Yesterday I had my third fly with ardupilot on my X8 and is anded badly.
In about 3 seconds after start engine stopped and I lost control totally.
Due to small roll and pitch angle my X8 kept flying and crashed in a tree in 300 meters.
Later at home I discovered that connector on a power module on the battery side came off from the wire. Terminals inside the connector had almost no trace of solder. On the wire solder attended and was highly oxidized!!!!
This means that the soldering kept on heat shrink tubing, and water has entered inside accident was only a matter of time and vibration, which is what happened.
I also cut tube from another wire and soldering quality on it also leave much to be desired.
Fortunately the aircraft be restored by the end of the week I will raise it again in the air (It amazingly strong!).
However, I will now have to check all the areas of factory soldering.
Comments
3DR has responded and is looking through all it's inventory to resolve. I am certain this will not occur in future products shipped. I checked mine and re-soldered although it was not in any shape to disconnect in current form. But better safe then sorry. @ Drone product was not defective, solder joints come in all different ways, it is not necessarily a defect just because it was soldered half way in. So I would look at it that way....
Never be persuaded by the cotton candy and freebies. A commitment to excellent service is all we should want from them.
I don't think that 3DR will provide to us some"candy" for our broken aircrafts, although it would be nice of them
My guess is that 3DR is on top of this and we won't be finding bad solder joints in the future. :) Overall I have been pleased.
Yikes, this is concerning. I had a major crash recently due to an AttoPilot 90A board shorting mid flight and now have ordered the 3DR as a replacement. Also a while back I had a 3DR/RCTimer 880kv motor fail due one of the leads not being properly soldered to the short wires that stick out of the motor. It was also only being held together by heat-shrink.
+10 points to Jason - if you are getting into this hobby and are stocking up with tools and such, get yourself a tube of solder flux, and some tin/lead solder. 'Lead Free' solder is NOT better for the hobbyist, it's what most shops sell however.
Just received my first order from 3DRobotics for an APM with the power module. Based on this info it looks like I should probably go ahead and redo the connections on the two XT60 connectors. The first time I picked up the APM already assembled in the enclosure, the long retaining screw on the corner by the USB connector fell out. Tried to screw it back in but it will not engage. Looks like the enclosure is bad and does not allow the screw to engage the lower section. If 3DRobotics wants to be the high quality supplier for open source hardware they may need to focus some more on quality control.
^ Agree, and I do a lot of soldering. If you're not a pro and don't have ALL the proper tools, use leaded solder. I use all types of solder though, and solder with lots of silver in it, though IMO it is MUCH better solder, it is also more difficult to use it well.
I always re-solder using flux and unleaded solder or build my own connectors, As I slammed a few years ago using presolder stuff
This happend to my bixler about 4 days ago. I was using dean plugs.
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