Inclimate weather

[Ryana1982]

Had my Q500 out today at a friends cabin. I could see a thunderstorm brewing in the distance and was bringing the drone back to me when I saw several lightning strikes about 5 miles away. Immediately afterward I lost control of my drone and it plummeted to the ground falling approximately 190'. It went through the branches of a tree before hitting the ground.

Has anyone else had problems with the weather making their drone uncontrollable? The props were all spinning all the way to the ground, but I was unable to regain control.

 

[Steve Carr]

I have never heard anyone mention it. How much damage? Will it still power up?
Do you have a sd card under the battery in the ST10?

 

[AH-1G]

Had my Q500 out today at a friends cabin. I could see a thunderstorm brewing in the distance and was bringing the drone back to me when I saw several lightning strikes about 5 miles away. Immediately afterward I lost control of my drone and it plummeted to the ground falling approximately 190'. It went through the branches of a tree before hitting the ground.

Has anyone else had problems with the weather making their drone uncontrollable? The props were all spinning all the way to the ground, but I was unable to regain control.

I would say the shockwave or smaller secondary strikes may have killed it.

Scientists have learned some facts about lightning from pictures. Some lightning flashes are made up of as many as 25 or more lightning bolts (strokes). They move so fast that your eyes only see one flash! lightning can travel over 20 miles!


As the electrons of the step leader approach the Earth, there is an additional repulsion of electrons

downward from Earth's surface. The quantity of positive charge residing on the Earth's surface becomes even greater. This charge begins to migrate upward through buildings, trees and people into the air. This upward rising positive charge - known as a streamer - approaches the step leader in the air above the surface of the Earth. The streamer might meet the leader at an altitude equivalent to the length of a football field. Once contact is made between the streamer and the leader, a complete conducting pathway is mapped out and the lightning begins. The contact point between ground charge and cloud charge rapidly ascends upward at speeds as high as 50 000 miles per second. As many as a billion trillion electrons can transverse this path in less than a millisecond. This initial strike is followed by several secondary strikes or charge surges in rapid succession. These secondary surges are spaced apart so closely in time that may appear as a single strike. The enormous and rapid flow of charge along this pathway between the cloud and Earth heats the surrounding air, causing it to expand violently. The expansion of the air creates a shockwave that we observe as thunder.

 

[biltno]

The data for your flight may turn out to be interesting and hold the answer
Hopefully the tree helped you from needing a new drone by somewhat breaking the speed of the fall
Good luck to you

 

[Russell Smith]

Had my Q500 out today at a friends cabin. I could see a thunderstorm brewing in the distance and was bringing the drone back to me when I saw several lightning strikes about 5 miles away. Immediately afterward I lost control of my drone and it plummeted to the ground falling approximately 190'. It went through the branches of a tree before hitting the ground.

Has anyone else had problems with the weather making their drone uncontrollable? The props were all spinning all the way to the ground, but I was unable to regain control.

EMP...

 

[Ryana1982]

I have never heard anyone mention it. How much damage? Will it still power up?
Do you have a sd card under the battery in the ST10?

I haven't tried to power it up yet. I think I will have to take it apart to do so, the battery terminals are bent out of position. I did have a SD card in the controller, I haven't had a chance to try and figure out how to look at the data yet.

 

[Ryana1982]

The tree did it no favors. The frame is broken in at least two places, the landing gear on the opposite side from the break feels floppy. The battery terminals aren't square to the body anymore. The camera was knocked loose, I don't know yet if it still works.

 

[WTFDproject]

Couple of things:
1.) In one of the pictures in the link above, the three black wires are still attached to the camera mount. Those get energized when the drone is on. If they touch, they will short out your mainboard, possibly even start a fire. They should either be soldered back onto the gimbal board, or better, removed completely, and just use the camera pigtail. If you do this NOW, you may still have a working camera. It's too late if you short something out.

