Near Fly away, Bizzare behavior and then a crash!

[Gautam Pandey]

Hi,

Really really close call this time.. phew!!! was flying over a River, Flat area.. No Transmitter poles etc , Sandy ground and light wind. Calibrated Compass, had 9 satellites and Flew on 2 batteries flawlessly in GPS mode.

On the 3rd Battery while flying it back to me it suddenly acts weird and seemed to fly away deeper into and over the river! I jiggle the controls and it seems to hold .. I immediately throttle up and get some height.

Only control that seemed to respond was Up and Forward in one direction. I think I kept turning the phantom so that it would come in over land even if it moved in that one direction. No other inputs worked and by this point it was descending at an angle.

I switched it to Manual Mode and the Power cut and it dropped.

Here's a video of the end of the flight just before it went nuts. You can seem me panicking and running towards it!!

Here's whats got me worried and confused

1. The Battery was no where near empty. The third Bar was blinking
2. Even if it went into auto land/come home it was way off the mark ( had 9 satellites )
3. I thought the new firmware gave us control on the descent and we could give inputs
4. WHY did the Power cut out when I switched to manual??

No real damage that I can see since it landed in a ploughed field but I will open it up do get any dust and dirt out.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[N017RW]

#4- The quad is not properly configured for hover at 50% throttle. It's too heavy.

When in atti. or gps the MC is 'making up the difference' in power required to hover thus more throttle is required when switching to Manual.

 

[Gautam Pandey]

#4- The quad is not properly configured for hover at 50% throttle. It's too heavy.

When in atti. or gps the MC is 'making up the difference' in power required to hover thus more throttle is required when switching to Manual.

Hi.. Yup I know. I throttled up as I switched. Have flown manual before and switched it to manual and had drop straight down. I see what you mean though.. moving fast in a direction and switching to manual might have caused it to flip over.

What are the proper settings would you know?

and any guess as to why it acted like this in the first place?

 

[jason]

Sounds more like it lost power before it hit the ground.

 

[Gautam Pandey]

Sounds more like it lost power before it hit the ground.

Thats what I thought too.. but I think I can just about hear the Props Go ZZZzzz when it's flipping over.. What do you think? Motors or just the wind and speed making the props spin?

 

[jason]

Thats what I thought too.. but I think I can just about hear the Props Go ZZZzzz when it's flipping over.. What do you think? Motors or just the wind and speed making the props spin?

There is a possibility that one motor shutdown causing it to flip but that doesn't explain the other problems.

 

[Gautam Pandey]

There is a possibility that one motor shutdown causing it to flip but that doesn't explain the other problems.

Good thought.. I'll clean it up and check the motors

 

[jason]

Good thought.. I'll clean it up and check the motors

Might just open the shell and check for cold solder connections. Be sure when you are finished to do an advanced IMU cal on level surface.

 

[Gautam Pandey]

Might just open the shell and check for cold solder connections. Be sure when you are finished to do an advanced IMU cal on level surface.

Thanks for the tip Jason!