Hi. Was flying Typhoon H in slight drizzle. One of the motors cut out so I landed it. Typhoon flipped over due to my inexperience. I couldn't tell afterwards which motor had failed as i panicked. Anyway I turned everything off and packed away. When i used it again 1 hour later no problems. I may have not have allowed the st16 to boot up fully before turning on the machine. I'd like to know what happened if possible. Any ideas?
Motor failure
- Thread starter Jazzer2915
- Start date
Well that was your first mistake, and the only one needed to potentially bring your craft crashing to the ground ! The standard H is totally unsuitable for flying in any kind of rain or even heavy mist, due to its proliferation of open vents and the PDB / ESC array that lies directly underneath them ! That was a VERY dangerous thing you did there... but perhaps as worrying is that you can't have read the manual if you have missed all the warnings about it ! There's even a separate warning card with pictures !
I'd speculate that the precipitation was entirely the cause of your problems - moisture probably got into one of your ESCs, as was bound to happen at some point, and stopped that motor (that's what ESCs do when wet, shortly before they start smoking). You were extremely lucky that you didn't have additional motor failures on the way down. Additionally, by flying again just 1 hour later, you risked catastrophic failure all over again ! I just hope your chosen location was miles away from any people or buildings...
If you want a more technical breakdown of exactly what went wrong, you can zip the flight logs, which you can get from the ST-16, and someone here may be kind enough to analyse them for you if you upload them...
So put that one down to experience, learn the lessons, watch videos about drying out your craft properly, ideally get it serviced to check it is still airworthy, and safer flyings in the future - never in rain !!
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I once had a light rain start while I was in the air.
After an emergency landing, I aired it out with the exhaust port of a vacuum cleaner into the battery bay.
After an emergency landing, I aired it out with the exhaust port of a vacuum cleaner into the battery bay.
FlushVision
Premium Pilot
It's one thing to be caught out with a spot or two of rain whilst in the air. Indeed I was once caught out when flying over a Scottish Loch last year. But to take to the air while it's drizzling in the first instance with a H is just foolhardy and an accident waiting to happen. I recon the OP was lucky to get his aircraft down without too much issue.
I wonder, if you really had to make a video in a light rain, you could make a short flight (2-3 minutes) with the vents & hinges taped over, without overheating the electronics?
PatR
Premium Pilot
How good are your results shooting craps or playing roulette? Both have the odds against you.
Something many seem to not think about is how they are going to prevent rain or visible moisture from fouling the camera lens? Just how good can a video be that was made using a lens smearing the image because of water? The H body won’t protect it and the props would be roiling the air beneath them so much no lens hood could save the moment.
Bear in mind that motors are not the item that sustains water damage. It’s the ESC’s that short out. They contain many tiny things called FET’s that serve as electrical switching devices. Motors are cheap to replace, ESC’s are not since they are incorporated as part of the flight control board.
Something many seem to not think about is how they are going to prevent rain or visible moisture from fouling the camera lens? Just how good can a video be that was made using a lens smearing the image because of water? The H body won’t protect it and the props would be roiling the air beneath them so much no lens hood could save the moment.
Bear in mind that motors are not the item that sustains water damage. It’s the ESC’s that short out. They contain many tiny things called FET’s that serve as electrical switching devices. Motors are cheap to replace, ESC’s are not since they are incorporated as part of the flight control board.
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I like the sound of that, and am intrigued by the possibilities, especially of being able to get down safely if you are ever surprised by rain. I wondered if there was a type of tape that will let air through but not water, and a quick search found this sort of thing among some other options. What do you think ? Would medical tape work and still provide enough ventilation ? Or do you suspect, like me, that it will seriously compromise airflow, even if it technically allows some...
Even less sure what we could do about the CGO3+ and its largely open / massively vented back / underside.
Water Treated H
The thread above is several months old... have not heard of any board members actually getting this mod done, or results from anyone other than the company performing the service.
The thread above is several months old... have not heard of any board members actually getting this mod done, or results from anyone other than the company performing the service.
Thanks EEV, I read that thread with great interest, even though we don't find out what they were doing to make it water resistant if it even was at all ! But I figure it shouldn't be too hard to test the H with some sort of air-permeable tape over the vents (certainly on the H though less sure about the wisdom of covering the gimbal, which does generally come back from flights quite hot, even with no tape). If you had a temperature gauge you could do a series of incremental tests where you measured the temps of various key parts of the H after running it for (initially very short) test periods of time. You could start with just power on for 1-3 mins, then if temps were still OK move on to motors idling, then ultimately on to short hovers, then flights, all the time checking to see if stuff is getting too hot. I might try this myself, but lack the point and shoot temp guage so far, so will have to order one...
Anyone got any words of caution / warning feel free to let me know - as much as I want to mitigate the threat of surprise rain, I also very much want to not crash my H in any tests
Maybe I should wait til I'm out of warranty...
I suppose, at the end of the day, the amount of times we are actually surprised by rain is fairly small, given that services like UAVforecast and metcheck do a pretty great job of telling us in advance how likely rain is, but if there is one thing I really miss about my TH that was fine with the Naza FCs is the ability to fly through low cloud and fog without problems, so I'd like to do something to make this possible on occasions, but only if I safely can ! To clarify, I am not trying to fly in clouds, but would like to take off in ground mist occasionally, if only to fly about above it...
But I figure it shouldn't be too hard to test the H with some sort of air-permeable tape over the vents (certainly on the H though less sure about the wisdom of covering the gimbal, which does generally come back from flights quite hot, even with no tape). If you had a temperature gauge you could do a series of incremental tests where you measured the temps of various key parts of the H after running it for (initially very short) test periods of time. You could start with just power on for 1-3 mins, then if temps were still OK move on to motors idling, then ultimately on to short hovers, then flights, all the time checking to see if stuff is getting too hot. I might try this myself, but lack the point and shoot temp guage so far, so will have to order one...Anyone got any words of caution / warning feel free to let me know - as much as I want to mitigate the threat of surprise rain, I also very much want to not crash my H in any tests
Maybe I should wait til I'm out of warranty...
I suppose, at the end of the day, the amount of times we are actually surprised by rain is fairly small, given that services like UAVforecast and metcheck do a pretty great job of telling us in advance how likely rain is, but if there is one thing I really miss about my TH that was fine with the Naza FCs is the ability to fly through low cloud and fog without problems, so I'd like to do something to make this possible on occasions, but only if I safely can ! To clarify, I am not trying to fly in clouds, but would like to take off in ground mist occasionally, if only to fly about above it...
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