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It finally happened. Full power failure and dead in the air.

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I had flown the H a bit earlier today (6 minutes) and wanted to fly out the battery. I put the battery in and did all my checks as normal. Since I never trust the "click" after reading others' having issues, I did my typical "push hard all the way in and flip down latch fully to make sure latch was indeed 100% latched" battery insertion. Started and noted battery voltage at 14.8 at 6' hover... I usually fly to the 1st alarm, and it was nowhere close to that.
Don't let the battery hanging out fool you; it fell dead from around 60 feet, so of course everything that can easily pop out of the bird did. My guess is the frame around the bottom side of the battery busted allowing it to pop out, or something... not sure yet, but at this point I don't care :( I wish I could say that I screwed up and didn't latch the battery, but this is certainly one of those times I am 100% sure that the battery was indeed latched.
Bye bye, "Hedwig". It's been fun.
I will upload the telemetry later; I am too sickened to even bother with it right now.
20190519_184817.jpg
 
I am sincerely sorry to hear of your accident. Is there any chance you are still under warranty? If not, perhaps a donor H might be called for. One step at a time.
 
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If it’s not under warranty it might be interesting to open it up and view all the power circuit solder joints.
 
I had flown the H a bit earlier today (6 minutes) and wanted to fly out the battery. I put the battery in and did all my checks as normal. Since I never trust the "click" after reading others' having issues, I did my typical "push hard all the way in and flip down latch fully to make sure latch was indeed 100% latched" battery insertion. Started and noted battery voltage at 14.8 at 6' hover... I usually fly to the 1st alarm, and it was nowhere close to that.
Don't let the battery hanging out fool you; it fell dead from around 60 feet, so of course everything that can easily pop out of the bird did. My guess is the frame around the bottom side of the battery busted allowing it to pop out, or something... not sure yet, but at this point I don't care :( I wish I could say that I screwed up and didn't latch the battery, but this is certainly one of those times I am 100% sure that the battery was indeed latched.
Bye bye, "Hedwig". It's been fun.
I will upload the telemetry later; I am too sickened to even bother with it right now.
View attachment 16651
That photo is sad to see.
 
It's easy to see the frame latch just inside the battery compartment.
Hate to see anyone crash. I do have to mention a couple of things: I'm preparing to land at 14.8 v. There isn't much power left in the battery at that point. The amount depends on the battery condition. If the battery is marginal the voltage can take a sudden drop which can cause the motors to simply stop. Flying to the warning can be hard on the battery and shorten it's useful life.

In any case, upload the telemetry when you can and also take a look at the battery latch.


1558333019025.png
 
Oh ****, not again. Sorry to see that photo. I’m hoping one of the guys here can read your telemetry to see what caused this. Hopefully it’s something yuneec will give you assistance with. What circumstance will cause the H to land itself when voltage is low? Is that something the Q500 utilizes as well?
 
I had flown the H a bit earlier today (6 minutes) and wanted to fly out the battery. I put the battery in and did all my checks as normal. Since I never trust the "click" after reading others' having issues, I did my typical "push hard all the way in and flip down latch fully to make sure latch was indeed 100% latched" battery insertion. Started and noted battery voltage at 14.8 at 6' hover... I usually fly to the 1st alarm, and it was nowhere close to that.
Don't let the battery hanging out fool you; it fell dead from around 60 feet, so of course everything that can easily pop out of the bird did. My guess is the frame around the bottom side of the battery busted allowing it to pop out, or something... not sure yet, but at this point I don't care :( I wish I could say that I screwed up and didn't latch the battery, but this is certainly one of those times I am 100% sure that the battery was indeed latched.
Bye bye, "Hedwig". It's been fun.
I will upload the telemetry later; I am too sickened to even bother with it right now.
View attachment 16651
Arrrrrgggggg, I'm sure you felt like ? ??? when this happened, sorry to here of your friend falling out of the sky.
I see that's an OEM battery, what's the normal flight time of that particular battery you flew with?
 
I had flown the H a bit earlier today (6 minutes) and wanted to fly out the battery. I put the battery in and did all my checks as normal. Since I never trust the "click" after reading others' having issues, I did my typical "push hard all the way in and flip down latch fully to make sure latch was indeed 100% latched" battery insertion. Started and noted battery voltage at 14.8 at 6' hover... I usually fly to the 1st alarm, and it was nowhere close to that.
Don't let the battery hanging out fool you; it fell dead from around 60 feet, so of course everything that can easily pop out of the bird did. My guess is the frame around the bottom side of the battery busted allowing it to pop out, or something... not sure yet, but at this point I don't care :( I wish I could say that I screwed up and didn't latch the battery, but this is certainly one of those times I am 100% sure that the battery was indeed latched.
Bye bye, "Hedwig". It's been fun.
I will upload the telemetry later; I am too sickened to even bother with it right now.
View attachment 16651
That is about how mine lookrd after the same thing. Was in warranty. Yuneec returned a NEW one to me. Not repaired or refurb.
 
Thanks, y'all. I usually land at ~14.5, or sometimes at first alarm, and I've never had an issue with battery problems. I usually get about 10-13 minutes between turning the motors on and landing, depending on conditions. I got the bird around July 2017, so it's well out of it's warranty, and I foolishly didn't take up the extended warranty offer. It doesn't look like much is salvageable; even the sonar modules on the RealSense are crammed up inside the frame, so the board for it is likely toast.
I've been so disgusted with it ever since that I just threw it into a trash bag and will probably wait a few weeks to do the autopsy. I've been flying RC for 20 years now, and even though I've crashed a few (FAR less expen$ive!) airplanes and helicopters in the past, this is the first one I have crashed that I'm sure wasn't due to my own dumb thumbs. I can still see it like it's in a video reel in my head. All six props stopped immediately and it fell quite flat directly onto the camera, then bounced onto it's back.
I will get the telemetry when I quit being so sick of the loss. And I hope that it tells us something was my fault, or I hope I find a fault in the autopsy that indicates a freak occurrence... I don't want to NOT trust the H any more. And just given the cost of a used CGO3+ alone, I don't think it's within the realm of possibility to get a donor or project H at this time. perhaps a few years from now when these can be had used for a pittance I'll revisit the UAV scene. Until then, I think I'll be going back to my fixed and rotary winged toys which know how to glide or autorotate to a controlled landing.
 
@kd4pbs there isn't any way to assist you further without the telemetry. I will close this thread for now. When you are able to copy and upload it please start a new thread so we can revisit this.
 
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