First crash! I feel like one of the guys now!

360Degreez · Sep 2, 2017

Today i shot some nice footage on the beach apart from the gymbal tilting itself for no reason at all. I had no time to take it down as my main subject was the start of a contest ;-)

After resetting the drone the gimbal seemed OK again and I felt so confident i could take things up a notch and try a shot in the woods.

I looked up a nice open spot and took off. Within a minute the drone refused to climb, decent or "steer" and slowly drifted sideways into a big pine tree before falling to the ground with a lot of drama.

Luckily there was not much damage. I lost the two A-Props, the gimbal was partly ripped off at the rubber dampers and one landing gear was partly broken.

Luckily the previous owner mounted two ty-wraps trough the rubber dampers of the gimbal that prevented the gimbal from being ripped off the drone completely ;-) I think he might have crashed the drone too as the spare A-Props were missing when i got it.

At home, i put back the gimbal, fixed the landing gear with wonderglue and checed all functions with the USB interface. It seems like a lucky escape.

Now i was wondering what happened. I took the SD card out of the controller and took a peek at the telemetry data. I have no clue how to read it... Was the crooked gimbal a sign of the drone slowly loosing it's mind?

I calibrated the compass by hand and the gymbal with the USB interface. Could it be something hardware related?

(Telemetry files attached)

h-elsner · Sep 2, 2017

The video is 'private', nobody can see.
From telemetry the motor 3 is cut in 12m hight. I guess it hit a tree. The GPS was not so good, so I think the copter starts to drifting around. This not exeptional in the wood, too many reflected or refracted GPS signals due to the trees. I would suggest to fly without GPS and in Angle mode inside woods. Smart mode is dangerous due to save circle in close areas between the trees. Copter was not so far away, max 14m.

Another reason would be the defect of an ESC but I do not believe in this. It should fly in 5-motor mode in this case.

I have a nice video that shows how instable the copter is in a way inside the wood. Also seen in the telemetry - gps_accH, which is the horizontal accuracy of the GPS location. Look at the shadow of the copter!

br HE

Jafo · Sep 2, 2017

360Degreez said:
Now i was wondering what happened. I took the SD card out of the controller and took a peek at the telemetry data. I have no clue how to read it... Was the crooked gimbal a sign of the drone slowly loosing it's mind?

Welcome to the club friend.

Telemetry shows you entered "Watch Me" Mode when you switched from Angle mode to Smart mode.
It also shows your max distance traveled from the controller was only 9.4 meters and probably had you inside of the protected circle. Hence.....little control when you tried to move the Q.
As you moved closer to the Q to try to get control.. it moved away from you into the tree.
Hope that helps.

Added: The gimble problem is a known issue. Search for other posts on that problem.
It was not the cause of your problems here.

h-elsner · Sep 3, 2017

The GPS Accuracy is very bad and the GPS of the controller is worse. In this case it is not good to use Smart mode and deadly to use Follow-Me.

Groetjes HE

360Degreez · Sep 3, 2017

h-elsner said:
The video is 'private', nobody can see.
From telemetry the motor 3 is cut in 12m hight. I guess it hit a tree. The GPS was not so good, so I think the copter starts to drifting around. This not exeptional in the wood, too many reflected or refracted GPS signals due to the trees. I would suggest to fly without GPS and in Angle mode inside woods. Smart mode is dangerous due to save circle in close areas between the trees. Copter was not so far away, max 14m.

Another reason would be the defect of an ESC but I do not believe in this. It should fly in 5-motor mode in this case.

I have a nice video that shows how instable the copter is in a way inside the wood. Also seen in the telemetry - gps_accH, which is the horizontal accuracy of the GPS location. Look at the shadow of the copter!

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br HE

Yes i can see wobble it around quite a lot. I had about the same open space as the place where you assented.

360Degreez · Sep 3, 2017

Jafo said:
Welcome to the club friend.
Telemetry shows you entered "Watch Me" Mode when you switched from Angle mode to Smart mode.
It also shows your max distance traveled from the controller was only 9.4 meters and probably had you inside of the protected circle. Hence.....little control when you tried to move the Q.
As you moved closer to the Q to try to get control.. it moved away from you into the tree.
Hope that helps.

Added: The gimble problem is a known issue. Search for other posts on that problem.
It was not the cause of your problems here.

Many thanks for checking the files! I can't remember enabling the watch me mode intentional. Maybe i touched the screen when grabbing the controller or something.

Well i guess it's one more reason to take drone flying a bit more serious then driving an RC car. Some people just need to learn the hard way ;-)

I'll look up the Gimbal issue on the forum!

360Degreez · Sep 3, 2017

h-elsner said:
The GPS Accuracy is very bad and the GPS of the controller is worse. In this case it is not good to use Smart mode and deadly to use Follow-Me.

Groetjes HE

Danke shon!

Jafo · Sep 3, 2017

Accept for the need to use Watch me or Follow me modes, try to always fly in Angle mode whenever you can.
Always have a flight plan and stick to it. Plan what you want to do and how you will do it and always have a place to bail out to if you need it. Stick to your plan.