I doubt many will benefit from this, but it gave me such a struggle I thought I would post it.
The issue was an intermittent loss of power to the CGo3 camera mounted on Q500 4K
My typical route includes a launch point, about 60 Yards level travel to the center of a clearing, then vertical ascent to begin the actual flight.
The camera would start normally, stabilize, good video, etc. The issue began as a loss of WiFi when I reached the center of the clearing. Camera would still have power, gimbal still stabilized. Thought the common location was odd, but assumed the issue was a really bad WiFi board in the camera. Changed out the WiFi board, and tried it again.
Same distance, lost WiFi exactly the same place, except now, the entire camera was dead, no gimbal, no anything.
Turn the drone off, back on, camera comes back, try again. Repeated several times, became convinced it was related to either distance, location, or the time between motor start and camera failure. Wasted a good bit of time using different routes, locations, even sitting on the ground powered up, doing extended hover a few feet off the ground, etc . Nothing, except when I flew out to the middle of the same spot, the camera would die again. I looked around the problem area, tried to think of what might be an issue, but I quickly ran out of ideas. Nothing has changed out there forever.
So, then I put the camera on another drone. Everything worked fine. Put it on a couple more drones, everything fine.
Put a couple different cameras on the first drone, got the power failure again. Every time. Same Spot. Think I wasn’t getting REALLY convinced it had something to do with the location? Yeah, but I didn’t have any more ideas to pursue related to location. So I decided to look at the drone, instead.
I had already checked the 4K contact voltage, always good, tried the pigtail, no change. So I took the top off the drone to look at the wiring. At first, all readings were good. Good voltage, good contact, nothing wrong at the solder joints, nothing wrong at the connectors. Then I happened to move the wires a little bit, and all of a sudden, NO CONTACT on the hot wire. Checked solder joints again, contact pins, no issue, but when the wire was flexed a little, it lost continuity. Used a pin tip probe to inspect this obviously perfect wire, and found I had contact in one direction, but not the other. A little more investigation, and found the issue. The wire inside the insulation had a break in it. When the wire was pulled apart, there was a small section where there was almost no actual wire, and it was pretty much separated. I assume that a combination of battery voltage and wire temperature was causing the intermittent contact/failure. Replaced the wire, put it all back together, and all is great for several flights.
What did I learn from this? No matter how strong a coincidence may seem, it still may be just a coincidence. You need to look elsewhere. There was no actual issue related to the location.
I also suspect someone with @ChuckBridges background might have seen a wire or two with a manufacturing defect before, and maybe solved the mystery a lot faster. Am I right?
The issue was an intermittent loss of power to the CGo3 camera mounted on Q500 4K
My typical route includes a launch point, about 60 Yards level travel to the center of a clearing, then vertical ascent to begin the actual flight.
The camera would start normally, stabilize, good video, etc. The issue began as a loss of WiFi when I reached the center of the clearing. Camera would still have power, gimbal still stabilized. Thought the common location was odd, but assumed the issue was a really bad WiFi board in the camera. Changed out the WiFi board, and tried it again.
Same distance, lost WiFi exactly the same place, except now, the entire camera was dead, no gimbal, no anything.
Turn the drone off, back on, camera comes back, try again. Repeated several times, became convinced it was related to either distance, location, or the time between motor start and camera failure. Wasted a good bit of time using different routes, locations, even sitting on the ground powered up, doing extended hover a few feet off the ground, etc . Nothing, except when I flew out to the middle of the same spot, the camera would die again. I looked around the problem area, tried to think of what might be an issue, but I quickly ran out of ideas. Nothing has changed out there forever.
So, then I put the camera on another drone. Everything worked fine. Put it on a couple more drones, everything fine.
Put a couple different cameras on the first drone, got the power failure again. Every time. Same Spot. Think I wasn’t getting REALLY convinced it had something to do with the location? Yeah, but I didn’t have any more ideas to pursue related to location. So I decided to look at the drone, instead.
I had already checked the 4K contact voltage, always good, tried the pigtail, no change. So I took the top off the drone to look at the wiring. At first, all readings were good. Good voltage, good contact, nothing wrong at the solder joints, nothing wrong at the connectors. Then I happened to move the wires a little bit, and all of a sudden, NO CONTACT on the hot wire. Checked solder joints again, contact pins, no issue, but when the wire was flexed a little, it lost continuity. Used a pin tip probe to inspect this obviously perfect wire, and found I had contact in one direction, but not the other. A little more investigation, and found the issue. The wire inside the insulation had a break in it. When the wire was pulled apart, there was a small section where there was almost no actual wire, and it was pretty much separated. I assume that a combination of battery voltage and wire temperature was causing the intermittent contact/failure. Replaced the wire, put it all back together, and all is great for several flights.
What did I learn from this? No matter how strong a coincidence may seem, it still may be just a coincidence. You need to look elsewhere. There was no actual issue related to the location.
I also suspect someone with @ChuckBridges background might have seen a wire or two with a manufacturing defect before, and maybe solved the mystery a lot faster. Am I right?
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