I finally have found some time and good weather conditions to try my new quadcopter.

Unfortunately, it was absolutely not like I thought it would.

 3689512571?profile=original3689512346?profile=original

 

After few attempts (three), I noticed that it was not well "balanced" and has the tendency to fly sideways.

But then, the unexpected happens. It took off by it self. I wasn't touching anything on the remote and went up a meter and half before I decided to take it down using the sticks to not to lose it.

Here are some pictures that I took after the crash.

  

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3689512593?profile=originalSo I was wondering if there's a way to know how it behaved this way to avoid this from happening next time?

Anyway, it seems like I will not be flying it any time soon as many bolts broke and I can't get my hand on any soon.

I hope you guys have an idea and can help me understand what really happened!

Cheers!

Saad

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Comments

  • sorry I just have to chime in... I thought these things were practically uncrashable according to Chris. :)  sorry I really don't like anyone going around and saying that quad copters are safe or practically uncrashable... both of which is not true.   Okay, I took my troll hat off.

    So did you calibrate the ESCs but doing the max and min throttle thing on all four ESCs which requires putting them into programming mode?   or is it just out of the box and it 'seems fine'.?

  • sound like the stability patch strikes again

  • I'd go with a NAZA if you are new to quads and want a simple setup. The APM is great but takes some time and experimentation to get flying well. If you don't need waypoints and such bells and whistles the naza is better for a beginner. With the apm if you incorrectly set one of the hundreds of parameters it could be bad. Things can go bad with the naza but a lot less likely because there are very few user set parameters that need to be set to make it fly really well. Is this your first multirotor? After my quad tried to attack me with the apm I bought a naza and its awesome. I have the same frame motors from 3dr.
  • What type of transmitter?

  • it is very possible that the signal to the quad was lost but it received part of the transmitter signal command which told it to throttle up or your failsafe is to high
  • Well, if that's all the damage you have after your first flight you are doing well :-)  I've badly crashed 3 quads, and rebuilt them, now finally I can fly comfortably.  So it takes a while to get the hang of it.  Make sure you have a wide open space like a soccer field to practice on, that way you have no additional pressure of trees and houses while you are practicing.

     

    Up and down a meter and a half could just have been a gust of wind.  Not something to panic about too much. 

     

    But unexpected power surges (and drop offs) to the motors can be a sign of a bad soldering joint somewhere, potentially on the power distribution board.  If that's the case you are lucky it didn't completely flip out and crash. 

    Did you have any trouble calibrating the ESCs ?  If so, that's another sign of connection problems.  Did you run the "motors" test.  See how in my video.

  • @Don, I had the GPS and telemetry connected. I didn't turn anything on as far as I know.
    I didn't really done a CG check but I thought that the APM would take of it as it seems pretty well balanced to me.
    The ESCs were OK too I guess as I have been able to take off a couple of times. Same for the trims..
    I had screws fixing the motors. Hopefully they broke before the props! 
    Thanks also for the wooden dowels tip! I will definitely add that to save the props.

    @Noth666, I think I was in manual mode. I didn't turn on the telemetry, so I don't know if the APM keeps record of the inputs in itself.
    Also it seemed more like going toward someplace as it didn't just go up. It took off, and moved south, then west before I could "put" it down.

    @Chuck, the board was well oriented. But I haven't run it through the simulator yet...

    @Micheal, I got lucky! The screws broke before the props. Those were only scratched a little. 

  • hi

    how did you have your flight modes set ?

    Go through your set up again ,as if first time setup and take nothing for granted , check and double check. 

    and try not to be too disappointed if its your first quad you probably have

    a few more knoxs ..i still have the odd broken prop now after 18 months .

    But its worth the knoxs for the pleasure you will get when it fall into place . Why not

    get 1 of the hubsan X4 mini quad (costs around £30) to pratice on  ?

     

  • No prop break? Usually the props go first. The arms you can use a hammer to get them back to their shape.

  • I actually had a similar issue when I first started flying quads, I had the board orientation incorrect so the quad kept trying to flip itself to stabilize. Make sure that when you use the simulator you see the virtual craft move in the manner you are moving the physical craft.

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