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ignore! Sorted

To put it simply, yes.

June 12th 2016; 7:38pm

I did have an SD card in the ST10 but still don't know what happened.

Also still hoping to trawl it out of there some day, no luck yet but not for the lack of trying.

Simply spiraled down from 120 feet and sank into the lake.

Sent in the files (5 times), awaiting news.

I should clarify that I could see all the props were present, maybe a motor?????
 
Yes, I spent a lot of time on the water trying to "trawl" it out of there :(

No luck.

However, having an SD card in the ST10 makes a huge difference!

Was able to send the files to Yuneec customer service and they determined what had happened.

Yes, an ESC was probably the cause. Not providing enough to keep one of the motors going.

Heard this from them on Weds (7/27/2016) and they are replacing the unit, camera, battery and blades.

They are awesome!!!!!
 
It's great to not have to take the loss for no fault of you own but the blow to your confidence in not knowing what happened is hard to recover from.

At the very least I was hoping to find that out and now that I know I can fly a little more securely.

I hope you manage to learn what caused it in your case.
 
Im new to the forum. I had a similar problem from my q500 plus. I was about ten flights in over a few months of getting my Typhoon. Had it at 100 feet or so. Started to get low battery warnings (note battery was fully charged five minutes into the flight.) I quickly decided to bring it back and land but as i tried to, the q500 just shut down all power. Had no control of anything. Picture froze. I just recovered the busted bird picked up all the parts. Called Yuneec. They didn't have an answer as to why but I can't complain they upgraded me to the 4K. But now I wish I knew why so I can prevent it from happening again. In the back of my mind I relive the experience and hope it never happens again. Have there been any answers to why this seems to happen?
 
This post has scared me a little since I fly over the ocean a lot. I always fear of a failure like this and the bird falling out of control. My fear is it hitting a person and causing injury. Drones in my city are really frowned upon because of a few irresponsible pilots. Is there a reason why you didn't have your SD card in the controller? I know I had to remove mine to do firmware updates but, put it back in because I knew it's in there to record any failures especially ones that are not your fault. Yuneec's customer service is great and eager to see if they replace your drone w/out any telemetry information. Good luck, keep us posted.
 
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At that time I didn't know I should keep an SD card in the ST10. I do have one in now. The problem happened with the Q500 plus. Thank God it hasn't happened with my 4K and it works great, aside from a control glitch. Just landed and rebooted 4K and ST10 then it was fine. I do get flash backs of the plus falling though lol. On another note, Yuneec customer service is amazing.
 
It is a worry wondering if it will come crashing down.

However one message is clear from all this ........

PUT A BLOODY SD CARD IN THE Controller :)
 
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I am a new Q500 4k pilot. I'm Only Getting 7 to 11 minutes out of a battery. Am I doing something wrong?
 
I have discovered that there are a lot of variables in charging a battery, especially a lipo.

How are you charging?

With what?

What voltage are you getting when you first switch on?

I wish I had known with my first batteries that they needed 'nursing' to get their full potential.

I always use the 10 x 10 idea now.

Learned it from YouTube, our new source of all knowledge it seems.

The idea being that your first ten uses should be no more than ten minutes and this is supposed to build up 'stamina' in the battery and so extend it's run time and life span.

Back to charge method, what and how do you?
 
Blimey, the tech guys at Yuneec felt sure it was an ESC not providing enough to one of the motors so it came down.

As the final video on the ST10's SD card showed it spiraling, as opposed to tumbling, they determined it wasn't my fault and replaced it with a BNF along with camera, props and a battery.

That is wonderful customer service that is, kudos to them.
 
Wow sorry to hear this sad news! I just spent time charging all my batteries and ST10 controller. Today will be my first flight with it and I plan to fly in a park away from the ocean for the first few flights to get the feel of the drone. This gets me motivated to buy drone damage insurance!
 
