I have already submitted all my information to the IRIS Hardware support forum, so I thought I'd share this video with my fellow IRIS owners. I had heard about the IRIS props just stopping but I thought I was immune since I have been having so many good flights. As you will see from the video, the IRIS went down from a pretty good height. Luckily into grass. The Tarot Gimbal does a good job of keeping the camera still even during the fall.
Looks like I'm out a Tarot Gimbal mount, one arm and 4 props because it cratered. The gimbal PCB and motors are all still good. Even the GoPro survived as you will see.
Now I have to figure out how to get my new parts.
Here's the video:
Replies
Well, after 3DR reviewed the logs, the battery and the IRIS, it has come to this. It was pilot error. The exact terminology was:
After 5 flights completely discharging the battery to levels that will
damage the battery Flight 19 was a normal discharge
Flight 20 was the final one where the vehicle crashed:
You can see at the beginning that the battery was not fully charged and
that by the end the battery was dipping to the 10.5 low voltage cuttoff.
At that point the battery was so low it was taking 80% throttle to hover
You commanded full throttle for a 11 m/s horizontal velocity and a 1.5 m/s
climb rate
at which point the battery voltage collapsed such that the power supply
could not maintain the required minimum input voltage to the Pixhawk and it
browned out and terminated the log.
Findings as to cause:
- The pilot commanded full output power from the vehicle late in theflight causing an almost fully discharged battery to fully collapse to a level where the power supply to the autopilot could not be sustained. The autopilot and motors subsequently turned off in mid air.
Contributing Factors
- The pilot commenced the flight with a battery that was not fully
charged.
- There is a history of a battery or multiple batteries being damaged by deep discharging on several previous flights.
- The pilot may have been using a battery that had previously sustained
damage from deep discharging.
Ken,
Sorry to hear about the crash. Glad to hear that 3DR is taking care of you.
-Joe
Called up 3DR, and the good people on the support line say I won't have to worry about the replacement parts. I'll be getting them in the mail soon. Whew! I'm glad I selected a 3DRobotics product.
Full credit to 3DR, this is the kind of service the multicopter community has long needed, users have long been blamed for every issue by any multicopter company, it's nice to see the benefit of the doubt being given, that's what customer service is about.
the 3DR response to your crash is precisely why I chose to buy the IRIS instead of say a DJI phantom or others.
Support!
HZL
that really sucked to watch.. my IRIS is sitting on the shelf since it arrived monday while I check it out carefully.. opinon is its NOT ready to fly yet(missing 10mm cap screws in the waist of the craft).
waiting to hear from 3DR
HZL
Well, I don't know if I could wait around to fly it. I just called them up and they are taking care of everything. That's one thing that can be said about 3DRobotics. They do back up their products.