help Q500 4K fell out of the sky

vandjhanna · Apr 16, 2017

Where do I start

Flew my drone once today. no problems.

Went for a second turn a few hours later with a fresh battery and it fell out of the sky.

It crashed on my gravel driveway and is now in about 5 pieces with the camera dangling.

can anyone tell me from my telemetry what went wrong?

BobW55 · Apr 16, 2017

Only thing I can see is a very low battery voltage towards the end of the flight.
Also looks like your flight only lasted about 2 minutes.
Was the battery fully charged? Is the battery old? Do you have a battery cell checker to see if one of the cells is not fully charging?

Wingshooter · Apr 16, 2017

Looks like the cgps_used column was showing 3. It should have been 1.

I sent you my email in a Private Conversation. Send me that file so I can see more details.

Wingshooter · Apr 16, 2017

And your IMU went from 97 to 225. 97 is normal.

vandjhanna · Apr 16, 2017

Yeah flight time was very short. 2 mins.
The battery was fully charged.
The battery is quite new. about 2 months old.
The only charger i use is the supplied one.

what is the cgps_used column ?

and the IMU ?

Wingshooter · Apr 16, 2017

IMU has to do with the Accelerameter Calibration. Not real sure what the numbers in that column mean. Yuneec has not published much on what their telemetry data means.

Wingshooter · Apr 17, 2017

I got your telemetry data. On comparison the IMU and cGPS_Used apparently are normal values. I compared them to several telemetry files from personal flights and those show the same characteristics. So I would not place much concern with those.

Of the 22 flight records many of them indicated a Compass Calibration Error of some sort. This could mean you need to recalibrate the compass or your flying environment was the cause of compass interference. Maybe your are near large buildings, concrete/steel reinforced structures, etc..... The attached indicates this by the orange colored items.

Also noticed that your date and time are not set in the ST10+ Controller.

vandjhanna · Apr 18, 2017

Thanks for your time and response

I calibrated the compass the flight before the sky drop. It flew a bit strange the flight before that. so i thought id calibrate the compass, which was quite simple and remedied the issue.

RE : large buildings etc - Im on farmland. A couple of houses, some sheds. no skyscrapers!

I think ill have to call yuneec here in australia. not very confident thinking about that.

ill let you know how I go......

Wingshooter · Apr 18, 2017

Hope you get satisfaction and do report back the outcome. That is how we all learn.

vandjhanna · Apr 19, 2017

id rather learn from a manual, still looking for mine in the box. must be small.

Roger G · Apr 22, 2017

vandjhanna said:
Where do I start

Flew my drone once today. no problems.

Went for a second turn a few hours later with a fresh battery and it fell out of the sky.

It crashed on my gravel driveway and is now in about 5 pieces with the camera dangling.

can anyone tell me from my telemetry what went wrong?

Same thing happened to my new 4K in February. 2nd flight in same area, drone just fell out of the sky. Damaged one motor and body, camera dislodged and badly damaged. Yuneec covered it under warranty, but would not tell me what occurred. Had to send off camera to contracted company in MO, USA. Works fine now, but only after one flight. I'm flying today, but very nervous. Good luck.

vandjhanna · Apr 22, 2017

Just sent mine off to warranty. they'll send the telemetry to yuneec and we;ll see what they say.

good luck.

vandjhanna · May 29, 2017

Got a message today from warranty and they've repaired it and are shipping it back.

The camera was totally destroyed so I'm assuming they've replaced it. They previously told me they were waiting on a shell so obviously they must be placing the parts back in.

I'll call them and ask what went wrong and post

ATLienQ500 · May 13, 2018

Greetings. It's interesting that so many Yuneec drones have fallen out of the sky (Typhoon H's and Q500's). I purchased my Q5004k in Q4 2016. Within a year of that purchase it fell from the sky in mid flight (second flight that day) but luckily it was only about 20 feet above grass. I broke blades but the gimbal guard saved the rest of the drone. On that occasion Yuneec decided not to honor my warranty because no telemetry files were being written to the controller. When I asked them how was I supposed to know that when they did not provide documentation on how to ensure that telemetry files are being successfully recorded, the CS rep simply reiterated the "corporate and scripted" response.

