad to do a front roll 🙂
Thanks Oscar. I figured out the problem. My battery pack was weighted to the back, so the front of my quad was lighter. So in Rate mode, all motor fired up evenly but the back was weighed down and so it pitched up.
In Angle mode, because of the self-levelling, Motors #1 and #3 fired up more to balance it out, so it “appeared” to be level.
Fixed it by centering the battery pack. Now it works fine on both modes!
Funny how just 10mm off centre makes a difference.
Great site by the way! Its really helped me build my knowledge and skills about this hobby.
Sharing ideas and knowledge!
So my pitch and roll were inverted and I tried the yaw trick in the setup and it flipped right over, broke all the props. Boo. Any ideas what to do? Should I just reverse the settings in my radio? Or is there also another setting to reverse?
what tx are you using?
I have that same problem, but i dont know how to reverse them. I am using a walkera devo 7
I have a qav 210 and when i try to take off it flips and snaps the props. I have a different esc on that motor but is the same amperage. Could that be the the issue or my pid off tune?
no, bad pids won’t make it flip on take off. Check these things, correct YAW setting in configurator, have the correct props installed on the motors, check that the correct signal output is connected on the flight controller to the correct ESCs. I’ve made all these mistakes and any of these will make the quad flip violently on takeoff.
a motor spinning in the wrong direction will usually just make the quad not take off but usually won’t do the violent flip.
A world of pain is gone… Many Thanks