Project Logs

Collapse

• Initial Post

  Gino Clement • 08/16/2017 at 04:55 • 0 comments

  As of the time of this post, I have fully built the drone and am able to fly. Within the first week of having the drone I ran into an issue where I lost power about 30 feet up due to a connection between a motor and ESC becoming detached (Note to self: DO NOT use butt connectors. If using butt connectors, at least use a crimp tool and not pliers.). Crashing about 30 feet into the ground, one of the arms snapped resulting in the first rebuild.

  As part of the rebuild I switched from butt connectors to spade style quick disconnects, with the metal part wrapped in electrical tape to avoid shorts. I also ordered a full second frame in case of future crashes and replaced the broken leg. Overall, this worked wonderfully and I was able to fly my drone for a few weeks without any issues.

  My next upgrade was to add a gimbal for my GoPro Hero 3 as well as a FPV transmitter/receiver combo and on screen display (OSD) so I could live stream video to my phone and get battery information. I was able to get the gimbal mountain and my GoPro attached without issue but the transmitter and receiver wouldn't connect. With my Android phone, I could see the receiver picking up a signal from the transmitter but I wasn't able to get an image and only saw static (black and white noise image like we used to see on TV).

  Anxious for flight the the GoPro, I decided to ignore the OSD and live stream setup and just fly line of sight. Needless to say this did not go over well. I flew up to about 90-100'  to get a decent view of the surrounding area and see what it looked like with a drone POV. After about 4 minutes, while flying over our house, the drone suddenly started falling from the sky. From what I saw and looking at the video it appears something shorted out again as the drone immediately started rolling as it fell.

  Gravity sucks. The drone fell 60 feet through the air onto our roof. Here's the list of broken parts:

  • Brand new gimbal (GoPro mount fractured, arm bent)
  • 3 props
  • Bottom PCB board of the frame
  • One of the legs (of the landing gear)
  • GPS mount

  In addition, multiple wires were disconnected, including one of the wires soldered to the PDU from the ESC. This ESC connection is about the only explanation for the crash (I'm not the best with soldering) but I assume it disconnected  on impact.

  I've reordered the broken parts that I don't have spares for and started the rebuild process. Stay tuned...

View project log