FC40 landing problems...

[MrFus]

Hi, I'm the new owner of a FC40 (pre own), I have being flying some small quads in order to get familiar with the controls and after doing all the pre fly adjustments and calibrations I was able to take off and hover perfect, move to the left and right were fine and easy to do!!

But the landing was a different story, I was able to do a soft landing, but as soon as i let the throttle get back to neutral position the FC40 started to lean forward and BOOOM!!, hit the floor and blow a propeller and cut my hand while trying to catch it =(

Can be the fact that I'm using the tall landing gear to clear room for the walkera gimbal that the phantom gravity center is too tall and heavy at the front?

I'm right now ordering some extra propellers and the guards online, and It looks like maybe i need to find a way to create some skids for the landing so I got more area to distribute the weight at the front and back of the drone...

 

[Beario]

I let mine hover in place and hand catch mine. The other option is to put on prop guards. Even if it tips over the guards prevent your bird from damaging the props. It is widely known this series of phantoms tip forward no matter how good you get at landing, especially on more windy days.

 

[MrFus]

I'm looking right now some 3d printable prop guards... Unfortunately the hand catch it's at not an option for me (one eye, not depth perception) so I hope that between small forward extensions for the skids and the guards I can avoid some "accidents"...

 

[varangian]

I hand catch mine now, but before that I used some dried reeds (from a garden store) that were half the diameter of a pencil, painted them white, and used white zip ties to attach them to the skids. The stuck out about three inches in the front and a inch or so out back and stopped the dreaded tip over on landing.

 

[MrFus]

I was doing some sketches on the computer of some sort of extension skids that can clip on the inside of the landing gear... I made a quick prototype using a couple of small aluminum tubes that I found on my scrap bin and I'm going to check today and if it works I will do a full 3d printed version to compare weight and strength between the two versions...

 

[Lonewolf]

Hi, I'm the new owner of a FC40 (pre own), I have being flying some small quads in order to get familiar with the controls and after doing all the pre fly adjustments and calibrations I was able to take off and hover perfect, move to the left and right were fine and easy to do!!

But the landing was a different story, I was able to do a soft landing, but as soon as i let the throttle get back to neutral position the FC40 started to lean forward and BOOOM!!, hit the floor and blow a propeller and cut my hand while trying to catch it =(

Can be the fact that I'm using the tall landing gear to clear room for the walkera gimbal that the phantom gravity center is too tall and heavy at the front?

I'm right now ordering some extra propellers and the guards online, and It looks like maybe i need to find a way to create some skids for the landing so I got more area to distribute the weight at the front and back of the drone...

Because it will throttle up after a few seconds after landing if you don't do either a CSC or pull the throttle down and hold it ther till the motors stop. Once they land, they don't like to be in idle

 

[MrFus]

I practiced yesterday takeoffs and landing... And as you mention the easiest way its just wait until im about 1 ft from landing, let the right control alone and just push down the throttle until motors stop after touchdown!

 

[pert]

I practiced yesterday takeoffs and landing... And as you mention the easiest way its just wait until im about 1 ft from landing, let the right control alone and just push down the throttle until motors stop after touchdown!

I use the fusuno landing gear on mine, I can land on anything, without tipping over, worth looking into if they still make them

 

[Beario]

I had to look that up ------------->

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My only concern was the compass, but I saw how they managed to mount it on the leg without issue. Then I looked closer and saw they had extended the motors on there also. I'm almost tempted to try it out on one of mine.

 

[dtitus6297]

There is plenty of landing gear upgrades available at eBay or shapeways.com or even amazon. Any of wich could help the tipping problem. Most phantom 2 landing gear will work as well. Just make sure you remember that the compass is on the legs too and you need to have it mounted in the same place generally and at the same angle too

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[dtitus6297]

I have heard mixed reviews on extending the motor arms

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[MrFus]

After a couple of prototypes I got to print the final version of the front skids for my Fc40, it will require a good push to make it tip forward!

 

[Ti22]

Haven't seen this mentioned but I suggest avoiding GPS mode whenever your close to the ground. Take off or landing the last thing you need is GPS making a location correction when only a few inches off the ground. Such corrections can tilt your aircraft enough to tip over.

 

[MrFus]

You are right, i can see the Fc trying to adjust just before touching ground... I guess should be safer to take off using just altitude lock and switching to GPS lock once that we reach 8 or 9 feet... And same procedure for landing!

Another thing that make safer the landing it's to have a good battery!... lol, I got a couple of cheap ones from eBay, and yesterday after a good 12 minutes using a Turnigy 2.7 I switched to one of the Floureon ones that I got, maybe after 5 or 6 minutes my older son let me know that the LED were flashing "red, red, red..." so I decide to slowly turn around and do a landing on the field before the low voltage return to home feature get triggered, while going down the drone started acting strange and getting harder to keep straight, a few feet before the landing I realized that was descending too fast so I push the throttle but or the voltage dropped so bad or it was too late and end up hitting hard the ground and doing a flip ending upside down...

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[deltamike]

I bought some thin semi rigid clear plastic tubing and I slide it onto the legs in the direction it tends to tip. On landing this tubing prevents the tipping.

 

[MrFus]

The other day mine tip over again but was more like a front crash that anything...

On take off the drone acted all crazy, I could describe the behavior as "hopping" (lifting up around 2 or 4 feet and then dropping almost to ground level while moving forward) when finally I got it stable the LED was blinking red (low battery?) after landing I checked the LiPo and one of cells were dead (charger only can read 2 cells and refuse to charge the unit, if i plug my Blinky balancer it confirms that only two cells are working)... Beyond that incident the extended skids that I got printed are working 100%!

 

[deltamike]

Its a good idea to always check the voltage of your batteries with a volt meter immediately before take off. Carry a meter with you. If your charged battery is reading 12.40 v or below - forget flying. A 4000 mAh fully charged battery in good condition should read about 12.60 v

 

[Ajax]

Yes... A five dollar volt meter is priceless.


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[gianni_BT]

The other day mine tip over again but was more like a front crash that anything...

On take off the drone acted all crazy, I could describe the behavior as "hopping" (lifting up around 2 or 4 feet and then dropping almost to ground level while moving forward) when finally I got it stable the LED was blinking red (low battery?) after landing I checked the LiPo and one of cells were dead (charger only can read 2 cells and refuse to charge the unit, if i plug my Blinky balancer it confirms that only two cells are working)... Beyond that incident the extended skids that I got printed are working 100%!

You can use an object like this:

Remote Control Helicopter Spare parts Battery Monitor Alarm 1S-8S

You connect it to the battery balance connector and it shows the overall battery pack voltage and single cell voltage. You can use it to simply monitor your battery pack status before flying, or mount on the quad to constantly monitor the voltage and get a strong audible alarm if any cell drops below the low threshold that you can set in 0.1V steps.I use this on my P1 to have an early warning, before the red led starts to flash.