I have since re-calibrated the compass and accelerometer and then flown successfully with GPS a few times ... but within these flights I have had two more altitude drops from about 20-40 feet above ground. I recently Called Yuneec and explained the situation surrounding the latest drop and a ticket was opened for the case. I have sent in my flight logs and I am hoping to hear a conclusive response soon. Given what I have seen in these forums however, I am hesitant to hold my breath. This is something that just should not be happening and it now has me very skeptical about sending the quad up to it's 400ft maximum altitude, especially being out of warranty.

Yuneec seems to have fallen off with their customer service edge. If Yuneec is out here snooping around on this forum, then I dare say to them that it would behoove you to eradicate the litter of problems that appear to be rendering your machines stones waiting to fall from the sky. All these issues are pushing folks who intended to be loyal customers in the direction of DJI ... Yuneec, please fix this yesterday or else we will have no choice but to go. Please!!!

ATLienQ500

Parsons · May 13, 2018

Falling out of the sky that's no good just hope when I get my new frame to fix mine it don't happen to me will not be happy

DrNewcenstein · May 13, 2018

I bought 2 refurbished Q500 4Ks in January of this year (one for me and one for Dad).
I've had some scary moments when the wind picked up, but haven't had a free-fall yet. I'm also on a large open field with no transmission or cell towers or other sources of RF interference or risk of "No Fly" brodcasts. I also don't fly without GPS.

As I understand it, the SD card under the battery in the controller records telemetry automatically, but I don't know if it records it if you turn off GPS.

Dad recently experienced a loss of control and wound up crashing hard. He says the screen flashed a warning and the drone entered an auto-home state, but as he was trying to navigate around an obstacle, it hit anyway.
I'm going through the telemetry but not seeing where or why it lost GPS. But there is a 5 second span where I'm seeing Error Flag 32. According to the PDF with Helmut Elsner's app, that's a Compass Calibration error. He was outside of our original home calibration area by about 800 miles and didn't recalibrate, but I don't know if that's a contributing factor. I'm guessing it would be.

ATLienQ500 · May 13, 2018

DrNewcenstein said:
I bought 2 refurbished Q500 4Ks in January of this year (one for me and one for Dad).
I've had some scary moments when the wind picked up, but haven't had a free-fall yet. I'm also on a large open field with no transmission or cell towers or other sources of RF interference or risk of "No Fly" brodcasts. I also don't fly without GPS.

As I understand it, the SD card under the battery in the controller records telemetry automatically, but I don't know if it records it if you turn off GPS.

Dad recently experienced a loss of control and wound up crashing hard. He says the screen flashed a warning and the drone entered an auto-home state, but as he was trying to navigate around an obstacle, it hit anyway.
I'm going through the telemetry but not seeing where or why it lost GPS. But there is a 5 second span where I'm seeing Error Flag 32. According to the PDF with Helmut Elsner's app, that's a Compass Calibration error. He was outside of our original home calibration area by about 800 miles and didn't recalibrate, but I don't know if that's a contributing factor. I'm guessing it would be.

The SD card under the battery in the controller is supposed to record telemetry automatically, provided it is seated correctly. Yuneec should have a very easy way to plug the controller into a computer or verify via the controller, that telemetry will be recorded before taking flight. I believe I have seen some talk of being able to plug the controller into a PC and verify if you get a specific driver installed (But this info was not from Yuneec).

In addition, it appears that there is a high volume of folks who have experienced the Error Flag 32 within minutes of a "successful" compass and accelerometer calibration... These have indeed been "Yuneec" problems to solve ... smh

Ldenningbaker · Sep 2, 2018

ATLienQ500 said:
Greetings. It's interesting that so many Yuneec drones have fallen out of the sky (Typhoon H's and Q500's). I purchased my Q5004k in Q4 2016. Within a year of that purchase it fell from the sky in mid flight (second flight that day) but luckily it was only about 20 feet above grass. I broke blades but the gimbal guard saved the rest of the drone. On that occasion Yuneec decided not to honor my warranty because no telemetry files were being written to the controller. When I asked them how was I supposed to know that when they did not provide documentation on how to ensure that telemetry files are being successfully recorded, the CS rep simply reiterated the "corporate and scripted" response.

