Q500+ Stuck in "Home" - Not responding to controls

[Ghost Rider]

I was flying my Q500+ a lot over the holiday weekend.

On the last flight, it stopped responding to the controls and just hovered at 300 feet. I noticed that the display said "Home" and figured I accidentally put the switch in home (I normally fly in angle mode).

The switch did nothing. The display continued to show home and the Q just hovered.

After about 10-15 minutes, the battery dropped to critical level and it began to descend. Right into a lake.

I probably could have caught the landing gear and switched it off (it was only about 4-5 feet from the shore and in 4 feet of water), but I kept trying to get the controls to respond instead.

I quickly dove under and retrieved it and set it out to dry and put the camera in a bag with desiccants. I haven't tried to fly it yet. I will probably trash the battery that got submerged.

No idea how/why it got stuck though. Thought I hit the wrong button or something, but as far as I know, it should have tried to land before the battery got too low in true home mode.

 

[Wingshooter]

You got a memory card installed in the ST10 Controller?

If so you can get telemetry file off the card and post it here.

 

[Steve Carr]

Right. You need to get the telemetry if possible. It sounds like the Android portion of the controller may have locked up. You could have turned the ST10 off and the Q would have gone into RTH, but if you were standing on the shore when flying it would have landed in the water anyway. Rule of thumb.....if flying near water always stay 30' from the shoreline for exactly this reason.

Continue to dry the Q and set it in the sun if possible to help dry it completely. If the water was clean, and not salt water, the Q may live again but it needs to dry for many days. And yes, the battery is probably toast. Once they get wet inside the connections will likely corrode even though the lipo cells are sealed.

 

[Ghost Rider]

I did restart the ST-10 after it was clear that the Q wasn't responding. I figured I didn't have much to lose, other than the drone(!).

I also tried to walk away from the lake, but the Q wouldn't budge. The controller said "Home" but it wasn't doing a RTH. It just hovered in place, unresponsive.

Thanks for the tip on the telemetry files. I checked the ST10 and found the SD card. There are two files, one from before and one from after the ST10 restart.

I'm guessing it took the plunge at 20170904 11:17:11:623 (row 5672).

 

[Steve Carr]

I did restart the ST-10 after it was clear that the Q wasn't responding. I figured I didn't have much to lose, other than the drone(!).
I also tried to walk away from the lake, but the Q wouldn't budge. The controller said "Home" but it wasn't doing a RTH. It just hovered in place, unresponsive.

Interesting. I'll take a look at the files.