I had my first flights today and although it mostly went well, I had a few crashes where one motor would just seem to turn off or at least appeared to and it would do a quick flip. I've kept it mostly 5-10 meters off the grand so the crashes have just resulted in a couple broken props and motor mount or screws. This has happened several times over a total of about 30 minutes of flying.Has anyone else experienced this? Do I have some setup wrong or do I need to recalibrate my ESC's? It flies well except for an occasional jitter and seems very stable even with moderate breezes. I'm just nervous about getting it up or further away from me until I can pin down what this glitch is.This is the first version of the software I've used so I don't have any prior experience. Is there something in the code that could cause this. When it's happened, I haven't had it high enough to know if it would auto recover before hitting the ground. It all happens so quick. I'm not using GPS hold and I'm using stable mode. When I arm the motors and move it around by hand it responds exactly as it should but sometimes I have trouble getting one motor to spin. It seems to bounce around as the other 3 are spinning normally. The way I've solved it is to pull the battery power and plug it back in, causing a reboot. Maybe there is a relation to the mid air stopping of one motor?Also I've noticed another glitch that happens when I plug in the usb cable and try to use the configurator. It's only happened 3 times but seems to be at the moment I press connect and then one motor will go a little crazy trying to fight itself and then smoke. I'm able to grab the battery power in a few seconds and even though I changed the motor, they seem to be ok. The ESC gets hot and motor also but doesn't seem to suffer any permanent damage if the power is pulled quickly. It seems when the configurator makes a connection it sends a strange command to one of the motors, causing the smoking of one of the motors :-/Jani I need to order several crash kits and a box of nylon screws :-P
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Since I soldered the 3 wire motor connections, I haven't had a single problem like I was having with motor stuttering. Incredibly smooth flight even in light winds.
After checking a few of the bullet connections and finding totally lost connections. All the bullet connections would spin and some would spin at the solder connection so definitely was a connection problem. I soldered them all direct and now it's flying great!!
Jani is there a better tighter fitting connector that can be used instead of soldering?
Jani you are talking about pinching the female cylinder of the connector and not the end that the wire is soldered to? ALL of mine are lose and it would be very worthwhile to put a big warning to check those or find a more secure way of connecting them. I'm considering soldering them directly to each other and using shrinkwrap.
I know crashing is a part of this but if she's going to crash I hope it is for more worthwhile failures and not a lose bullet connection :-/
Wow thanks for all the responses! I'm going to dissect those connections and see what is going on. About what jasonshort said and minimal throttle, I remember at one point before my first flight, I noticed that when I armed the motors they came on. Not too fast to cause any trouble but then when I did some more recalibrating(?) I noticed that they don't do that anymore. When I arm them now they don't spin but when I give it throttle, it flies normal. Does this minimum throttle need to be set higher? That is done in the CLI as part of the ESC calibration???
What about the 2 times I almost burned a motor? It's only happened when I was connecting the configurator. It was like the motor was trying to spin both directions at the same time haha. Just fighting itself and then the it started smoking :-/ It's done it with 2 different motors but I'm not sure if the second one was in the same place as the first one. IOW using the same circuit leg and ESC. At least it doesn't happen during flight.
Is it possible for this jittering short condition to happen apart from the 3 wire connection? Just because I changed the motor the first time so would have connected the new motor to the bullet connectors of the ESC so if there is a problem it would have to be from the bullet connectors on the ESC 3 wires or where the connect to the ESC circuit board. I guess I could have a lose connection in the ESC? I should have marked it when it happened so I could see if it was happening to the same circuit. :-/
OK I will take a look at that cabling. The way I have it cabled is like this:
I'm using a BEC which gets it's power from the PDB. It's 5V output goes directly to the JR921 receiver. I have single signal wire cables from the receiver to the input of the APM and then 4 single signal wires from the output of the APM to the PDB like in the instructions. I asked Jani if I could just take the 4 ESC's signal wires and go directly to the APM. He just said to make sure I cut the 5V lines. Not sure if I need to cut the ground also. Just no reason to go through the PDB if I don't need to right? This might even solve the problem.