2.) Uploading telemetry. This is from a post by @DoomMeister :
Connect the ST-10+ to the PC via a USB data cable. The storage on the ST-10 should then be accessible in File Explorer.
Find the FlightLog folder and copy it to your Desktop.
Now right click on the copy and select Send To, then select compressed folder.
In the box that comes up name it Ryana1982FL.zip.
You should then have a file on the desktop named Ryana1982FL.zip.
Now click on the Attach files button at the lower left of a new "POST", and select the Ryana1982FL.zip file.
By doing it this way, we will have the Remote and RemoteGPS files to aid in the analysis.

 

[Ryana1982]

1.) In one of the pictures in the link above, the three black wires are still attached to the camera mount. Those get energized when the drone is on. If they touch, they will short out your mainboard, possibly even start a fire. They should either be soldered back onto the gimbal board, or better, removed completely, and just use the camera pigtail. If you do this NOW, you may still have a working camera. It's too late if you short something out.

I forgot all about the wires! They all actually had small wirenuts on them before the crash!

2.) Uploading telemetry. This is from a post by @doomeister:
Connect the ST-10+ to the PC via a USB data cable. The storage on the ST-10 should then be accessible in File Explorer.
Find the FlightLog folder and copy it to your Desktop.
Now right click on the copy and select Send To, then select compressed folder.
In the box that comes up name it Ryana1982FL.zip.
You should then have a file on the desktop named Ryana1982FL.zip.
Now click on the Attach files button at the lower left of a new "POST", and select the Ryana1982FL.zip file.
By doing it this way, we will have the Remote and RemoteGPS files to aid in the analysis.

Working on it! Thanks!

 

[Ryana1982]

Got the telemetry, I imagine it would be the last flight recorded.

 

[WTFDproject]

Good Job. Kinda late tonight, but there are several folks on the forum that can give this a good read. It will take awhile, so please be patient

 

[Ryana1982]

Good Job. Kinda late tonight, but there are several folks on the forum that can give this a good read. It will take awhile, so please be patient

No worries. Thanks for your help.

 

[WTFDproject]

Uh, OOPS! Maybe? More experienced folks might find something deeper in the data, but a quick look says:

You were at ~300ft. You had just raised camera to the horizon (maybe to get a shot of the storm?). Then you pressed and held the motor off button (maybe thinking you were on the camera button?)

If so, at least it means nothing really wrong with the drone except some busted plastic.

 

[Ryana1982]

Then you pressed and held the motor off button (maybe thinking you were on the camera button?)

Serious? Well crap...

How do you read the telemetry data?

 

[WTFDproject]

@h-elsner, one of the really great members of this forum wrote a program and set of instructions to use it. The program is titled Q500log2KML.exe. It downloads as a zip file, and it has the instructions inside the zip file as a PDF. I think there are a link or two already on the forum that you can find with the search icon. I'll also go look for it and post a link in this thread.

 

[WTFDproject]

This is the version I am using. His website is listed in the PDF, and may have updates.

 

[WTFDproject]

And by the way, it ain't the first time anyone ever did that. After FIRST time I did it, I thought "Boy, I'll never do that again!". After the SECOND time I did it, I bought one of those $10 safety covers on eBay to go over the on/off button. We all gotta learn.

 

[Steve Carr]

Then you pressed and held the motor off button (maybe thinking you were on the camera button?)

That's what I see as well. It can happen if you are rushed or distracted.
Channel 0 is the throttle and when you push the kill button the value drops to zero which the log shows below:

 

[h-elsner]

Yes, it was the kill switch. Around 7 seconds it was pressed. After 3s the the motors where cut and flight mode changes from 3 (Angle mode) to 16 (Initialization/ready to fly - not armed) and gravitation rules.

You have a lot of long lasting Compass Calibration Errors in other flights. Please do compass calibration when the bird was repaired.

br HE

 

[AH-1G]

Agree with the compass calibration issues.