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Not having any luck on searches and hope someone can help me out on this....

3 weeks ago I flew my drone straight away from me and it went 300 ft and stopped in mid air over a canyon. Moving the controls did nothing, tho' camera was still working. I do have a YouTube video from the CG02+ camera to show if necessary. After about 20 seconds the Q500+ moved a bit, then started to drop. Rotors were still turning so it wasn't a complete free fall, but it fell about 50 ft and landed hard. Broke the body shells up some and after fussing with it some, (crazy glue works very well for smaller cracks. The solvent in it melts the plastic and it fuses together) I finally decided to replace the body.

I purchased a new body ***'y for my Q500+ from Carolina Drones and installed it myself. I was very careful to keep wires and motors bundled and labeled.....and nearly went crazy with the multitude of tiny screws. I do have the correct tools for this and a fairly high level of skill. But. My rusty skills took some honing but I did get the 3 motor wires to each corner unsoldered, de-soldered with flex, cleaned with alcohol and re-soldered and they look good.

When re-soldering the motor wires to the boards, I held the board between my fingers "fairly" near the connections to be sure I didn't cook the electronics near the terminals. (I did yelp a couple of times)

Finished today and hooked the gui to it and it shows a red light in lower left corner on computer screen and says "Disconnected." No functions work on gui. The 2 rear corner lights on the Q500+ are solid red. Left front corner is solid white and right front corner is flickering blue/purple. Lower center rear led blinks red, green, blue.

That was all without the controller turned on. When I went thru a normal pre-flight startup, I got the same colors on the corners, gps and CGO2+ showed good on controller and motors started as normal. I did Not try flying it.

I would much prefer to re-calibrate everything before I fly it but don't know what the corner light colors mean, found nothing with a search and no idea why gui won't connect. Any ideas would be appreciated. Lars.
 
I know you labeled everything but It sounds to me like you have some things hooked up wrong or shorting on an ESC board.
First, your not making a connection with the quad and the GUI hence the "Disconnected" message. It could be something as simple as a bad cable connection or not being set to the correct com port in the device manager.
I doubt it's a symptom of your issues with the Quad but it's possible.
The two red corner and one white corner lights are correct. It's telling you font and rear on the quad.Your missing the other white front light. The one flashing the strange colors is obviously the one in question. If you have a continuity tester, confirm on the ESC board that your connections are clean and not shorting between two legs.
If at that point your still having trouble connecting with the GUI, unhook the ESC and try connecting again.
Sadly, your probably going to need to take it apart and have a look.

It won't be a lot of help to you now but see my post here. Maybe you have the same problem I did.

Rebuild Complete

keep us updated and good luck,
Jafo
 
You're obviously right - problem is likely in flickering motor, but I was dead set on a deep, dark technical issue and walked right by that. I'll try to make time this afternoon to open it up and take a look at the soldering - the most obvious probable culprit.

Odd, tho', that all 4 motors power up when doing a dry run takeoff test.

When I assembled it I was very careful not to mash anything together - if it didn't pop right down I lifted it back up and yes, I did find a couple of places where sneaky wires had tried to crawl outside the channels. Also when putting battery carrier back in; that one tried real hard to bite some of the wiring but I caught it OK.

Previously, I did an update when I 1st got it - used, new to me - and had some fussing when hooking up GUI, but finally got it sorted. IIRC, it was simply a matter of plugging it into computer over and over and over until it finally took. I tried all 4 ports on my computer yesterday with no joy, tho' it did sound the device recognition tones when I plugged it into each, so when I get the motor thing figured out I'll go back after that.

I won't go into a detailed list here, but I've had continuous and varied issues with the thing ever since I got it and at this point am somewhat disappointed in it. I have a friend with a Phantom 3 Pro who got me interested in drones and when I told him of my "great deal" on the Q500+ he shook his head and said, "you're gonna be sor-ry. You shoulda asked me 1st." Sigh.

Thanks for taking the time to post. I'll keep you updated. Lars.
 
I know what you mean although over all I'm happy with my Yuneec. I've had my issues too Including a complete reversal of controls in between flights for no reason what so ever.
For some reason I missed that you actually did get the motors to fire up.
You could tie the drone down and see if the motors will power up for flight. If they do I would suspect everything in the drone is probably connected okay and there is just an issue with maybe something like reassigning the ESC's and motors. Something you need the GUI for.
Plug in the drone and connect your usb adapter. Power up the drone and open the GUI.
Go into the Device manager and see what com port was assigned to the adapter.
Confirm in the GUI your on the same com port and try to connect again.
Use the same usb port each time you plug in the adapter so your not loading the driver for each usb port you have.I mean, you can but the GUI might get confused on which com port to be on if you constantly change usb ports.

Keep the updates coming
 
I know what you mean although over all I'm happy with my Yuneec. I've had my issues too Including a complete reversal of controls in between flights for no reason what so ever.
For some reason I missed that you actually did get the motors to fire up.
You could tie the drone down and see if the motors will power up for flight. If they do I would suspect everything in the drone is probably connected okay and there is just an issue with maybe something like reassigning the ESC's and motors. Something you need the GUI for.
Plug in the drone and connect your usb adapter. Power up the drone and open the GUI.
Go into the Device manager and see what com port was assigned to the adapter.
Confirm in the GUI your on the same com port and try to connect again.
Use the same usb port each time you plug in the adapter so your not loading the driver for each usb port you have.I mean, you can but the GUI might get confused on which com port to be on if you constantly change usb ports.

