So the maiden flight was amazing and I had a ton of fun, however, about one minute into the second flight, my quad flipped uncontrollably and crashed. I looked over and saw it smoking in the distance and had a small fire when I got to it. Above is the album showing the aftermath. Since this is my first drone, I naturally want to find out what caused it and how much can be salvaged. I want to avoid any mistakes I made here and learn from it.
Now I'm not sure how much this has to do with it, but it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit outside today. I'm assuming the fire was caused by the xt60 lead red wire detaching, and then caused the meltdown of the motors, which then flipped it. The FC looks slightly unaffected, and the VTX looks fine (other than the antenna detaching).
The motors that resoldered to each other during the fire are most likely ruined correct? Would an electrical error like this also cause the other motors to die plus any other parts (camera)? Is there a way for me to test if something is still working properly?
Thank you
Replies
That sucks. Sorry about your drone.
I typically reuse any components I can run a test on pre-flight. Granted, I have more experience with RC than drones (and plenty of crashes to talk about) but there's a lot of things you can power up and check sitting at your kitchen table--or wherever you typically do your work--to see if the component is okay. Typically (although not always) if it will run, move, and act the way it should in-hand without too much heat or noise, it's okay to reuse.
Sorry about you're drone! Not sure if you should fly in such heat. Lipo batteries don't really like extremes (hot-cold). That probably wasn't the cause of the crash however. What happened to the motors? You could use a voltmeter to measure the resistance between each of the three cables of each motor. If the motor is physically damaged, you probably shouldn't waste your time. If it appears to be fine, check the Ohms of between each wire.
Maybe your ESCs caught on fire, due to too many amps going to the motos, or, as you said, the positive cable got detached and made a short circuit, resulting in a fire.
Make sure your Lipo isn't damaged as it could be seriously dangerous if it ist. Check if it looks puffed or simply has marks of blows. Maybe this was the actual cause of the fire.
Hope this helped!
P.S.: anything that doesn't handle power (battery, ESCs, motors, etc.) and looks fine (VTx, Rx, camera, etc.) could be reused. Check manually before sending it to the sky again, just in case. Motors and anything else that pass this test could also be put into another drone, but with caution.