I have been struggling with getting meaningful warnings about low battery. Thus, I have installed a small panel with 3 LEDs; one for arming connected to pin A7, one for GPS connected to A6 and the third for low battery connected to A5 (I wanted to use a LED instead of a beeper).
In MP, I set the LED_MODE to 11 and turned on the Battery failsafe with action to land. (see pictures).
When testing this a few days back, I kept the hex at a low altitude (to avoid fatal crashes). I have also installed a FrSky battery monitor so I can see the voltage on the radio.
When I was getting close to the low voltage alarm I had set on the FrSky, I suddenly saw the arm led on the hex blinking. Probably because I had reached the low voltage set in MP. After a split second, the hex leaned over about 45 degrees and crashed into some chairs. Fortunately only some propellers and the GPS pole was damaged.
If someone could provide some help on the 2 issues below, I would be very grateful.
- I have tried to analyse the log, but I have to little knowledge about it. I can see in line 2908 that I get ERR 6 and that MODE is set to Land in line 2907 (the line before ??).
But why does the hex lean over and crash?
I have attached the log below. Any help on looking at it would be very much appreciated. - Regarding the low voltage alarm, I would just want to get an alarm at a specified voltage so I can land manually. And why does not the LED connected to A5 light up when I reach the limit?
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Are the low voltage cutoffs disabled on your speed contollers? I havent looked at your log but maybe the LVC is starting to kick in on the ESCs
I'm sure I had no loose props as they are fixed with a 3 hole mount.
Embarassed to say that I have not checked the Low Voltage Cutoff on my ESC. However, I'm using the HobbyWing Platinum Pro 30A ESCs. The factory default for these are "Middle" and I have not changed it.
I'm waiting for new propellers before I can do any more testing.
good guess, right before it rolls over, it hits a record-low of 3.59v/cell (most likely a 6s setup), it's too high for a cutoff, but might be a very high soft-cutoff ?
not enought data to be sure, but it looks like some stick banging just before the roll fails, - I would a prop got loose or something like that ?
Screenshot.png
Very interesting that you have the same problem. I have experienced the same "lean over and crash" before also, but then I was even less experienced and did not look at the log.
As I mentioned in my first post, I saw the arm LED blinking just before it leaned over. My conclusion was that this was a low voltage alarm and that this failsafe situation made the controller take some action. The log tells us that the action was to land. Maybe it's the land function that does not work. Maybe we should try to put it into "Land" mode manually, with a fresh battery and see what will happen then ??
However this is a bit scary. The last crash cost me 70$ and that was a "lucky" crash.
Waiting to hear your opinion.
i dont rely on the arducopters ability to tell me voltage i got the telemetry for it and a beeper and i use time intervals... for some reason the apm does not get accurate readings.. its even caused it to land well mine far before its time is due like within 2 minutes of a fresh battery when it flies 8 minutes.. or more
You can say that again! This is also my experience. The FrSky telemetry however, does a perfect job.
everything is not accurate unless you have a 3 lbs dmm meter hooked up to it lol there all meant to give alittle bit of safety but ive learned you never trust electronics after all man created it..its bound to fail.. look at windows and nasa lol
Thanks for your answer. However, it does not answer my questions.
I have the Taranis TX, X8R RX and the FLVSS LiPo sensor. This works like a dream and I can sett alarms at any level I want.
However, initially I wanted to use the functions in the APM to get warnings at a level I want.
And..... I want to find out why it crashed instead of landing as it should have done.
I was outside and I also waited until I had a GPS lock before arming. So I don't think that's the problem.
How have you set up your voltage alarm?