I have since re-calibrated the compass and accelerometer and then flown successfully with GPS a few times ... but within these flights I have had two more altitude drops from about 20-40 feet above ground. I recently Called Yuneec and explained the situation surrounding the latest drop and a ticket was opened for the case. I have sent in my flight logs and I am hoping to hear a conclusive response soon. Given what I have seen in these forums however, I am hesitant to hold my breath. This is something that just should not be happening and it now has me very skeptical about sending the quad up to it's 400ft maximum altitude, especially being out of warranty.

Yuneec seems to have fallen off with their customer service edge. If Yuneec is out here snooping around on this forum, then I dare say to them that it would behoove you to eradicate the litter of problems that appear to be rendering your machines stones waiting to fall from the sky. All these issues are pushing folks who intended to be loyal customers in the direction of DJI ... Yuneec, please fix this yesterday or else we will have no choice but to go. Please!!!

ATLienQ500

Well my 500 Q+ just fell about 150 feet onto ground ..camera came off belly of the drone cracked.. I watched it falling in horror..Gut wrenching to say the least..I bought it 3 years ago and it did it when I first got it too.. I have bought new batteries.. Probably flown it a total of 40 times.. Just a real bummer.. Pissed to be quite honest.. Junk!

ATLienQ500 · Sep 3, 2018

Ldenningbaker said:
Well my 500 Q+ just fell about 150 feet onto ground ..camera came off belly of the drone cracked.. I watched it falling in horror..Gut wrenching to say the least..I bought it 3 years ago and it did it when I first got it too.. I have bought new batteries.. Probably flown it a total of 40 times.. Just a real bummer.. Pissed to be quite honest.. Junk!

I can only imagine the level of angst now flowing through your veins. I'm not sure what was the case with your quad but it could have been a number of things. Steve Carr who has chimed in on this thread was a very big help in helping me narrow down the issue I had with my particular Q500 4k. Not sure if you saw the pics I posted of the inside of the quad but it turns out one of the antennas was resting on the compass module. I think the tape that was supposed to hold that antenna down away from the module may have worn out or lost stickiness. Who knows. All I know is once I moved that wire away from the compass my problem vanished.

The funny thing is, I went into the quad because my warranty was up and I refused to ship it to Yuneec so they could charge me for something that I still suspect was as a result of bad quality control procedures. If said it before and I continue to say it. You either need to learn a little bit about quads so you can fix them once out of warranty or you will be dependent on these companies and possibly spend more than planned on repairs.

Regarding your recent crash.... I feel your pain. If you're up to it you can probably fix the quad or move the components to a new shell or one of those alternative shell kits. you could also sell the parts, which I'm willing to bet is not something you are considering,

By chance were you able to recover flight logs from your remote? That may have clues as to what happened. If you can check them, look for the telemetry files and open the one from your last flight in Excel or something similar. If you see flight log error codes = 23 then that may indicate compass errors. Those are the errors I was getting prior to correcting the antenna position.

if you want to get back up in the air, don't hesitate to ask questions of the folks on here. They know a lot and can probably help you avoid unnecessary delays or expenses.

Again, sorry about the crash. We hate those.

Respond with any questions you may have.

Andre

TheChiefUSN · Oct 14, 2018

I own 3 Q500 4K's

and subsequently now have 2 in various states of repair

that I have a new body and landing gear that I will cannibalize the 2 crashed

to make 1 working.

The other has issues as well and they all came about with in a week of each other while doing 1 cell tower inspection and a half of dozen rooftop inspection.

During the cell tower job everything went well. Later that day with different fresh battery send up Q500 place in hover hold while getting final request of area of roof to survey for solar panels Q500 heads right as directed, then from nowhere snaps left and continues on fly away, RTH no response, emergency function no response, death spiral crash from about 150' at a range of .5 miles on a 4 lane main artery. Later in week different Q500 2 times on take off straight up snaps in reverse to point of crash destroyed camera landing gear gone, body with multiple fatal stress fractures. Alt

Flight records indicate that everything with in normal parameters. Big money lost, embarrassment to my bosses, loss of up coming work, repair down time, no income coming in ,What is happening with what I truly believe is dollar for dollar 1 of the best and used to be stable drones on the market. (I haven't given up on them yet besides DJI over rated over priced I own Phantom 3 pro I uses as a paper weight)

Anybody have thoughts

files and photos to follow shortly