Esky gyro 0704 lock-up after 2minutes

[LFLoTiTo]

Not really a crash, but would have been if I had launched the plane a few seconds before, so I believe it is worth the discussion.

I recently installed an Esky 0704 rate gyro on the ailerons of my easystar to smooth out the gusts and get more stable air videos/FPV.

After a few successfull flights, one day I was preparing to launch and, among other pre-flight checks, I checked that the gyro had done its start-up process, the ailerons responded to my sticks inputs and the gyro responded to the plane roll movements (in my hands). When I was about to launch the plane, the ailerons locked all the way to one side, not responding to the sticks inputs anymore. The gyro had that slow blink indicating failure, and stayed there. If that had happened 10 sec later, the plane would be in the air and would have entered in an unrecoverable spiral of death.
I disconnected the battery, waited a few minutes, connected it again and same thing: after initializing ok, after about 2 minutes it locked-up my ailerons. Flight aborted and gyro removed.

Is this failure usual on the Esky0704?
Is there any alternative on this price range that will not lock my ailerons if (when) it fails?

Here is some more if you want to help me find out what happened:
- I was using the Esky0704 with a Berg7p receiver, Hobbycity's SuperSimple ESC and HXT 9g servos.
- I was not able to replicate what happened at my bench later (I still will not put this gyro or another NIB on my plane while I don't find out what happened).
- I tryed to simulate a brown out by cutting power and quickly (or slowly) pluging it back, but it just re-started ok after 10sec.
- I tryed to force a failure at startup by shaking it during this process, but it started ok.
- I understand that this gyro will not work on some receivers such as the Corona Synth, but it was (and is) working ok with the Berg7P, except for that failure. When I try to use the Corona, it will not startup, and will show that same slow blinking light with no response to stick input or movement.

Here is a previous flight with the gyro working fine. Wind is about 30-40km/h with some gusts. Sometimes the easy flies backwards! But you can feel the gyro doing its thing.

http://www.vimeo.com/6022259

I appreciate your help/comments.
Cheers,
Luiz

[sonicj]

i possibly had something similar happen to me a few days ago in my 0704 equipped easy star. i had the 0704 on the rudder, elev unassisted, ar6110, dx7, ek2-0500 servos, super simple 25a w/bec bypassed, 10a castle bec, pan & tilt, 900mhz video tx & camera. this was the maiden test flight of my fpv rig. everything checked fine, range check was good, did a few laps around the school playground and on the way back down i lost all rudder! PANIC sets in! lol! once i collected myself about .2 seconds later my first response is kill the motor & let the gyro re-initialize. not gonna work, im going to fast and that thing takes forever IF it decides it wants. by this point im running out of options. parking lot; too hard, cars, & people! pond; too wet! trees it is then! i probably could have hit the face of the woods but from where i was standing i had poor depth perception & really didn't want it in the water. CRASH! some women in the parking lot said she saw hit the trees. i run over there and can hear it, but not see it. she "landed" about 30' deep in the woods and about 30' up in a pop-corn tree. my dad and spent about 3 hours in the spider & mosquito infested swamp getting it down! luckily, everything survived! the ez had 2 small scratches on the wings as a result of us poking her with pvc pipe.

i haven't pulled the servos out yet, but they are both being replaced! the rudder servo works, but is questionable. im not sure if the gyro reinitialized, the servo went thermal, got mechanically bound up, gear stripped & got lodged, etc. i'll pull the servo and inspect it eventually. i personally think it was the servo or a combination of gyro induced servo failure. i'll probably install this gyro in a cheap foamie if i can't get it to fail on the bench. i don't know that i'll ever feel comfortable again with fate of my ez in the hands of a $10 gyro.

sorry i didn't offer much help! lol! i just saw your post and had to tell my story! i'll post the video of the flight as soon as i get around to uploading it. good luck!
-sj

[LFLoTiTo]

i possibly had something similar happen to me a few days ago in my 0704 equipped easy star.
Sonic,
Thanks for your post. It is helpful indeed, as now I know that my problem was not an exception.
By the way, whey my gyro failed it took the ailerons all the way to the right, to an extent I had never seen before, even by using 140% on end points.
In my case, the plane was on the ground so I could turn it off soon and the servos survived, but that´s what might have burn and striped yours.
I agree: no esky servos on my fpv planes for now on. Not because they cost $10 (I never had any issue with my $3 HXT servos, so cheap stuff can work!) but because they are not reliable and can induce a critical failure.
Cheers,