Frustrated? Feel my pain...

[Orcoz]

Hey there FT world.

So I've been flying for roughly 4 years after a long hiatus (kids). I've got a large selection of foamies, from the old GWS 109 & P51 to a Parkzone Corsair, Micro T28, Spit, Bixler 1 (FPV), DH Vampire... and then add all of the Flitetest builds I've built and enjoyed. Delta/Old Fogey/Cruiser/Baby Blender/Versa (x3) and the FT22.

Addicted?

Notice what's missing? Multirotors!

It's not like I haven't tried. I started waaay back almost 2 years ago when the original H-quad came out, with the KK board with the blue knobs for 'dialing in' your I & P. Wife and kiddos called it my 'roflcopter'. All it ever did was flip over as soon as I touched the throttle, breaking multiple parts until finally one motor shaft got bent. Quad 1, Orcoz 0.

Next up, with my three remaining motors I decide that I'm more of a tricopter guy anyway. Not trusting my ability to get David's yaw mechanism built correctly, I opted for the HobbyKing knockoff, the X900 frame. Frame is great, KK2.0 flashed just fine (V1.5 at the time) but heaven help me I would smoke the servo within seconds of getting it off the ground. Servo was the 939mg that was recommended. 3 of them sitting in the trash bin before I tried a different one suggested in RCGroups... it's still intact but the same spin/flip/crash sequence that I'm now used to resulted in a destroyed motor mount on the yaw mechanism. BLeh.

So I stepped away for awhile. My thought process was that the technology is moving SO fast, that someone significantly more capable than me will figure this out, and I can just buy my way to success.

Then the Flitetest crack dealing team put out another video, and I got hooked again. Knuckle Quad!!! So cute. So capable of handling my ImmersionRC5.8 FPV tx and camera... this is IT! I even ponied up and bought the recommended motors from Lazertoyz, along with the Green multistar escs, TONS of extra props. Built like a dream. Flashed to v1.6 and it FLEW! I was able to get through an entire battery going back in forth, and I even got to the point where I could do a figure eight without too much elevation deviation!!!

Guys, I was on cloud 9.99! During the halftime of the Seahawk/49'rs game I put my FPV gear on just to fly with the added weight, and it handled it like it wasn't even there. Then a prop decided it didn't want to be a part of the team anymore and left the scene suddenly. The result was the freshly painted KnuckleQuad descended quickly hitting my driveway and erupting into many small pieces of black plastic and wood tears. At least the right team one that game.

I brushed it off, like anyone in this hobby needs to do... and I dutifully ordered another full set of Knuckle Straight motor mounts. The package got here so quickly (Thanks Jen & Anna) that I was rebuilt in about a week. Determined, I trudged back out to my flying spot, plugged it in and ... nothing. I got this silly "No Yaw Input Detected" error. I'm not a complete idiot. I unplugged, did my pre-flight checks, went through the motions (yes my radio was turned on prior to plugging in the battery) and still got the same error. BLEH.

Day 2 attempt. I reset to factory settings, reflashed, reprogramed to mirror the settings I had it flying with before... and... and... IT FLEW! I had it hovering at about 20 feet off the ground, just doing some slight movements left and right, forward back. Then it stopped. I mean the motors just STOPPED. It seemed to sit there, suspended 20 feet in the air as if saying "you know what's going to happen now right?" The resulting impact with my driveway was a mirror image of the original crash a week and a half ago.

I'm a grown man, so crying wasn't really appropriate (although I felt it coming). Throwing my DX8 did cross my mind, but fortunately I overcame that impulse before I made my day really really bad. I gathered up the bits and pieces and deposited them on my building table in disgust, and then logged on the forum here with the intent of posting all of my collection of multi-rotating horrors for sale to end my suffering. But the other posters in the "For Sale" section seemed to have their crap together waaay better than me, so instead I have written this short novel. I guess I was hoping the action of venting my tale would be cathartic.

At this point, although I'm 44, have a wife and two teenage kids, I am under the firm belief that I need to run away from home. In fact, as soon as I'm done typing this, I'm going to go find a stick and a red bandana to gather my belongings within, and I'm setting out across the country. When I get to Ohio, I will live in the woods behind the Flitetest HQ, with the coyote and the possums. I'll bide my time until one day, when the swede is fully engulfed in flight... I'll snatch him up and make him teach me all that I obviously don't know about making several motors fly together in unison.

