Lost major flight time..no changes..

[sleagues]

Within one flight I went from approximately 11 minute flights to 3-4. Have not changed anything. 3 different sets of batteries do the same thing. Running duel batteries using a dx 8 tx with ar 8000 with telemetry. I can watch the voltage being used up. It will be down to 10.2 volts within 3 or so minutes. Red warnings flashing.
when its flying or hovering in gps or atti it actually sounds like an engine missing! Not smooth at all. but when I fly it in manual it sounds fine and normal flight times. This is strange as heck.
I have checked all the main battery connections and the main power leads to the board. I have pretty much gone through the whole system looking for loose or broken wires.
I thought about a bad esc or motor but when its in manual mode everything is ok. only other thing I can think of is a bad rx or satellite (remote)
anybody have any ideas I would sure appreciate it.

 

[Dave Pitman]

Since the problem occurs with more than one battery, I would guess some sort of short.

 

[sleagues]

Thanks for the reply's. Im going to fly it on the stand tonight and check the heat on my motors with my temp gun. other than that only other thing I can think of would be the naza. I did do a calibration although it didn't need it. it did not help.
One other thing I have noticed since it was new and even with the stock TX I never ever would get the correct light sequence on start up. I always get RD GN YW RD GN YW GN GN GN GN then it looks for satellite's. I never get any of the imu yellow warm up lights. My phantom has always been ready to fly in about 40 seconds. The temp in the last few weeks has been in the low 20 to mid 30 f range. you would think it would take some time for the imu to warm in them temps. Maybe this has always been a hidden problem
But it has always flown perfect till the other day. I just got down from a flight and ten minutes after putting in fresh battery's it started acting up.

 

[Dave Pitman]

I have never gotten the YW warm up lights either, but the Phantom is indoors till I take it out to fly.

I don't know how the Naza controller could just loose amps somewhere.

 

[sleagues]

I don't neither. I just got done checking engine temps and they are all fine. But their is a definite problem when running it on gps or atti. That's were the draw comes from, and the motors sound funny. as soon as I switch to manual mode the draw stops and sounds and flys fine with normal flight times.
Its confusing as hec.
I think i'm gonna have to steal my buddy's naza when he aint looking and give it a try. lol
Its getting to the point were im thinking of making a clay pigeon out of it!!!

 

[miskatonic]

I don't neither. I just got done checking engine temps and they are all fine. But their is a definite problem when running it on gps or atti. That's were the draw comes from, and the motors sound funny. as soon as I switch to manual mode the draw stops and sounds and flys fine with normal flight times.
Its confusing as hec.
I think i'm gonna have to steal my buddy's naza when he aint looking and give it a try. lol
Its getting to the point were im thinking of making a clay pigeon out of it!!!

If the motors are not heating up then you have a short or a loose wire somewhere . Take your Phantom apart and do a careful wire by wire inspection to see if there is anything exposed or loose. Also take the GPS cover off and check to see if the GPS battery is still in place.

 

[sleagues]

Re: Lost major flight time..no changes..Update

So I went through the entire system this weekend with a magnified glass and a wooden bbq skewer. I checked every wire looking for a loose or shorted wires. I could not find a thing. Then I ran it again and checked the motor temps and they were all fine. I found one motor to have almost no cogging effect. So I decide to change it. I did end of getting my flight times back but to be honest I don't really know if it was because of that motor. I really don't know enough about them but I would think,(and I may be wrong) that if it was using more KV it would run hot. Something I didn't see. How would the motor loose its magnetic resistance? broken wires on the armature or did it get extremely hot at one point? I just don't really know. I really need to run a load test on it along with another motor to see what they read.
With all the poking around I did looking for a problem, did I knock something back into place, or was the motor the problem? I guess I wont be happy till I find someone to do a load test.
Happy to be flying again but unhappy with the results. LOL