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Q v4.0 - ArduCopter First/Second Flight and Crash

Posted by Chris Walsh on May 10, 2011 at 8:30pm

Well we are part way through out project on an autonomous quadrotor platform.

 

The first two videos are of the first flights. The third is the first crash (*sigh*).

 

Flight 1:

I am piloting this one and making sure it works before trying anything too extreme.

 

Flight 2:

Bryan is flying this one and he is testing out the performance of the ArduCopter

 

Crash 1:

I was piloting this one, and something just failed, cause is still unknown.

 

 

We managed to have a nice sunny day to fly the quads in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens.

 

The next step is to have it taking off and landing autonomously using the gps and pressure sensors. After that, get wifi-data.

 

We shall keep you posted!!

 

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Comments

  • Chris Walsh May 11, 2011 at 4:42pm

    Hi guys, thanks for the feedback.

     

    I did suspect the ESC's were the culprit. I will look at a better connection system.

     

    At this stage we were just using NG and we'll be changing that soon to the ArduPirates further down the track. This was simply a demonstration as to us getting it flying and making sure it works.

     

    The first video was me establishing which direction was the front/back/left/right as we had not yet marked up which is which...

     

    Yesterday we managed to get a separate arduino board communicating with a wifi network. Next step is getting the ArduCopter to use that information effectively.

     

    Thanks again guys and we will keep you posted as to our progress.

  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen May 11, 2011 at 10:18am
    Simone, if the connectors are tight there are no problems but if they are loose connectors you might have problems in somepoint. We have also many quads that have thlse bullets still on and they fly without any problems. Also if we look the overall statistics, it is not so big amount that have been having problems.

    If you plan to rebuild your ArduCopter, on same time you can remove those bullets. As said kits still have them but not as presoldered so its up to the user to use them or not.

    Changing is naturally a bit more harder with soldered wires
  • Simone Chiaretta May 11, 2011 at 9:44am
    Oh, ok. So how do you detach motors from ESC if needed?
  • John C. May 11, 2011 at 9:41am

    ESC directly to the motors.

     

    I haven't had any problems with the deans connectors.

  • Simone Chiaretta May 11, 2011 at 9:18am

    I have the old kit, and I had the bullet connector. Since I have not soldered it yet, you suggests it's better to solder the ESC directly to the distribution board?

  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen May 11, 2011 at 9:16am
    All kits have now bullets removed as default. If users want to use those, they can solder them. Maybe on future ESCs we can have terminal blocks or something else that allows easy but secure connections.
  • Developer
    Jason Short May 11, 2011 at 8:08am
    The bullets from the AC kit are out of tolerance. I've seen copters flip because of it.
  • Simone Chiaretta May 11, 2011 at 6:00am
    Might it be related to the problem you had in the first video, where not all motors started at the same time?
  • Michal Rusina May 11, 2011 at 4:18am
    why are the bullet connector bad?
  • ARHEXA May 10, 2011 at 9:58pm
    + get rid of the bullet connectors between ESC and motors
This reply was deleted.