Looking for advice here. I have built my own quadcopter using parts from eBay and other random places. So after it was built and tested in my garage I flew it outside and had no issues. Then I was doing an autonomous mission down my street and back and it fell out of the sky and crashed. So after looking at it I found that one of the solder joints between one of the 3 motor cables came loose. Fixed that (and replaced some arms) and then did some more flying and had another crash. Found that the battery wasn't held in by velcro and the strap and it slid out of the strap and was dangling. Fix it again. Have had many successful flights and autonomous missions since. Then last night I decided to do a mission straight up in the air and loiter around. Well it fell out of the sky on the second mission which was the same exact one as the first. But I can't figure out what went wrong. Everything seems fine, all motors still spun up. 2 broken arms, broken go-pro mount. So I'm trying to understand what could have caused this. I have a go=pro video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TII-L_Vm2mw and around 3:20 you can see the beginning of the decent. It's dark so it's hard to see but you can hear it. When I saw it falling I started running towards it in the big soccer field and tried giving it full throttle to see if it would recover. My one question is, if the quad flips over or is spinning on fall even if all the motors spun up would it be able to recover or not? My battery voltage was 11.46v when I checked it after crash. I really don't understand why I'm having so many issues. Another question is if APM 2.6 loses radio signal what does it do? Shut down the motors?
Hobbywing 30A ESC's
A2212 1000Kv motors
10x4.5 blades
Turnigy 9X radio
11.1v 3s 5000mah battery
Replies
Ok here is the last 2 logs. I believe the one that ends in 57 is the one of the crash.
logs.zip
Brad,
That video doesn't help a whole lot. It sounds to me, like you lost a motor or prop, but that's completely a guess on my part. Hopefully the logs will tell us more. If you don't know how to retrieve them follow this article.
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/downloading-and-analyzing-data-log...
zip it up and post it so I and others can take a look.
-MD
Do you think the props can break in the air? All the prop tops were still on the motors.
Absolutely you can break a prop in the air, but if the props were all "intact" after the crash that's probably not it.
You've asked a lot of questions. Posting the log of the flight from APM is the best way to answer your questions about 'why'.
"My one question is, if the quad flips over or is spinning on fall even if all the motors spun up would it be able to recover or not? "
Depends, if it's lost it's orientation, full throttle isn't going to help much if it doesn't know which way is up. I suspect you had another mechanical failure, and logs would help show that or disprove it.
Lastly, the link to your video goes nowhere.
Post your logs so some really smart guys can take a look and get you pointed in the right direction.