OK. I'm off. I'll check back here to see if anyone has any input before I start putting together my hobo stick-n-bandana pouch.

Oz

 

[Orcoz]

Ok - I decided that a picture was appropriate... it was pretty before it decided it didn't want to fly anymore.

 

[earthsciteach]

I don't understand why the motors would just stop unless there was a loss of signal and the failsafe was motors off.

 

[Craftydan]

Orcoz, I feel your pain. I've smashed, broken, stripped, bent, chipped, ground, dinged, pancaked, cart wheeled and *lost* quads, and after every bad hit, it hurts.

DON'T LET THAT QUAD WIN!!! REBUILD!!!

As you've learned, Delrin doesn't take an impact on a hard surface well. My advise -- go down to your home improvement store of choice, and pick up either a pack of the widest zipties they sell, or a short length of 2" PVC (to cut in 1/2" slices). pop off the landing struts off the motor mounts, and using a medium size ziptie, attach a loop of the fat ziptie or PVC slice to the arm where the landing skids were. Then it'll have to really work at making an destructive crash.

BTW, there's a fair chance Teach is right . . . did you happen to notice if the light on your RX was blinking or solid after the crash? the Orange RX's will be solid when they first power up, then blink if they loose power or there's a signal loss in flight. if that's the case I'd move the antenna leads -- looks like they're both following the ESC leads and that will greatly hurt signal strength.

 

[earthsciteach]

Oh, yeah. My tricopter flew away. It just up and left. So, I do feel your pain.

 

[Craftydan]

And teach wasn't even that mean to his . . . and didn't it bite you too?

Gotta show that quad whose boss, or next thing you know it'll have the run of the house

 

[earthsciteach]

This said by a man who has experienced the same loss.

 

[Tritium]

If I quit when I crash I would have quit about 200 times now. Built a new tri-copter and it was flying great about 30' up when it unexpectedly decided it was a "stunt" multi and did 1 and a half flips to the ground. 1st time I did not break a prop in a crash. Good thing I always make "many" frame parts. It was back in the air in 20 min. I never knew what caused it to flip out. Flying over 3' tall grass sounded like a good idea to limit broken parts. Hey it works great but in a 50 acre patch of grass that downed multi is a bugger to find.

Thurmond

 

[earthsciteach]

Store bought parts are really just silly, if you really think about it. Multirotors are flying abominations not capable of defying gravity without fancy sensors and such. Build your own landing gear and motor mounts!

 

[Orcoz]

You guys are awesome. OK, the Swede is safe... for now.

I think I could be dealing with a bad Rx. I'm in agreement that it likely went back into "safe" mode mid-flight. I'll drop a real Spektrum RX on there and see if I have better luck. I'm thinking of cutting up a pool 'noodle' to craft a softer landing set too.

Onward. (he says meekly)

 

[jhitesma]

The suddenly stopping could be those multistar ESC's. Were you at low throttle?

I've seen mine suddenly stop at low RPM's multiple times, a bit of googling found that it's a common problem with the green MS ESC's.

Since I run a MultiWii instead of a KK once I arm my props are moving but at very low RPM. If I touch the spinner on one it will usually stop and if I have some dirt in a motor - the motor may stop while sitting at idle. And once they stop, they don't start back up unless I disarm and rearm. Just giving it throttle doesn't bring the ESC back.

If you've got the 20amp multistars then it's not that hard to flash simonK to them. If you got the smaller ones like I did it's a bit trickier since they're so freakishly small (extra small processor that the standard flashing tool won't fit and no pads so you've got to solder right to the tiny tiny pins on the tiny tiny chip...ugh.)

I haven't tried a KK but it's my understanding that unlike the MW when they're armed the props aren't necessarily spinning. But if you were in the air and doing something that may result in one motor being at low RPM (lowish throttle and yawing maybe) that could result in a motor slowing enough to hit the giltch in the ESC code and stall it out resulting in a fall from the sky. Thankfully the "idle" on a MW has kept that from happening to me but I have heard a few reports of it happening with KK boards and the multistar ESC's.

 

[Tritium]

Pool noodle landing gear good! Solid Foam Practice golf ball (semi-hard shell) also GOOD!

Thurmond

 

[DDSFlyer]

Thanks for the great novel. I'm sorry for your pain but it helped me grin over my horrible day. I hope you can rebuild and fly to your hearts content with the multirotors. Btw, I don't think many flying parts agree with Tarmac no matter what they are made of...

