Weird flight with the 4K today

ChuckD · Jan 14, 2016

Just playing around today, and for the most part the day was too windy. So at the end of the day, it died down a bit so I went for a quick flight.

After taking off, I noticed that occasionally one of the white lights under the left front motor would flash occasionally. No other warnings, but just that one light. I would left-stick turn the bird and it would come on solid, only to start flashing (about a one second interval) in about 10 seconds.

As I went higher, I seemed to lose a bit of control. It also seemed like the bird lost track of how high it was, since it kept going higher and higher. From the video I shot, it was panning left/right like it was struggling to maintain position, and drifted off to the north at a fairly fast rate. Then, after getting a low battery warning, it took FOREVER to bring it back to me (I flipped it into RTH mode).

First, does the blinking white light under the left front motor mean anything, or do I simply have a loose connection somewhere? Also, since it was windy earlier, I'm sure I hit a good amount of wind when I went higher and higher. Would this cause the left/right pan? Finally, is it possible that high winds would confuse the altimeter? (Not sure how altitude is monitored, is it simply GPS, pressure sensing, or what).

Scary to almost lose control and almost run out of battery!

BEE · Jan 14, 2016

Scary [EXPLETIVE REMOVED] ,, huh Chuck ??? lol
I dont think you'll find alot of people flying their expensive Quads in winds above 15 mph !!!
Yuneec themselves tell you not to fly in winds above 12 mph....But its those rare few who will go out on a limb for the rest of us and do stuff its not meant to do , just to see what happens !! and hopefully .... share there results with us ...!!!
I do hear alot about the quad being turned 180 degrees in higher wind situations because of the cgo camera and the solution i've heard is to fly backwards with the camera downwind ,,, sorta .... Sometimes its not so windy downstairs but when she gets upstairs,,, there could be much more wind to deal with !!!!
I would end my flight ASAP if I knew something wasnt right with the quad OR st10 , and only 1 blinking light under your motor , to me , sounds like something aint right .. I never heard of that and would not take a chance flying again until fixed ,,,but thats just me !!!
I would suggest you call Yuneec CS about that light issue.!
As far as RTH when the battery is low might not be the best thing to do because the Q will stay at the current altitude untill over its landing spot...and then decend.....what would be a faster way to get back to you would be to ( if in LOS ) fly in angle mode and head back to you WHILE decending at the same time, shortcut sorta, therefore making the return trip a little faster in those types of situations.
Here a good video that shows the Q flying untill it auto lands .

ChuckD · Jan 14, 2016

I took it out tonight again just to see what the light under the motor would do, and it seems that it's some type of illusion! Occasionally I'd get the camera/gimbal in the way slightly, and it would create what seemed to be a flashing effect on one of the motor lights.

However (and this is incredibly stupid of me, I'm still learning all this stuff), I found out that I KEEP BUMPING the turtle/rabbit switch!!!! Arrgghhhh! I got up to a fair altitude this evening, and I once again had a hard time bringing it back down. Turns out I had slammed the speed switch to turtle! Does this happen to anybody else? Sheesh!

I still can't explain the back and forth oscillation earlier. I'm 'hoping' that it was a high wind situation (I was at a fairly high altitude). Perhaps I'll render and post that video and see what you guys think.

BEE · Jan 15, 2016

Thats good to hear Chuck,,, just take it slow .... you'll get used to st10...
Oh and by the way.... don't EVER go into the flight systems menu when airborne....the st10 will give you a warning screen first !!! Doing that can cause the motors to stop !!!
Dont ever take off in smart mode if you are within 25 feet or so from the Q.. doing so can make the Q suddenly fly away momentarily,,, better to take off in angle mode and then switch to smart mode when or if needed .

ChuckD · Jan 15, 2016

Ok, so I just converted this video real fast with QuickTime. I hadn't intended to film anything, but once things got weird, I decided to press 'record' just in case I had one of those epic crashes about to happen, then I could share with all!

Check out about 15 seconds into the video the weird left/right panning that happens. At this point, I'm completely hands-off the controls, in Angle mode. What do you think it's doing?

BEE · Jan 15, 2016

Wow thats not good,,,have you tried to calibrate the camera through the GUI ?

GUI | Yuneec - Electric Aviation

Theres a section in there to do that ... if that dont work .....try Yuneec CS...
good luck chuck !!!! and did I mention to balance your props to help with the jello also !!!

ChuckD · Jan 15, 2016

Strange thing is that this never happened before, and it only seemed to happen when I faced west towards the sunset. You'll notice that at one point I turn left (south), and the shaking stops. Then I turn back west, and it starts up again. I'm suspecting high winds at altitude, but there's no way to tell. At ground level, it wasn't very windy at that time.

BEE · Jan 16, 2016

Wind !?!?!?!?

Sirwilliam70 · Jan 19, 2016

ChuckD said:
I took it out tonight again just to see what the light under the motor would do, and it seems that it's some type of illusion! Occasionally I'd get the camera/gimbal in the way slightly, and it would create what seemed to be a flashing effect on one of the motor lights.

However (and this is incredibly stupid of me, I'm still learning all this stuff), I found out that I KEEP BUMPING the turtle/rabbit switch!!!! Arrgghhhh! I got up to a fair altitude this evening, and I once again had a hard time bringing it back down. Turns out I had slammed the speed switch to turtle! Does this happen to anybody else? Sheesh!

I still can't explain the back and forth oscillation earlier. I'm 'hoping' that it was a high wind situation (I was at a fairly high altitude). Perhaps I'll render and post that video and see what you guys think.

I've bumped that switch many times until I bypassed it.