Earlier this week, I took my drone off from my yard. I live in Cody, Wyoming. Open area, great visibility. It rose nicely and maintained it's position, up to 395 feet. At that point I began to do a panoramic turn, taking video, with the goal of bringing it straight back down. Suddenly the drone took off with a sharp pitch, heading across the neighbors property. I jiggled the sticks and released, the drone righted, and I managed to manuever it back over my property and start bringing it down. Generally speaking the drone was not performing, reliably, my instructions. At about 200 feet it stopped responding and hovered. Pulling back on the stick would not bring it further down. After a few moments it began descending again, long story short, I landed it with a bounce without breaking anything. I assumed maybe there was wind at 200 feet I wasn't feeling on the ground, or maybe WIFI in the neighborhood interfering, who knows.
The next day I flew it, about 20 feet off the ground and had sporadic results. This time I noticed that my camera wasn't level underneath the craft. When the drone is powered down, the camera always relaxes to one side, and it was doing this during flight.
Yesterday I had a successful flight at dusk, took the drone straight up to 400 feet in the city park and brought it straight back down. No problems.
TODAY I tried the same thing in daylight, and I had a fly-away. At 395 feet, the drone opted to fly toward town, and ignored my instructions. I flipped the remote into HOME mode, and the drone righted and started to move toward me. 5 seconds later, it dives back toward town. I steadily held down on the stick to bring it down and lost video at 150 feet. My friends and I drove around town, thinking well it could have landed on the highway, on top of a building, who knows. Someone could have stolen it if they saw it on the roadside.
I had almost given up but then realized that if the drone was still powered, I might be able to use my radio transmitter to approximate it's position, assuming if I were close enough it would connect. This actually worked, and we found the drone, upside down on a side walk. A lady said she saw it come down and it crashed in the street. She picked up the parts and set it on the sidewalk and waited to see if anyone came by that knew what it was LOL. I thanked her. I am very GLAD I did not damage property or injure someone because my drone malfunctioned and left the dang park.
Anyway, it had taken a 1.6 gb video, which corrupted when the camera was slung off the drone. I used a video repair app to salvage about 72 pieces of that video, from which I got some still pictures. What I NOTICED was the camera was filming the feet of drone, the underside of the propellers, and generally had a 45 degree tilt in every shot. I had confirmed before take-off that the gyro was operating by rotating the drone by hand, showing my friends how the camera was cool and auto-stabilizes. But somehow that's going haywire in the air. My theory is that the camera has a loose electrical connection and is constantly relaxing into it's 45 degree rest position, initializing and jerking to where it thinks it should be. I think the drone may be unbalanced because the camera is not hanging straight down at all times, and may be weighting the drone and causing it to fly away. I really am not sure. I was comfortable flying this drone until this week, but now I feel irresponsible because I lost control of it and it crashed in a residential area. Which could just as well been a shopping center, or caused a wreck on the main street.
I'm going to test this when I get my replacement props in. Does anyone else have any theories or have had this occur?
The next day I flew it, about 20 feet off the ground and had sporadic results. This time I noticed that my camera wasn't level underneath the craft. When the drone is powered down, the camera always relaxes to one side, and it was doing this during flight.
Yesterday I had a successful flight at dusk, took the drone straight up to 400 feet in the city park and brought it straight back down. No problems.
TODAY I tried the same thing in daylight, and I had a fly-away. At 395 feet, the drone opted to fly toward town, and ignored my instructions. I flipped the remote into HOME mode, and the drone righted and started to move toward me. 5 seconds later, it dives back toward town. I steadily held down on the stick to bring it down and lost video at 150 feet. My friends and I drove around town, thinking well it could have landed on the highway, on top of a building, who knows. Someone could have stolen it if they saw it on the roadside.
I had almost given up but then realized that if the drone was still powered, I might be able to use my radio transmitter to approximate it's position, assuming if I were close enough it would connect. This actually worked, and we found the drone, upside down on a side walk. A lady said she saw it come down and it crashed in the street. She picked up the parts and set it on the sidewalk and waited to see if anyone came by that knew what it was LOL. I thanked her. I am very GLAD I did not damage property or injure someone because my drone malfunctioned and left the dang park.
Anyway, it had taken a 1.6 gb video, which corrupted when the camera was slung off the drone. I used a video repair app to salvage about 72 pieces of that video, from which I got some still pictures. What I NOTICED was the camera was filming the feet of drone, the underside of the propellers, and generally had a 45 degree tilt in every shot. I had confirmed before take-off that the gyro was operating by rotating the drone by hand, showing my friends how the camera was cool and auto-stabilizes. But somehow that's going haywire in the air. My theory is that the camera has a loose electrical connection and is constantly relaxing into it's 45 degree rest position, initializing and jerking to where it thinks it should be. I think the drone may be unbalanced because the camera is not hanging straight down at all times, and may be weighting the drone and causing it to fly away. I really am not sure. I was comfortable flying this drone until this week, but now I feel irresponsible because I lost control of it and it crashed in a residential area. Which could just as well been a shopping center, or caused a wreck on the main street.
I'm going to test this when I get my replacement props in. Does anyone else have any theories or have had this occur?
