So I've been happily flying my Hoverfly Pro without problems and very impressed with the stability. However, today I had a slight mishap and hit a tree. The quad fell to the ground popped off one of the motor mounts but didn't even break a prop. No damage to the plastic case protecting the board and receiver. In fact inside the case I have a roll cage so to speak for extra protection.

I replaced the motor mount and motor itself, did some bench testing and everything seemed fine. Took it back outside for some more flying. Spooled it up and everything was smooth until I took off. As soon as it left the ground the motors started surging and it bouncing up and down, ACK! I tried landing, unplugging, replugging the power, disarming-rearming etc. But every time I take off now its like the motors are sputtering and surging.

I'm uploading an onboard video now so you can see/hear what is going on. I hooked it up the the setup utility and near as I can tell all the sliders are working fine when I move the quad around. I downloaded the flight log of my last flight attempt. I also had my daughter shoot some video of it flying and will post that soon.

Here is my flight log... Please help!

Paul

Here's the onboard video:

HoverflyPro Problem Onboard Video.mov (1 min 50 sec)

Here's an external video of the problem, harder to see what's going on though.

HoverflyPro Problem (0 min 25 sec)

A complete guess but I had a similar issue where the impact loosened a solder joint and the vibrations caused the connection to create amazingly high noise in the electrical path.

I had to clamp down the craft and give it some throttle and then start tapping the connectors with a dowel rod till I found the problem. Mine was a solder joint on the ESC to the motor. More specifically the wires connected to the ESC board itself so it was completely hidden.

After a mishap ,It would be wise to go over the hole quad like you are just starting to build it. more then likely it is a bad connection some were. Start from the beginning. It will be fine.

Definitely you have 2 good suggestions here. You might try lowering the gain. If this helps, look for vibration from your motors by spooling them up one by one.

I really wanted you guys to be right so I decided to take the crashed frame/motors/escs out of the equation and put the Hoverfly pro back on my temporary test quad where I first had it. That should eliminate all question of damage as this frame hasn't been flown since I had the hoverfly on it. Everything was still setup for it.

I put the Hoverfly back on and gave it a go tonight. It was DEAD calm but the Hoverfly was acting like it was in 10 mph winds. The motors were going crazy and it was bouncing all over the place. Definitely NOT the smooth Hoverfly board that it was on this frame before.

The gain was still at 50% in my Dx8, this gain has been silky smooth on both quad frames.

I'm a little distraught, I haven't crashed for a long time and todays crash was barely anything. I understand the Hoverfly Pro is made up of precision, high end stuff but my previous quads have survived FAR WORSE than this simple flip and usually are back in flight within minutes. Please tell me the Hoverfly Pro isn't this delicate

The two components that stayed with the board are the AR8000 receiver and satellite as well as the little power filter that came with the HF Pro. I've had receivers go bad where channels just don't work. One would think if the power filter were bad it just wouldn't work. Based on its behavior I have to wonder if one of the gyros is damaged? Is there a way to test for that?

For what it's worth here is the flight log from my test frame:

One of our early prototype hexa frames used to sound exactly like that when there was too much vibration making it to the board. Complete with random power surges/twitches etc.

Have you properly inspected your props/adaptors to make sure you don't have something bent or cracked?

When you say you hit a tree, do you mean with a prop? If so, I'd be making sure it didn't fracture a blade or flex it so it's not tracking correctly. I notice you're using SF props, which are nowhere near as strong at the blade root as the regular APC E props. I recorded (spectrum analyser) a considerable increase in vibes when I tried SF props on the hexa, and that was without even hitting anything with one!

Oh, and BTW.....mow your lawn!!

Originally Posted by mrbonk

One of our early prototype hexa frames used to sound exactly like that when there was too much vibration making it to the board. Complete with random power surges/twitches etc.

Have you properly inspected your props/adaptors to make sure you don't have something bent or cracked?

When you say you hit a tree, do you mean with a prop? If so, I'd be making sure it didn't fracture a blade or flex it so it's not tracking correctly. I notice you're using SF props, which are nowhere near as strong at the blade root as the regular APC E props. I recorded (spectrum analyser) a considerable increase in vibes when I tried SF props on the hexa, and that was without even hitting anything with one!

Oh, and BTW.....mow your lawn!!

Point taken on the lawn! I was going to mow it today until I had all these problems with my HF quad That's what I told my wife anyway... hehe

I put new props on after the crash, as well as replacing the motor that popped off. Inspected everything on the bench even looked to make sure the props were tracking well, I don't think it's a vibration problem because I put the HF board back on my test quad and it still had the motors going nuts. This test quad was the first one I put the HF pro on when I first got it. It was really smooth, now it is not. The test quad has been sitting on a shelf between the initial flight and tonight's test flight.

I appreciate the thought though.

Paul

Poking around other peoples threads I saw a note about unplugging the Altitude hold from the receiver so I tried that. While it seemed to help, I could still hear the motors going nuts, just a lot smaller increments. Still not nearly as smooth as it once was

One last flight log for the night with AH unplugged and I switched between AL off and on to see if it made a difference, it did not. I also lowered the Gain in my Dx8 to 30, still had crazy motors.

I'm soooo bummed...

Paul

oops, replied to something that had already been answered

try flashing v2.092. It may change your results.

Originally Posted by Helidaho

Poking around other peoples threads I saw a note about unplugging the Altitude hold from the receiver so I tried that. While it seemed to help, I could still hear the motors going nuts, just a lot smaller increments. Still not nearly as smooth as it once was

One last flight log for the night with AH unplugged and I switched between AL off and on to see if it made a difference, it did not. I also lowered the Gain in my Dx8 to 30, still had crazy motors.

I'm soooo bummed...

Paul

I am seeing the same thing on my y6 at the moment - No crash - all connections check out and I have no bullet connectors - Everything flys fine then at times it will sound like yours then it goes away but shortly returns - I am going to flash to v2.092 and see if it goes away completely - Any idea on new firmware release? The slow camera stabilization is killing me -

Mike

I have a really hard time believing it's a software issue when this board flew perfect before my little flip. However, I will try flashing to the previous firmware to see if it makes any difference. Does flashing the firmware do any reset to the sensors?

Paul

I take it your old frame had a good battery all ready to go? You can damage a battery in a crash also.

Originally Posted by pug398

I take it your old frame had a good battery all ready to go? You can damage a battery in a crash also.

Good thought but I tried different batteries as well.

Originally Posted by S11D336B

try flashing v2.092. It may change your results.

I flashed it to 2.092 tonight and had the same problems.

I've tried a variety of props, swapped out all the motors and escs, unplugged the LEDs for fear of maybe an intermittent short, tried different batteries all with no luck.

I tried my test frame again and I may have been a bit hasty in my judgement last night. Today my test frame seemed relatively normal, not as smooth as original but not nearly as bad as my main frame.

So I think I'm going to rebuild my main frame with new booms. I'm starting to lean towards some kind of vibration or possibly the booms no longer being true. I spooled it up on the bench without props and there wasn't any motor surge, even when I picked it up and moved it around. Just normal sounding motor reactions. So I think it's vibrations.

Unfortunately, that means it will be a while before I can report back as that is a ton of work rebuilding the frame

I sure hope that's it, I hate the thought of having to purchase another board if I've ruined this one But I may have to get a second HF Pro just to have a base to test from, any more in stock?

Paul