I've been working on uploading firmware and calibration. I always followed the "remove signal cable warning" to ESCs/Motors. The day I forgot that (blindly pressing the okay button in mission planner), I experienced an accident.
I wanted to calibrate the radio. Hence I plugged the LiPo. Then I connected the USB cable. In a split second, the quad flew out of my table, in maximum throttle (I believe) turned 90 degrees and had hit the wall!! It was a near miss. It could have easily come towards me, instead decided to go towards the wall!.
The USB cable was removed during the incident, and found 5 feet away. All props were gone. One motor axle was bent. Lesson learnt!
I hope someone could tell me the safe procedure of connecting the USB. Should we connect the LiPo first or USB first? With props and signal cable removed of course.
My wife witnessed the whole event and asking me to get rid of the quad! :). Going through the convincing phase!
One more thing, I only want my quad to carry an android smart phone. I would prefer a smaller props and a smaller frame, compared to the stock 3DRobotics frame I have. Or else, a way to cover the props? Something similar to AR Drone foam?
Japi.
Replies
What I do for safety is that I use Velcro to keep my quad/hexa securely fixed down while I'm testing/tuning
I did the exact same thing and my wife witnessed the whole thing as well. My quad flew straight up into the ceiling and just shattered the frame, (it was cheap wood), but luckily everything else survived. I learned my lesson as well, the hard way. :)
Ruwan,
I had a similar experience about 2 years ago (when I was developing code on my own) and it certainly serves as a strong reminder that these are not toys and you've got to be careful. Not sure totally how you managed to do that though. Were you configuring the ESCs just before the accident?
Presumably you're using the APM1 which is why you had to attach the lipo to use the radio? There's a blog post here from Jason re a power hack that makes this unnecessary (the radio will be powered from the usb). I know it's a bit of a drag to pull your APM1 out of the quad and do this change but I promise you it will save you tons of time and worry in the longer term. By the way, this is not necessary on the APM2 as this features was implemented at the design phase.
In general if you must connect the lipo and usb you should connect the lipo before the usb.