You have a dead short somewhere…but until you take it apart and and Ohm out everything it is just guessing. The photos show your accident but don’t contain enough information to find the defect. If I lived nearby, I would find it for you. The silver lining is that when you do figure it out, you are going to be smarter!
Bill
Hopefully i will get smarter because I couldn’t feel any dumber than I do now.
1 Like
Hey so I sold him my x4, unfortunately new owner lives 7 hrs away from me, not easy to help out but I’ve been trying to get him going with the x4. From what I can gather it would seem that he shorted out the batteries, the hot leads touched something and shorted out the batteries causing them to fry at the connection. The X4 itself is not the problem, he did not have the batteries connected to the x4, nor did he have the power on, he was merely connecting the two batteries together. I am told that the hot leads plastic housing is deformed so something touched it and shorted out the battery.
Yes, it’s true. I am a dummy, but I am learning. Got new ends on the battery leads and
I discharged the batteries down to storage level. I claim complete responsibility for my
mishap. There was no one to blame but me.
So today i charged the batteries to 70%, hooked everything up and ran it on my back for about
20 minutes. Everything works fine.
So ive unhooked it all and am discharging to storage levels again. The more times i do this the better i think.
I am a bit clueless as to what all the indicators are telling me.
The throttle control has several modes, i can see
What one is giving me a % while running.
What does that mean?
Percentage of power used or Percentage of power left?
Another screen tells me how long its been hooked up? So that would be approximate run time ?
The other screens give various voltage readings but i dont know what they mean either.
Any help in this endeavor would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Sorry for all the confusion regarding what happened last week.
Whatever I did, I WILL BE VERY CAUTIOUS while connecting and disconnecting these batteries
in the future. If anything, it’s taught me to respect the batteries and be mindful whilst setting up.
Thanks again everyone for your advice and help.
hahaha, only funny because I’ve been there!!
There are a lot of wires when you hook up the batteries and it is very easy to plug the wrong one into the wrong other one. The X4 is meant to be more of a DIY type plane rather than the SP140 which is plug and play.
I once was talking to my wife, telling her how great the paramotor was and plugged the positive into the negative on the same battery pack. Melted the x150 connector clear off!
I fly with 8 batteries all the time now. So I have taken a pack of coloured electric tape and banded each of the battery leads. That way the yellow banded + goes into the yellow banded -, the green banded + goes to the green banded -, etc. The unbanded leads go into the plug ins.
I also now force myself to not be distracted when hooking up the batteries. It is a time of quiet, when no one can speak to me. I’m hooking up batteries that make big sparks!
Take it slow as you transition into the system. This is the time to take it slow and not rush the learning curve. After all, you are dealing with 48V system that outputs 300amps on take-off.
Good luck.
2 Likes
No. Batteries do not need breaking in. Essentially they have a limited number of charge- discharge cycles before they will be degraded. They degrade very slightly every cycle. The faster you charge or discharge (the higher amperage you push in or pull out) the more dedrading you cause in that cycle. The X4 will be pulling hard on the discharge side but that’s the deal. Charge slowly.
Discharging slowly to storage level will cause way less degradation than storing at full charge.
1 Like
I was thinking more along the lines of me and my canary brain learning the process, not the batteries but thanks for the
information. I will take it slow and carefully from now on.
What happened scared me a bit (and that’s probably a good thing) .
At this point, I still have not even kited the wing connected to the paramotor. Perhaps tonight, Lord willing.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Obviously, I need all the help I can get.
Very good advice, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
So last night the Lord blessed me with the perfect wind and weather conditions to try kiting with the motor. Thank you Lord!
It went better than I expected and yet it was very different in some ways.
The attachment points are a bit higher than the free flight harness I have been practicing with.
On top of that, the carabiners are parallel to the swing arms, so I am a bit confused as to the direction the risers should be attached. I assume the brake toggles should be facing outwards in a forward launch position.
The other issue is just getting used to having a throttle control in my hand. I kept letting go of the brake toggle without realizing it. It took a few attempts before I could get past this.
All in all though I was able to kite the wing from reverse to forward and travel across the field with the wing overhead. I was quite happy about that!
Anyhooo, I can see I need to keep practicing with the motors/frame for a while before I try to fly.
Thanks everyone for your assistance.
1 Like
Okay I will have to see how to fix this. I was actually wrong about how they sit. They are at a 45 degree angle to the swing arms. It is somewhat confusing trying to hook in correctly as they are now.
It seems i am my own worst enemy with regards to this. I had moved the soft links back one notch on the swing arms and when i put them back i had gotten them wrong.
All good now.
Going to attempt some power taxis today,
If all looks good, perhaps a short flight.
Lord willing.
One of my chargers is not working properly and i am not sure what to do about it. The other 3 have finished charging but this one is barely started. I can turn it off and change chargers and the battery charges fine, so it’s not the battery. I can deal with it, but it would be better if it worked like the others.
There doesn’t seem to be any adjusting knobs or anything like that on these 2 chargers. The other 2 look identical except they have adjustment knobs.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Thank you everyone for all your help.
Buy a Thunder Power RC charger, I’ve been using them for the last ten years and very pleased with the performance.
Ok, sounds good. Thunder power.
I had a morning flight this morning and i muffed the landing. I forget to flare. Now i need parts.
Some of these i should be able to fix, but can i still buy the arms that hold the motor?
I highly recommend getting some good training before buying replacement parts! It will save you money in the long run with equipment repair costs and medical bills and it may even save your life!
1 Like
You are correct sir, I need more training.
-opining-
Humility is a valuable quality in a pilot. You are not your worst enemy. In all probability the weather is a pilot’s worst enemy. It’s the one thing we cannot control and can barely predict. You are (or will be) the pilot in command. In the air, at the controls of a flying machine, your situation is entirely in your own hands. It’s probably the most wonderful, amazingly beautiful, and most awesome place to be. It’s also about the most alien environment a human can put themselves in. (perhaps the deep sea is worse). None of your basic human instincts will help you and your senses can betray you. Every bit of skill, knowledge, and judgement that is valuable in the air has to be learned. The more of it you can acquire before you take-off the less you’ll have to acquire by trading luck (no one knows when their luck will run out).
-end opining-
It’s brutal breaking equipment before you even fly it. I feel for you. The fitness of your aircraft is vital. In a hit like your pictures show on the X4 things can bend and crack where you might not see it at first. As Paramotors go it’s downright fragile.
VERY CAREFULLY inspect EVERYTHING. Check every piece of carbon plate and plastic for cracks. Check all the standoffs for bends. Make sure every bolt is still in one piece and tight. Check every wire for nicks or cuts in the insulation. Make sure the motor in front of that broken prop is spinning smoothly with no wobble or tight spots. I’ve probably missed something…