Cold Weather Flying

[Tkerrigan22]

It is a good idea (if you want to keep your multirotor in one piece) that you allow your craft to acclimate to the temperature you will be flying in. I typically let mine adjust to the outside temp for an hour. Then recalibrate your control board. Otherwise this could happen to you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scXx9Si6Hwk

 

[Tkerrigan22]

This flight was after letting the mulirotor acclimate for about 20min. I was in a hurry to beat the setting sun one day after work.

 

[RAM]

It was flying well at first. Why do you think the temperature affected it?

 

[Tkerrigan22]

I have heard from several sources that the KK2 board will ack "strange" when the temp changes drastically during flight. I took it out of my house (68 degrees) and outside (20 degrees) and put it up in the air to quickly. I had it flying a few days earlier without a problem. I checked all the props and looked for loose screws just before I put it in the air. This is why I believe that it was the KK2 board.

 

[cranialrectosis]

I must respectfully disagree.

I have flown my KK2s in -20 after a transition of <> 4-5 minutes with no real issues.

In the video I can hear some wicked vibration. You have a nasty rattle. I would suspect vibration on the accelerometors as root cause of that crash.

 

[dflash]

I notice some water drops on the camera lens right after the flip. Do you have your KK board covered? If not, then possibly water drop may have caused the board to "short" and make the sensors act haywire?

 

[Andre]

I flew mine on the weekend...

Design 1 was way to heavy.



Design 2 much better and it was -30C.

No issues.



- Very untuned board. Was on my racer 250 quad and all 4 motors have been in plane crashes.
But its my winter quad for a reason

 

[Andre]

Hmm watched the video its like 1 side just cut out.

Did the connectors for the ESC get wet maybe?

 

[pgerts]

Go 2500 km (1500 miles ) north of Ottawa and you will find another flyer used to fly in cold weather.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC51fvmguHAGqAVPC0B8IK4w
It is not only cold but also very few minutes of light in the winter.

 

[Andre]

Yes we are starting to claw back some day light here as well.

 

[Tkerrigan22]

The rattle in the video is my gopro in its waterproof case . The same thing happens with my quad. The KK2 board was covered but I suppose that it would be impossible for me to guarantee that no water made contact on the board... since it was covered in snow by the time I was able to take a look at it. I agree that it would seem like one side simply cut out, but being a hexacopter I wouldn't expect it to flip so violently. It did not drift to the right very much, just a violent flip into the ground.

 

[dflash]

I'm in south Florida and one day I was flying my SK450 with exposed kk2. A light drizzle began and the quad just fell out of the sky, good thing it was just a few feet. After that it would not even take off even though I could see power going to it and data on the LCD. I grabbed a can of compressed air and sprayed the KK2. Problem solved.

 

[Andre]

So interesting development.

I was testing my winter quad.

Flew fine on Saturday but then on Sunday I was adding the gopro and testing the balance.
Hovered inside just fine but when I went outside I could not take off.

Then my #2 motor shut down. It actually iced up.

Brought everything inside, warned up/thawed and it hovered again just fine.
So maybe that is what happened to you. I wonder if the motor/esc detects the increased resistance and shut down.

 

[HawkMan]

from my kk board winter experience with 2-3 temp change crashes, that didn't seem like it.

the kk will do one of two things as it gets colder and it usually happens after at around 8-10 minutes.

at first you "might" notice it feels wiggly, not always, but a sign to land now, probably won't happen if you're not in auto level.

then lit will start to drift and you will be unable to correct and an emergence landing/crash is your only way out.

that flip was way to sudden to just be temp change.

 

[Andre]

Buzzing around