 

[Orcoz]

The suddenly stopping could be those multistar ESC's. Were you at low throttle?

I've seen mine suddenly stop at low RPM's multiple times, a bit of googling found that it's a common problem with the green MS ESC's.

Since I run a MultiWii instead of a KK once I arm my props are moving but at very low RPM. If I touch the spinner on one it will usually stop and if I have some dirt in a motor - the motor may stop while sitting at idle. And once they stop, they don't start back up unless I disarm and rearm. Just giving it throttle doesn't bring the ESC back.

If you've got the 20amp multistars then it's not that hard to flash simonK to them. If you got the smaller ones like I did it's a bit trickier since they're so freakishly small (extra small processor that the standard flashing tool won't fit and no pads so you've got to solder right to the tiny tiny pins on the tiny tiny chip...ugh.)

I was at about mid-throttle and yes I'm using the 20amp Multistars. They aren't flashed with Simonk - just pulled them out of the hobbyking package and did the normal kk2.0 setup:

1. Factory Reset
2. ACC Calibration
3. Mode Settings
4. Mics Settings
5. Load Motor Layout
6. Receiver Test
7. PI Edits
8. Self Level Settings
9. ESC Calibration
10. FLY

I think it's very likely that I either have a bad OrangeRX or my antenna placement may have been a problem. I'm putting it back together today and will let you guys know.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT! (The coyote will have to go it alone for awhile longer).

 

[Orcoz]

As you've learned, Delrin doesn't take an impact on a hard surface well

So, now that I've got 8 of these Delrin straight motor mount/landing gear in various degrees of fubar, I'm wondering if I can cobble together 4 that will work? It's JigSaw puzzle time! I'll post some pics if I'm successful.

 

[jhitesma]

I homebrewed my knuckle specifically because I figured being a noob at multis I'd end up smashing the nice delrin parts to pieces of I bought an actual kit.

Instead of motor mounts I just made my booms 2" longer and zip tied my motors right to them. Then for my original landing gear I cut some acrylic strips and zip tied them on. My first "Landing" convinced me that not using the "official" parts was a very good call:

Pretty sure the pricey delrin bits would have met the same fate as my freebie acrylic!

After that I switched to thin plywood. They lasted a LITTLE longer, but still only 2-3 flights before I'd have a hard enough landing and break them.

Finally I picked up a set of extra large (1cm wide) zip ties and followed this FT article (http://flitetest.com/articles/diy-landing-gear-for-multirotors).

Love them! Haven't broken one yet despite many hard crashes and plenty of other repairs to the quad!

I've seen a few other ways of doing zip tie landing gear since that are a bit cleaner but the basic idea is all the same.

The FT bits are pretty and nice...but for a beginner - stick with cheap/free and easily replaced parts to get started!

And if you've got the hardware and knowledge I'd strongly suggest flashing those ESC's with simonk. I really want to do mine but since I'm using the 10A multistars and they don't have programming pads and do have ultra small processors I'm putting it off until I have a set of spare ESC's in case I mess something up. I have a set of 20a hk blue series on order that should be here in a week and a half or so - once they're here I'll try flashing my 10a's since if I do fry them I'll have the 20's to fall back on...and if I don't fry them I'll have the 20's to start a bigger build with

Seriously though - save the delrin for a few weeks or months. Just make some longer booms and mount your motors right to them, then whip up some pool noodle or zip tie based landing gear and enjoy hard landings with no broken parts!

 

[cranialrectosis]

I suggest you relocate the receiver first and move it and the antennae away from the ESCs.

I find this post timely today:
http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?7341-Can-you-relate

This build may be of interest to you. Note how he uses the zip ties for landing struts:
http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?6530-Mustang7302-s-iQuad-Build-Log/page3


Delrin breaks. When you are learning to fly I recommend you buy extra, avoid it or fly over grass.

 

[Orcoz]

Getting sucked back in...

Ok, your combined encouragement (and fear that my earlier comments may have warranted a restraining order from the country of Sweden) has propelled me to slack of from work this morning and instead get a little buzzed from sniffing super glue.

Here's what I did:
1) Collected all of the various pieces of my broken quad... determined what could be salvaged, and what couldn't:

 

[Orcoz]

From there I was able to quickly rebuild it into what appears to be a working Knuckle Quad!

 

[Orcoz]

Then it was a quick trip out to the pool shed to swipe one of the dozens of pool noodles my wife bought last summer...