T15 with Naza M dropped out of the sky!!!!!

[ffvdiaz]

Yesterday I was flying my T15 Octo with a Naza M controller around my local flying field trying to find a downed airplane that got lost on Sunday. I was using my Gopro Hero 3 as an FPV camera under goggles. The area is swampy and is covered in very high grass; I flew out to the area at about 30 feet and brought the drone to a hover and started rotating the camera to look down when suddenly the drone just dropped out of the sky and into the bushes. I knew the rough area where it went down but it was still a large one. I spent over 2 hours trying to locate the drone walking through the swamp and grass. I finally found it with the help of another drone when it was almost dark. Thank God my drone has lots of lights that made it easy to spot at in the twilight.

My question is why would it do that?? My radio is a DX8 with a AR8000 receiver and a TM1000 telemetry module with an altimeter, The batteries were fully charged, the sky was clear and I had a good GPS lock. The drone is setup to return home if it loses radio signal and at the time of the crash I was in GPS mode. I am totally stomped by this one. Wasn't the drone suppose to return home?? My radio failsafe is setup with the throttle and all switches in the down position. Could it be that what caused the crash?? Should I rebind the radio with the throttle set at about 50% instead?? Looking forward to your responses; thanks.

Phil from Trinidad

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Don't know about your model, but a loss of signal (fail safe situation) with throttle down could be the issue there.

 

[ffvdiaz]

At the time of the crash the throttle was at about 55% in a hover. Are you recommending that I rebind the DX8 with the throttle fail safe at hover power for the Naza to activate??

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Like I said, I am unfamiliar with your model type. You stated it plunged. 55% hover throttle does not sound like that would indicate plunge action. GPS I imagine has nothing to do with power levels (Throttle) and I think would be active all the time when the drone is powered.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Is it operable (flyable)? was there a power drop? battery, or ESC malfunction?

 

[ffvdiaz]

The batteries were fully charged and is working fine. All cells were over 4.15 Volts and I received no low voltage warning from the radio telemetry; I flew for about 3 mins and this was my fourth flight for the day. All ESCs went to zero throttle together. Yes it is operable, the tall grass cushioned the drop.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

What I would try is a controlled test. Hover the drone at a safe height over a safe ground cover and turn the controller off. If it's RTH function is correctly working it should react as you programmed it to. Repeat several times to see consistency.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Perhaps even idle the drone (Low power hover speeds) and wiggle all wires to see if there's a intermittant power/signal short.

 

[ffvdiaz]

I will try hovering it low and turning off the radio to see what happens. Luckily when this happened I was relatively low. In the three previous flights when I got bored looking for the plane I flew to 400 feet over some factories and a road just for fun. God really protects kids and fools. Thanks guys.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

God is the best.