Phantom crash
0Ever since I've upgraded to the xoxoxo props and prop guards, my phantom has been very unstable. I flew it today after not flying it for a while. I was distracted when my buddy tried to get my attention and I flew it into a tree and got caught up in the branches. I ended up with a small cut on my hand trying to get it from the top of a tree, but it was my fault. I flew it again and it was doing alright. I flew it aggressively to see if it would drop like when I was flying with the 2800 zippy battery. After about five minutes it just went straight into the ground. I heard a crack. I flew it again aggressively and it just went straight down again onto the grass (it tried to correct but it was too late). This time the prop guard broke. Cheap xoxoxo guards just cracked. I think with the bigger prop guards, it's catching the wind and affecting the balance and maneuverability of the p1. I'm not comfy flying it over anyone's house anymore for fear of having it drop into someone's backyard. I will get another set of prop guards, but it will be removable ones. I know do not think the instability of my craft was due to voltage sag of the 2800 zippy lipo.
- 3 comments, 14 replies
- Comment
Ouch! That sucks! Sorry to hear it.
@djslack Thanks. The phantom is replaceable. At least it didn't land on anyone :).
Sorry about your paw. Hopefully the Phantom didn't break anything besides a prop guard?
@ruouttaurmind Thanks. Looks like just the prop guards. The plastic on the xoxoxo guards are brittle compared to the DJI prop guards I have. I'm going with removeable prop guards, but I'm wondering if the larger guards are causing stability issues. With no warning, the phantom will wiggle wildly towards the ground and crash or bounce back up and continue flying. Weird.
What do you guys think after watching this? It seems to crash right after the gimbal drops the camera. The wind can also cause the gimbal to do that if the phantom banks suddenly (due to wind).
@garyhgaryh you don't appear to be facing the same direction every time so unless the wind is also changing direction it seems awfully convenient that the phantom goes over the same way each time.
I know @nltownsend834 had issues with the gimbal that I'm flying now causing his phantom to fly erratically.
Try removing the stiff fpv wire you noticed coinciding with this behavior? Or even stripping the gimbal off completely. Or strip the prop guards. Eliminate things and test fly high enough to recover and see what makes it not do that. It looks like some kind of interference or electronic glitch, although the gimbal may be hiding the true motion the quad is performing when this happens.
@garyhgaryh also try rebalancing the gimbal if it moves your cg that much. If possible it should be balanced such that the cg is on the axes of the motors, and any change in camera position won't affect the quad's overall cg. This can be hard when using a camera that doesn't weigh the same as a gopro.
@djslack I hate that you can touch out of the box on mobile and lose the content of your reply :(. I though about this as I got up this am and agree with you about eliminating things until I find out what's wrong. I'll start by removing the prop guards (since I already destroyed 1 of 4). Someone in another group thinks it's the 9" props, but I highly doubt that but would suspect the prop only because its xoxoxo brand and I noticed more jello effect with it than the stock ones.
@garyhgaryh Nick noticed i think that with the xoxo props the vortex effect is bad, if it falls into its own prop wash on descent that it has a hard time generating enough lift to recover. It might be related. Experiments are the only way to know for sure.
@djslack Someone asked for a video from another view of the crash. I didn't have one of that day, but I had a tripod mounted camera where it did slowly crash and bounced back up. The phantom looks like it just lost lift so you/nick might be on to something here.
Yep, mine flew very bad with the ox props. Id put other props on it and try, that's the easiest thing to do.
@nltownsend843 will do.
@djslack @nltownsend843 Hey guys, is this the prop wash effect?
@garyhgaryh
Yea thats similar to what mine did, along with just over all unstable flight.
@garyhgaryh Imma say "I don't think so". You seemed to be at... what, maybe 7 or 8 feet? I don't usually feel prop wash over 3 or 4 feet. Are those the counterfeit rotors? Or stock?
@garyhgaryh I'm with @djslack on the first video. It looks like the shift of the gimbal is messing with the Phantom. I also concur that you should remove the gimbal and compare. Also, maybe go through the power settings on the gimbal and increase the power values so it doesn't lose it's orientation so easily? Or reduce the power? I don't know... mess with the power. LOL!
@ruouttaurmind prop wash was my inaccurate term, here's an article that explains the phenomenon better than i can: http://quadcopter101.blogspot.com/2014/10/vortex-ring-state-wobble-of-death.html