Thanks! Luckily the drone still flies great and the loss was 3 broken props and some issue with camera. Camera still works after I plugged it into the drone with the cable but need to have the gimbal fixed with it not rotating correctly. Hopefully not an expensive repair. I flew in a large field away from water and will do that until I have more time with it to avoid it from landing in the ocean. Actually with the Q500 4k, the SD card goes in the camera gimbal unit and not the ST10 controller. I wish Yuneec would have it in the transmitter instead so at least you could recover footage in a crash. I know the controller and GPS work fine because when I flew it after the crash using Angle mode without the camera, it flies fine. I think there is issue if you start the drone in smart mode and are less than 20 feet away from it. I did have success with the home feature which works great for landing the drone by itself. In future, I will fly in angle mode until I have more time with it.
 
Taking off in Smart Mode you must stand minimum 26 feet (8 meters) behind the drone or it will try to 'leap' away from you and possibly crash. See 'Smart Circle' in manual.
 
Funny thing is that I was at least 30 feet away when I took off in Smart mode and it took off, climbed to about 30 feet then came crashing down. Fortunately nothing major was broken and I hope to get the gimbal/camera sorted this week. The second and third flights without the camera worked out perfectly and I took the drone up to 120 feet and landed in Home mode without issues. I will make sure to take off in Angle mode next time then switch to smart mode so I can test out follow me and watch mode once I get the camera fixed.
 
It's a double edged sword :(

So many of the best images are acquired over water sigh.

The first time I ventured over the river my gut was in my mouth, talk about nervous!!!

That video haunts me now as being sort of prophetic


I did a few over water videos after that with no problems.

When "Andrea" decided to try swimming and failed my intention had been to film a train crossing the lake.

I had been there a few times and never caught one. The moment that thing hit the water, you guessed it, along came a train Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!
 
Typical!! I did a lot of flying over water but didn't think anything of it as I has seen so many videos of 'over water' shots just didn't expect it to drop the way it did with so few hours on it. I loved the Q500+ as it was easy to see in the sky and responded so well to the controls too.

I know exactly how you must feel and commiserate with you.
I know how I felt watching it take the final plunge :(
 
Good to know about the slot for a micro sd card in the ST10 controller! I will put one in for next time to record data. Does it do that automatically if you put the card in the ST10 controller or do you have to record video as well? In my case, I have been practicing over land until I get a handle on it and no issues flying the drone. So far much smoother and easier than my smaller mini quad Hubsan X4 which is a lot more difficult to control without losing it. On the first flight, I think because I either did not have the props on correctly and/or the distance between myself and the Q500 was too short and I was in Smart mode led to the crash. Fortunately, the second and third flights went well and I had a lot of fun flying it. Took the drone up to 150' in the field area. Hopefully the small crack in the camera area can be glued or fixed easily to salvage the camera housing. Camera still works thank goodness!
 
Good to know about the slot for a micro sd card in the ST10 controller! I will put one in for next time to record data. Does it do that automatically if you put the card in the ST10 controller or do you have to record video as well? In my case, I have been practicing over land until I get a handle on it and no issues flying the drone. So far much smoother and easier than my smaller mini quad Hubsan X4 which is a lot more difficult to control without losing it. On the first flight, I think because I either did not have the props on correctly and/or the distance between myself and the Q500 was too short and I was in Smart mode led to the crash. Fortunately, the second and third flights went well and I had a lot of fun flying it. Took the drone up to 150' in the field area. Hopefully the small crack in the camera area can be glued or fixed easily to salvage the camera housing. Camera still works thank goodness!

The ST10 does record a form of video on the SD card, not a good quality though, as well as the telemetry files.
You can alter the format of the telemetry files and superimpose the details on your videos with the right software (Dashware being one)
As for the camera if it is only a crack and no problem that is okay but you can replace the casing, I believe CarolinaDronz sells them.
Careful opening it though that bloody antenna inside is like a metal brainteaser puzzle to get back in lol
 
Good to know. I will try to find a local San Diego drone shop to help me replace the camera housing and avoid future crashes. There is a Yuneec dealer here in the area that hopefully wont charge me a fortune to get it fixed. It does eat battery life fast after a full charge I only got 15 minutes flight time then it would not fly. So I ordered an additional 2 batteries. More batteries the better.
 

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