Hi Guys,
We have been using Pixhawk in our fixed wings since a long time and have been quite successful with it so far. Today something strange happened:
We were tuning a new platform meant for aerial mapping. It was a bit windy day but manual take off went well and after trimming a the platform we switched to FBWA for finer tuning when suddenly the plane lost all the control and came down like a rock. It felt like it had no power and when it got inverted it could be recovered at all. We tried switching to manual mode but I dont think this was registered at all.
Following are the specs of the platforms:
3m span Glider
Hacker Motor
Castle Creations ESC
16000 mah 6S Tattu battery
Mauch Power Module
Hitech Servos
I am attaching the drive link below of the bin file and would be great if anyone could help us understand what went wrong.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-wBxBwIyRqVeTNfRUs0QnFfZHc/view?usp=sharing
Replies
Hey Andre,
Thankyou for your comment. The system was powered via the Mauch Power Module + Extra 5V supply from the ESCs (internal BEC).
Do you suggest doing something more than this?
-Pravin
Was the extra 5v (on servo rail) actually within the range of what Pixhawk could use ? (or was it higher?) - you need to measure to be sure.
Also - you would need to verify that the power module actually supplied power, or else you could have been flying on servo rail power (possible to overload /or make overshoot - or by fed back by digital servos.)
in any case, check power.
We checked by powering with both the power module and servo rail and pixhawk was getting powered from it independently.
I do think a digital servo may have been the problem taking too much current at some point. I did have two Hitech Digital servos in Ailerons. However the voltage of the pixhawk has never gone below 4.8V as per the log.
That......
If the Pixhawk lost power and flew away, then rebooted, how did it arm itself to be able to RTL again?
I do not understand why did it goto circle. We only flew it manual and FBWA.
who sais it RTL'ed ? (I see "crash")
http://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/an-interesting-failure/9376
I guess I had too many tabs open.