3DR Iris Screwed Me Again!

Well I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I had a horrific crash a couple of months ago, so I've been laying low. Then last week I started to piece everything together and get back into it VERY SLOWLY and carefully.

Some of you (on facebook) helped me look at my logs from 3 simple flights just to foresee any problems, everything looked ok: http://diydrones.com/group/iris/forum/topics/please-check-my-logs

So yesterday I assemble a brand new Tarot 2D gimbal, and also pieced together a couple of broken GoPros and made 1 that would record. Just scraping up the pieces to get back into it slowly, ya know?

I took it to the park tonight, a different park and I made sure to STAY OVER THE GRASS AT ALL TIMES, and no higher than 10 meters for the most part. I flew several auto missions I just drew up tonight in DroidPlanner2. Just quick flights, relatively low to the ground, and I brought 3 batteries.

I was testing different flight patterns and waypoint functions in DroidPlanner, nothing too crazy. A pause here for 10 seconds, a 10 meter circle around this area, point the camera here, no big deal, right???

I'm in my 4th flight and using my 3rd and final battery for the night. The audio comes on and says "Battery at 90%" so I'm like ok, cool. I'm just letting it run it's auto mission that probably would have lasted a grand total of 3 minutes, and the son of a bitch drops out of the F#^%ing sky AGAIN like a rock, NO WARNING. I break one of the blue arms, and my BRAND NEW F$*%ing gimbal snaps off of the Iris.

Is this a joke?

So anyways, here I go again, I'll put this one in to 3DR support with almost ZERO confidence, let's see if they'll offer 30 bucks off of something again and find a way to suggest it was all my fault.

Here are the logs, and better yet I've got the video. What else can I provide you fine folks? I'll just share the Dropbox folder with all 4 logs from tonight, and of course the crash is the latest log. I would absolutely love some analysis on what went wrong.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rn0h0q8msmbw87w/AAD3R6iA_sBKkO0SDxDphz00a?dl=0

And the video. I can share the other videos from the earlier flights tonight, but they are uneventful, just going to a dozen waypoints, looking at points of interest, pausing, and landing.

The crash happens at 2:37, and I think it's just absolutely adorable how the motors continue to spin EVERY TIME it crashes even if it's upside down, as if there is no setting on the compass that can turn those damned motors off.

Hi Justin. Not sure how your particular capacity controller works but you definitely NEED to read the instructions. LiPo Batteries are truly great but not without risk. read about them and use the LiPo charger "bag" So far I've not had any problems with my IRIS batteries but I have other smaller quads and those batteries seem to blow up often (2 out of 5 for me) I have a charger (TrakPower TK 950) which charges 4 IRIS batteries in about an hour. it will tell me starting mAh, ending mAh, and volts on each cell to tell me if they are balanced. and I record it all...every time..

BTW. I was looking at your logs from your crash...Were you really flying at 10:24PM when you crashed? Is it that light in Utah at that time?. I still can't be of much help. any updates from 3DR? If you don't hear back, I'd call them.

Food for thought. Magnetic &/or Radio interference. I noticed from the video that you are near large power lines.. I've not heard of them being a problem, but who knows...also..you are very close to the AFB. Dumb question maybe, but is there an active airport there? or did you file a NOTAM with the base to fly within 5 miles?

Replies

- mark truesdale > Justin M July 23, 2015 at 11:58am
  
  So sorry see that. The motors stopped. Did the battery door open and let the battery fall out or did it fall out after crashing. I feel your pain brother. I'm convinced my first iris was a lemon. My replacement hasn't had any issues. Please post your log I wanna lok at it when I get home. BTW. Beautiful scenery ...at least for 15seconds
- hotelzululima > Justin M July 23, 2015 at 9:01am
  
  Hi Justin,
  
  yep same results.. I am @hotelzululima if you want to discuss this on twitter..
  
  have left this crap grounded for 8 months since last major crash and NO fucking support for software safety errors they close and dont look at..
  
  gwen
mark truesdale July 22, 2015 at 8:09am

Hi Justin, I'm traveling for a few days and fishing for a few days so if I don't respond right away that's why. As far as the time of the flight the actual log file name begins with the date and is followed by a series of numbers mostly separated by colons that is the military time when the flight began with the last set of three or four digits being the milliseconds. Also in Mission Planner when you click review a log it brings up a new screen and if you scroll to the very bottom of the list that makes up the lower half of the log review screen which could be 20 or 30 thousand entries it also gives the ending time, again in military time of the flight. These are the actual start and stop times that I log to keep track of my actual flying time.
- Justin M > mark truesdale July 22, 2015 at 8:13am
  
  Interesting, I hadn't noticed that yet. I wonder if my device has a bad clock in it, and if that could possibly affect performance somehow.
  
