Home Forums Everything about the Mini Tricopter First time out. Lost power?

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  • #20107
    clide
    Participant

    So I got in a little bit of flying yesterday just in my front yard. Everything went fine but I was just flying really easy because I don’t have much space. Decided to charge up a bunch of batteries so I could go out and do some proper flying today. Unfortunately at exactly one minute in on my first battery it just fell out of the sky and landed the worst way possible (sideways on the arm trying to push it forward). This broke the arm off.

    At first I thought it might be the sync issues that others were having, but when I reviewed the video it sounds like all the motors just stopped. I don’t hear any beeping that would indicate that things reset, and everything was still powered when I got to the crash site. Any ideas what could have happened?

    Running David’s electronics and TriFlight settings and FrSky X4R RX

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht6lRnh7Yio

    #20115
    LeoTheHuman
    Participant

    I believe I heard some desync noises somewhere after the flip, but the crash looked like your BEC gave up.

    #20133
    mjpilot
    Participant

    I don’t think the BEC gave up because when it hits the ground, you can hear the tail servo moving.

    #20136
    LeoTheHuman
    Participant

    That might also be unpowered movement from the crash upside down. (:
    Or a brown-out.
    I wouldn’t expect all the ESCs/motors to fail at the same time, also, I wouldn’t expect the cleanflight firmware to stop all the motors midflight on purpose, so the loss of power to the FC would be the reasonable suspect. Other suspect is a failsafe feature if the signal or power to the receiver was lost.

    #20137
    swissfreek
    Participant

    Definitely not de-sync from what I see/hear. My guess would be receiver brown-out and failsafe. If the servo were still alive and correcting, you’d hear something as the copter fell and yawed, I would think, and I don’t know how long it takes the Naze to come back to life if it resets, but when I’ve had FC resets in flight, the typical result is that the machine goes completely haywire rather than falling like a dead bird.

    #20150
    clide
    Participant

    Thanks for the ideas. Not sure if it’s a result of the crash or related to the cause, but the motor on the broken arm won’t spin, guessing that the ESC is shot. Haven’t had a chance to tear it all down yet.

    #20159
    LeoTheHuman
    Participant

    This is why I prefer to have some slop in the wiring and have a zip-tie in front of the arm instead of a bolt. I’ve found my old mini with the arms folded forward multiple times. Never broke one.

    That might be just one of the ESC wires coming loose.

    #20206
    wynnsquad
    Participant

    This won’t help you now, but in the future when you crash, and before you unplug, it might be a good idea to look at what your electronics are telling you. For example I had a very similar crash with my V3 last weekend and knew that it was due to a receiver brownout because when I got to the wreckage, I noticed a red blinking led on the rx–which indicates that my receiver had lost signal.

    Anyway just a tip to look for more clues.

    #20490
    clide
    Participant

    I put a new arm on and replaced an ESC and it seems to be flying around my neighborhood fine. I’ll take it out again sometime this week. The only thing I found that could have something to do with it was a very small hole in the ESC shrink tube. It was so small that I only could see it by shining a flashlight behind it, but I suppose it could have shorted out against the arm. I’ve put some extra insulation on the arm where I attach the ESCs just in case.

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