Hello Forum, This is my first post, so I'm not 100% sure if this is the format the group would prefer, however I am stuck in a little pickle. I decided to build my first quadcopter back in September, which turned out to become relativly simple. With that choice, I choose the APM platform to allow me to explore autonomous operations, as well as its versitility. My first couple flights were fine, but later on I started to encounter issues. The day I first tested RTL, the first time I flipped the switch, it worked flawlessly. I went to record the RTL for my video series the second time, but it eventually led to a sudden flip and crash. (Video will be attached). After repairing the copter, I did a couple of tests in my street. All of them were fine except for one, where I had no control over it drifting and then descending into my neighbors fence. The big kahuna of crashes occurred after that, where I once again, intended on testing RTL. The flight was going OK, until I flipped it into RTL, where I felt that it was not working right. I flipped it back into stabilize, where it starting drifting over a neighborhood pool. I'm not positive if I flipped it back into RTL or not, but the copter suddenly shot-up into the sky at full throttle, leaving it out of sight. Eventually we found the copter less than a quarter of a mile away from launch. I'm still trying to learn the ins and outs of these systems, so I thought posting the video of the last flight, data and kmz logs of the last flight would help me receive some insight of how to fix my quad, as it is grounded until I know this will never happen again. LOGS ARE POSTED TO THE FOLLOWING FORUM POST: http://diydrones.com/group/arducopterusergroup/forum/topics/drone-flyaway-help?commentId=705844%3AComment%3A2166916&groupId=705844%3AGroup%3A394475 Raw GoPro video of crash: All criticisim and comments welcome! Thanks for the help, Todd
We are not APM experts but I can tell you that just about any "build" is not going to approach the reliability of a mass produced machine. These things are rocket science and there are so many things that can go wrong! I'm saying this because - as you know - you could have hurt someone or some property with this. I'd say if you are going to build, build small ones that you can race around a park or open field in a relative manual fashion. If you are going to use a GPS and autonomous larger system - I'd say to buy it mass produced. It's a matter of the number of potential points of failure. Engineers have vast numbers of tricks they do to fix all the problems that home builders run into....so building may teach you a lot, but it certainly adds to your liability and the possibilities for mishaps. Speaking of that - your flight seems to be higher than what is suggested and you may be the airspace of real planes and helis!
