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I almost lost a finger today

Posted by Petrus Botha on May 27, 2011 at 2:45pm

What a painfull day!!, I went out to start my PID setup on my newly completed Quad today after finding it to be osciliting way too much.After connecting my flight battery for some unkown reason the motors spinned up abruptly and started lifting my quad, human instinct followed and I grabbed for the landing gear to keep it down and now have a gash the size of the Fish River Canyon in my finger (for those of you who have not seen the Fish River canyon in Namibia yet, get a ticket and visit Southern Africa)

 

After some thought I think I might have resolved the reason why this happened but still require a foolproof solution. I am running all my ESC's and motors of a 18.5v 4400 mah battery. The ESC's does not have any BEC which powers the RC and APM gear which means I require a second 4.8v 900 mah battery to power the RC and APM gear. Currently this means that my 4 ESC's are plugged in with their standard connectors to the APM outputs 1 to 4. My RC is powered to the 4.8v battery and then connected to the respective APM  inputs 1-5  from where the APM draws the required power.

 

By unplugging the 4.8v Battery before the 18.5v Battery I created a finger eating monster. Also by not connecting the batteries in sync when providing power to the APM and motors will mean that the motors does not power up as it should, a motor might start beeping with others spinning etc. I believe that using just the one 18.5v battery will blow APM and my RC Gear.

 

Now, what other options do I have in powering my quad, nny ideas please, remember that typing this was in desperation with 9 fingers.

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Replies

  • Ritchie May 27, 2011 at 4:11pm
    Don't worry we've all had run ins with the blades :D I was caught by my motor doing full throttle (34,000rpm) when I hand launched it and got two gashes just above the veins in my wrist. 6 months later I still have the V cut :( but I now have a launcher so it won't happen again :D
  • Developer
    Jason Short May 27, 2011 at 3:30pm

    Yikes!

    What software version were you running? Did the board reboot? Or was it running? Did you have the throttle up? What ESC's were you using? What throttle level do you I can't think of a reason why that would happen. Maybe as the APM lost power the PWM timers became corrupted. Are you running APC style props?

    Jason

  • Moderator
    John Church May 27, 2011 at 2:52pm

    I would definitely get an external BEC to power my gear if I were you. My setup includes a reliable external BEC and it's been great so far. You could wire up a 5v regulator yourself if hobby gear is hard to come by.

    (take care!)

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