Q500 fell from the sky

[Andy_k0]

i'm a new user, but took it very easy to get to know the drone, a few very short flights, some images, some videos, all was going so well. It must have been my 7th outing, battery showed 60% charge, up it went and within 3mins the controller shook with a critical level warning. I immediately started to return and when the drone was about 75' away motors stopped and it fell from 30' up in the air. No one hurt and surprisingly the drone only broke a few peripheral parts, a landing leg, battery door, and the propellors.
Total flight time around 4mins. Not sure if the battery worked loose, or just died in flight.

I did have some trouble with the battery door locking, and saw it land with the door open so thinking it may have been that.

I wrote to yuneec 24 hr ago and am surprised not to already have had a reply. I chose the brand as saw posts raving about the customer service!!!

Anyway posting as a warning for others. Double check the battery is firmly in, double check the door is locked. If you land and see the door opens during the flight maybe tape it up, use velcro, anything to be extra safe.

 

[NRRTRAINS]

i'm a new user, but took it very easy to get to know the drone, a few very short flights, some images, some videos, all was going so well. It must have been my 7th outing, battery showed 60% charge, up it went and within 3mins the controller shook with a critical level warning. I immediately started to return and when the drone was about 75' away motors stopped and it fell from 30' up in the air. No one hurt and surprisingly the drone only broke a few peripheral parts, a landing leg, battery door, and the propellors.
Total flight time around 4mins. Not sure if the battery worked loose, or just died in flight.

I did have some trouble with the battery door locking, and saw it land with the door open so thinking it may have been that.

I wrote to yuneec 24 hr ago and am surprised not to already have had a reply. I chose the brand as saw posts raving about the customer service!!!

Anyway posting as a warning for others. Double check the battery is firmly in, double check the door is locked. If you land and see the door opens during the flight maybe tape it up, use velcro, anything to be extra safe.

sorry to hear about your mishap , call Yuneec on the phone and get a case number if anything is damaged . your battery was at 60% that's 11.6v , you only have one volt to fly before you are at 10.6v that is the first warring . you have to stay real close to home when voltage get's low .as for the battery door opening in flight it's happen before . did you have a sd card in your ST 10 it may show what happened , when the battery gets low on the Q500 it should land and turn the motors off .

 

[Andy_k0]

Thanks NRR'
Thankfully I did stay failrly close, and mostly over green. Kinda thought 60% would be 12-15mins, but not so in my case and there was no 2nd warning, it went straight to critical. No landing and turned off in the sky!!!! No card in ST10, I did have the card, but didn't sadly start filming. Still no reply from Yuneec, very surprised and disappointed about that, maybe will call them Monday. I'll add more to this post when/if I hear from them.
Andy

 

[NRRTRAINS]

Thanks NRR'
Thankfully I did stay failrly close, and mostly over green. Kinda thought 60% would be 12-15mins, but not so in my case and there was no 2nd warning, it went straight to critical. No landing and turned off in the sky!!!! No card in ST10, I did have the card, but didn't sadly start filming. Still no reply from Yuneec, very surprised and disappointed about that, maybe will call them Monday. I'll add more to this post when/if I hear from them.
Andy

the one weak point of any quad i believe is the on and off switch and the battery connector , you have a $1200 quad with a $2 , if that on/off slide switch , what i do is before i fly is to flip the slide switch back and forth several times just to get any corrosion off the slide contacts . i have read on this site loss of power and then dropping out of the sky , the battery connection in side of the Q is the other weak point some people have posted with photos of the connector melting and getting distorted and then the battery loosing con-tack , i also check the inside connector before each flight . i'm not saying this is what happened to your Q but it's worth checking , only takes a few seconds to check . i also keep a Desiccant bag in my Q500 4K carry box to keep the moisture away from my Q .

 

[Andy_k0]

I completely agree with the switch, although mine felt quite positive. All great suggestions here. Looking inside my unit, it all looks fine, but once stressed in the air, it's impossible to tell what happens inside. Sadly my confidence in the unit has gone and still no response from yuneec on this.

 

[Andy_k0]

Shockingly Yuneec do not seem to be interested at all in the issue, they simply passed on the contact details for the UK office so I could get a quote for repair. (A repair for damage done because their unit did not operate as is should have!) So disappointed in their lack of any concern. As for the hobby, I am hooked, so likely to be a droner for life but I have seriously lost faith in this brand.

 

[theguyfromtx]

A- with what you described about the door, it really sounds like the battery wasn't seated properly.
B- would it be advantageous to use dielectric grease (in small quantities) on some of the electrical bits to prevent corrosion?
i.e putting a very TINY dab on the battery, and on/off switch to prevent corrosion? I ride 4 wheelers as a primary hobby and ALL of my electronics are "sealed" with the stuff.

 

[agrafton]

Had a lot of problems with my Q500 it's first year it spent more time flying back and forth to California from Ohio then any flying time at my home.
they did take care of things but took for ever so send out and get back and when the warranty ran out so did I straight to Carolina Dronz one visit andeverything was fixed and half the quotes Yunnnec charged. I'll never look back................

 

[VetteDrone]

Having an issue with my CGO3 camera (new 12/27/2016) and it took Yuneec Customer Service 8 days to respond to my e-mail asking for help with the issue. The information they gave was good but slow response time.

 

[Mikef53]

I have had to contact customer service and used the phone. Got an immediate answer and resolve to my questions and even had the rep ask me if I wanted him to register it for me for the warranty. I have nothing but praise based on my experience. Emails can be slow to sort thru, but a talking to a person is best in my opinion. They give an incident number and sent me a follow up email.