Frightening near fly away this afternoon

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daronj

New Member
I have a TBS Discovery loaded down with Naza M with GPS, GoPro 3 Black, OSD, FPV gear, the works. I have at least 50 flights on this quad. This afternoon I took off and while hovering in GPS mode while I fiddled with my goggles, I noticed the quad motors erratically throttling up and down. When I looked at the quad, my Naza LED was flashing red and the quad began flying up rapidly. My throttle control had no effect. I seemed to have limited erratic control of pitch and roll but none on throttle. About 30 seconds later, the quad began descending , though erratically with the motors throttling up and down. Eventually it did land but the motors would not stop. I had to disconnect the battery. I installed a new battery and did a couple of tests while holding the quad. It seems to initialize fine but as soon as I increase the throttle, I get red flashes and the motors kind of go nuts. This is very concerning and, of course, the quad is grounded until I get this sorted out. Anyone have any ideas of what might be going on? The thought of loosing this quad makes me kinda sick, ya know?

Thanks,
Daron
 


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Tim Green

Member
daronj said:
I have a TBS Discovery loaded down with Naza M with GPS, GoPro 3 Black, OSD, FPV gear, the works. I have at least 50 flights on this quad. This afternoon I took off and while hovering in GPS mode while I fiddled with my goggles, I noticed the quad motors erratically throttling up and down. When I looked at the quad, my Naza LED was flashing red and the quad began flying up rapidly. My throttle control had no effect. I seemed to have limited erratic control of pitch and roll but none on throttle. About 30 seconds later, the quad began descending , though erratically with the motors throttling up and down. Eventually it did land but the motors would not stop. I had to disconnect the battery. I installed a new battery and did a couple of tests while holding the quad. It seems to initialize fine but as soon as I increase the throttle, I get red flashes and the motors kind of go nuts. This is very concerning and, of course, the quad is grounded until I get this sorted out. Anyone have any ideas of what might be going on? The thought of loosing this quad makes me kinda sick, ya know?

Thanks,
Daron
Click to expand...
The going up, then down, part mimics Failsafe behavior. But cannot say for sure from your info. But you did observe a lack of control response. So you might want to focus on your radio links. Also are your props secure?
 

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daronj

New Member
Tim Green said:
The going up, then down, part mimics Failsafe behavior. But cannot say for sure from your info. But you did observe a lack of control response. So you might want to focus on your radio links. Also are your props secure?
Click to expand...

I do have some control of pitch and roll, however it is erratic. Throttle is very erratic and I have no control of the throttle at all. It's not a smooth ascent like you would see in failsafe, it's like the throttle is going from Max to idle back and forth and during this time the NAZA led indicates an error by a continuous flashing red light. It's odd because yesterday it flew perfectly and today, it's going haywire. I recalibrated my naza and also reflashed it just to see if it was something going on there. Get the same behavior. My next step is to pull the lid off and go over my wiring. Could be something there.
 

Kilby

Kilby

Active Member
I had a continuous flashing red light once. My gains were set up for remote tuning, and then the x3 (wookong) input came unplugged and caused the issue. I turned it off in assistant and all was well again.
 

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FlyingMachinesGuy

Member
I might recommend being very cautious flying your aircraft before finding the problem.

I had a similar experience happen last year. My quad (over 100 flights) began to drift away from me, pulling back on the stick I had no control and the copter began to descend slowly (thankfully) and came down on a neighbors roof. Fortunately, it was a freindly neighbor and I was able to go up to a window to retrieve the quad. My biggest concern was that the props kept turning once it had landed on the roof and turned upside-down. I too had to disconnect the battery to get the props to stop (with a cut up hand.)

I tried a test flight the next day after replacing the broken props, keeping the copter in very close proximity and came to the conclusion that something was wrong and quickly landed.

After checking wiring, connections and anything else I could check, I came to the conclusion that it was either the radio rx or the naza system. The radio seemed to check out and I replaced the naza. No problems with after that and the quad has more than 200 flights since without incident.

The spinning of the props after landing, and having no control over it sets off a red light in my head. The main reason that I mention this is that if your naza has gone bad as mine seemed to have, you may face a crash that might cost far more to fix than the price of a new naza. I have since tested the "bad" naza on other copters, and as a result of crashes, I have pitched it into the garbage.

One odd thing about the bad naza was that when I would connect it to my computer, all seemed to work correctly within the assistant software. All of the sliders moved correctly and the naza seemed to respond just as it should.

As I said before, save some $$$ and be careful with this bird.
 

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djneils98

Member
i had a very similar experience with my quad tonight. Its a spidex and has 2 power connectors so 2 batteries can be used in parallel. After a non-eventful flight using 2 x 3s batteries in parallel I switched to one 4s battery. I took off and then switched to atti mode and accelerated away. as the quad moved I saw the LED flash red like you did. when I let go of the sticks it was like the quad was drunk - it veered horribly one way and I could only just correct it and avoid a crash. I had switched to gps mode and that suddenly seemed to kick in - I had control again so I slowly flew it back to me. I then switched back to atti and whoa - more weird drunken behaviour and I only just managed to land it without breaking anything. I then switched to the other power connector on the 4s and everything was fine again.
So i'm wondering if this could be a voltage issue - I soldered my own distroboard so i wonder if there's a duff connection - oddly when run in parallel one 3s battery is drained more than the other..;.
maybe you have a power issue - you've had a lot of flights and vibration can break solder joints over time - worth a check

I need to run more tests
 

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