Do you think the two things I saw are related? The first thing that happened before I even flew it was connecting it to the configurator. There is a sequence of connecting it that causes a command to be sent to one of the motors that causes it buzz like crazy and then start to smoke. The first time it happened I changed the motor. Then it happened again (can't remember if it was the same motor) and I left it on and am still flying with it. It just started to smoke. I later tested the first one that that happened to and it seems to be working fine. The ESC I've never changed as I only have the 4 that came with the kit. In both cases it happened at the same time. I had configurator open in VMware Fusion on mac, I turned on the quad, waited for it to boot then plugged in the usb and then pressed connect. I can't remember exactly the timing but it was during that initial connection that it causes one of the motors to go crazy. Is it even possible for configurator to send a bad command that would cause that or is it a lose wire in the motor connections? I really checked all my solder connections when I did the build and the bullet connectors on the ESC and motors seem so tight. I guess it could be the signal wire but could that cause the ESC to drive the motor in a way that causes it to heat up without spinning?
The other (not sure if it's related) issue is one motor cutting out in flight for a split second or usually long enough to send it to the ground early :) I've also had it on the ground and had trouble getting one prop spinning but if I pulled the power and restarted it then they would all spin up fine.
Tomorrow I will check all the solder connections and cable connections.
That's not code--it's almost certainly a dodgy connector/solder joint in one of the three cables in the suspect motor. BTW, if the motor starts "juddering" (twitching but not spinning), kill the power as soon as you can. That's the electrical equivalent a dead short and ten seconds of it will burn out the motor. If you've already had smoke from one motor, you should replace that one.
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I have the exacte same problem.. Ended in two bent arms :(
Hopefully replacing the connectors will help :)
Jani is there a better tighter fitting connector that can be used instead of soldering?
I know crashing is a part of this but if she's going to crash I hope it is for more worthwhile failures and not a lose bullet connection :-/
What about the 2 times I almost burned a motor? It's only happened when I was connecting the configurator. It was like the motor was trying to spin both directions at the same time haha. Just fighting itself and then the it started smoking :-/ It's done it with 2 different motors but I'm not sure if the second one was in the same place as the first one. IOW using the same circuit leg and ESC. At least it doesn't happen during flight.
I'm using a BEC which gets it's power from the PDB. It's 5V output goes directly to the JR921 receiver. I have single signal wire cables from the receiver to the input of the APM and then 4 single signal wires from the output of the APM to the PDB like in the instructions. I asked Jani if I could just take the 4 ESC's signal wires and go directly to the APM. He just said to make sure I cut the 5V lines. Not sure if I need to cut the ground also. Just no reason to go through the PDB if I don't need to right? This might even solve the problem.
Do you think the two things I saw are related? The first thing that happened before I even flew it was connecting it to the configurator. There is a sequence of connecting it that causes a command to be sent to one of the motors that causes it buzz like crazy and then start to smoke. The first time it happened I changed the motor. Then it happened again (can't remember if it was the same motor) and I left it on and am still flying with it. It just started to smoke. I later tested the first one that that happened to and it seems to be working fine. The ESC I've never changed as I only have the 4 that came with the kit. In both cases it happened at the same time. I had configurator open in VMware Fusion on mac, I turned on the quad, waited for it to boot then plugged in the usb and then pressed connect. I can't remember exactly the timing but it was during that initial connection that it causes one of the motors to go crazy. Is it even possible for configurator to send a bad command that would cause that or is it a lose wire in the motor connections? I really checked all my solder connections when I did the build and the bullet connectors on the ESC and motors seem so tight. I guess it could be the signal wire but could that cause the ESC to drive the motor in a way that causes it to heat up without spinning?
The other (not sure if it's related) issue is one motor cutting out in flight for a split second or usually long enough to send it to the ground early :) I've also had it on the ground and had trouble getting one prop spinning but if I pulled the power and restarted it then they would all spin up fine.
Tomorrow I will check all the solder connections and cable connections.
That's not code--it's almost certainly a dodgy connector/solder joint in one of the three cables in the suspect motor. BTW, if the motor starts "juddering" (twitching but not spinning), kill the power as soon as you can. That's the electrical equivalent a dead short and ten seconds of it will burn out the motor. If you've already had smoke from one motor, you should replace that one.