Keep the updates coming

This took some time, but finally have a progress report. I did receive the new ESC board and installed it. Triple checked wiring and am sure it's correct. Strange thing - everywhere I looked on forum I was repeatedly admonished to be sure motor wiring is correct but had an awful time finding "for sure" just what is correct. Soldering is clean and solid.

When I powered it up, I got the 2 rear motors showing solid red. Left front motor is solid white....but....right front motor is now solid blue instead of flickering blue/white. (is it possible to connect the tiny light connector upside down ?? I don't "think" so, but I'm good at doing that kind of thing) Rear LED is blinking red, green blue. GUI finally connected on my computer's Port 4, not 3 and all 4 motors and ESCs calibrated fine and all show green. All check marks on left show green. I'll go thru compass and accelerometer calibration out in yard tomorrow. (if there isn't a foot of new snow)

Unsure of that blue motor light, I powered up controller and drone. All looks normal, so pushed the start button and motors started normally. Shut it down and installed propellers and went thru start up sequence again but this time tethered it and advanced power. (indoors) It powered up normally and tried very hard to take off. I'm surprised at the lifting power of this thing.

Sooo, in a nutshell, it seems to operate normally but that right front light has me bugged. Any ideas ??

Just for interest value, here's the CGO2+ video from the crash flight:
As you'll see, it took off normally and flew ~300ft over the canyon, then stopped in mid-air. No control inputs had any effect, tho' the camera did tilt down on command. Finally it moved forward a few feet, paused, then fell, but the props were still turning. It landed hard upright, bounced and fell over. Lots of damage to body shell. If it'd been just a few feet farther ahead it would've fallen another 100 ft.

Thanks much Lars.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps reloading the firmware might make a difference.
Can't hurt anyway.
Your Red,Green and Blue LED indicator could be telling you the quad is "Initializing".
I don't put a lot of prudence in the LED indicator. I take it with a grain of salt per say..
Did the indicator change once you had the drone ready for flight ?
Glad you made contact with the GUI.
I trust the GUI. If it says all is well, go with it. At some point your gonna have to try it (flying) and see what happens.
Keep us updated and good luck,
Jafo
 
Perhaps reloading the firmware might make a difference.
Can't hurt anyway.
Your Red,Green and Blue LED indicator could be telling you the quad is "Initializing".
I don't put a lot of prudence in the LED indicator. I take it with a grain of salt per say..
Did the indicator change once you had the drone ready for flight ?
Glad you made contact with the GUI.
I trust the GUI. If it says all is well, go with it. At some point your gonna have to try it (flying) and see what happens.
Keep us updated and good luck,
Jafo

While I was at it yesterday, I did do an update on it. Tried it again today and the right front is very dim blue; the others are bright. Rear LED shows a steady kind of pale reddish purple - I think that's the GPS connected - and that's in the house. Another tethered effort was the same - very strong on all 4 motors; power response normal.

Yah, I agree with you, Jafo - gonna fly it and see how it goes. I'll pick a bit better test area than that canyon, tho'. :)

No test flights today. We've got a huge storm raging out there with snow and sleet flying in gusts to over 50 mph and temp at 31º F. We didn't get 5" - 8" of snow last night, only about 1" or 2" but it's nasty. Brrr........
 
While I was at it yesterday, I did do an update on it. Tried it again today and the right front is very dim blue; the others are bright. Rear LED shows a steady kind of pale reddish purple - I think that's the GPS connected - and that's in the house. Another tethered effort was the same - very strong on all 4 motors; power response normal.

Yah, I agree with you, Jafo - gonna fly it and see how it goes. I'll pick a bit better test area than that canyon, tho'. :)

No test flights today. We've got a huge storm raging out there with snow and sleet flying in gusts to over 50 mph and temp at 31º F. We didn't get 5" - 8" of snow last night, only about 1" or 2" but it's nasty. Brrr........


Today it cleared up and this afternoon the wind finally eased up, so charged up a battery and had at it.

My Q500+ started normally and lifted off normally, so I flew it up and down the edge of the road for a bit, watching for any problems. All seemed well, so took it up to 300 ft and headed north with it. My main problem previously was being unable to get more than 600 ft video connection and control seemed iffy at times, too.

While waiting for parts I installed the ST101 antenna system from CD on it and today was also the 1st flight with that. All went well. I flew it 1200 ft north and, as I said, to 300 ft. No problems, tho' turning with left stick seems a bit erratic. It does turn, tho'. Right front light is still dim blue but everything else seems to be fine and it flies normally.

Thanks, Jafo, I appreciate your replies. Lars.
 
That's great news... for the most part anyway.
Yes... 600' without the extended range antenna is about right.
With mine, I can get out about a mile with the extender and that's far enough for me.
So glad you got it back in the air.
Let us know if you figure out the LED color problem on the motor.
Happy flying,
Jafo
 

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