  Or... is it possible that the timestamp reflects the time that the log was extracted from the Iris? That might have been about the time that I was taking the logs through Mission Planner.
  
  Thanks for checking it out.
Justin M July 22, 2015 at 7:22am

So, I'm back flying, after replacing more parts again and again and again and again.

Just a simple shot to try and catch the sunset, and to watch the kids play on the trampoline.

At this point, I have little faith in 3DR Support. It's been what... 2 weeks? "Sergio" responded asking me to send the mission to him, saying it looks like the parameters were changed, whatever that means. But that was 3 days ago. I am not counting on 3DR Support for any help, I'm completely relying on the community, so thanks for your support.
Will Snodgrass July 22, 2015 at 12:27am

Put the mode one Lipo and then when you press cell its telling 1st your total voltage, then the next 3 are 3 cells that make up the battery. (a 3S battery has 3 cells that together make up the total voltage, which is why its called 3s) When you Balance them you simply making sure that all 3 cells have the same charge. Technically each cell is supposed to be 3.7 or so, but there always going to be over a bit when fully charged. As long as all 3 are the same (or close to it) then your battery should be fine.....Although Ive noticed that 2 out of every 5 or so will get bloated and fail. Ive started using the Turnigy Nano Tech as they seem to be a little better and last longer.

But again I would try just runing 3 batterys through it when its around the same temp with the same load and see if it happens again. I'm 90% sure its just overheating. Pick up a 40x40 mm 12 van (like for a 3d printer would be perfect) and set up a push pull system.
- Justin M > Will Snodgrass July 22, 2015 at 7:18am
  
  Thanks!
Justin M July 20, 2015 at 4:19pm

I have received my Capacity Controller today and I did a quick test on my 3 batteries to see if something was obviously wrong. Here is the video of those results. I do not know what to look for, would somebody be so kind as to give it a quick look?
- mark truesdale > Justin M July 20, 2015 at 8:33pm
  
  Hi Justin. Not sure how your particular capacity controller works but you definitely NEED to read the instructions. LiPo Batteries are truly great but not without risk. read about them and use the LiPo charger "bag" So far I've not had any problems with my IRIS batteries but I have other smaller quads and those batteries seem to blow up often (2 out of 5 for me) I have a charger (TrakPower TK 950) which charges 4 IRIS batteries in about an hour. it will tell me starting mAh, ending mAh, and volts on each cell to tell me if they are balanced. and I record it all...every time..
  
  BTW. I was looking at your logs from your crash...Were you really flying at 10:24PM when you crashed? Is it that light in Utah at that time?. I still can't be of much help. any updates from 3DR? If you don't hear back, I'd call them.
  
  Food for thought. Magnetic &/or Radio interference. I noticed from the video that you are near large power lines.. I've not heard of them being a problem, but who knows...also..you are very close to the AFB. Dumb question maybe, but is there an active airport there? or did you file a NOTAM with the base to fly within 5 miles?
- Justin M > mark truesdale July 22, 2015 at 7:17am
  
  No it wasn't 10:24 pm, I wonder if it adjusted to your timezone? I believe it was closer to 7:30 ish my time. Would you mind sharing where it says 10:24?
  
  I've also flown by these power lines multiple times in the past without any problems. Like I said, this was my 4th flight of the night in this same location. I could understand if there was interference from the power lines between my controller and the Iris, but this was an automated mission sent to the drone so I assume it wouldn't need any input from the controller. But I don't think that was the case anyways.
  
  I'm leaning towards the heat issue from the 4th flight in a row.

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