I have had three major crashes that are all related to mechanical failures. 2 times, prop flying off. Addressed that by buying new motors/mounts fixed in place. Now today had a prop snap 30m up. With a quad, it is lights out, big crash coming. So, with a hexa, and you lose one drive, be it prop, motor whatever, can you control the copter an land?? If no what about Octo??
I am getting thoroughly annoyed (as is my wife.....) with this problem!!
Replies
Depends on your battery load, hexa or octo. My Mikrokopter Hexas can lose a motor and still navigate in auto (albiet, very poorly.) But they stay up there and keep truckin'. One time one lost a prop in flight, and I didn't notice until it came home to land. However, that is a very lightweight hexa with plenty of spare thrust.
My Udrones hexas can barely land when they lose a motor. Very hard to control. And if I use a heavier battery or two batteries in parallel, it is too heavy to control when it loses a motor.
My Mikrokopter Octo once lost a motor and shrugged it off like it was no big deal. And that was carrying four 5000mAh batteries in parallel. So a really heavy copter. It still had plenty of thrust to spare though, that is what let it keep going. I cut the flight short and landed though, because I'd imagine that it was chewing through battery life very quickly.
Bottom line: if you do a hexa, make sure it is light and has plenty of extra thrust. Always use threadlock to attach the motor to the arm. Make sure your prop mounts are of a high quality. And use APC props: I have never seen an APC prop which passed my pre-flight inspection (no nicks, cracks, or bends) go on to break in the air.