Lost control and crashed...

[peter123]

Had a crash the other day and I'm not sure what the deal is. Plane suddenly lost all control & power near the ground and impacted. There's also an engine noise that I've noticed as well. Here are some videos of the incidents:

In this video I thought it would be funny to strafe my friend while he ran out to retrieve his crashed plane, but that doesn't go as planned. After the engine cuts I am unable to control the plane whatsoever. After I recovered it the controls all responded normally as if nothing happened.

This video features the engine noise. No clue is this is related to the sudden loss of control but this seems to coincide with reduced thrust and difficulty climbing:

Did some testing this morning and just let the motor run for a while and didn't notice anything unusual. I had another incident too (not on video) where the plane decided to ignore all control inputs, but maintained the same power setting and climbed instead of cutting power and diving into the ground. Here's my setup (FliteTest Powerpack C from a few years ago):

Transmitter: Spektrum DX6i
Receiver: Spektrum AR6100e
ESC: EMAX BLHeli 30A
Motor: GrandTurbo GT2215/09

No clue what's causing this. I want to blame the ESC for the engine roughness and cutting power to the receiver, but it could be the transmitter (or anything really). Thinking I'm better off just buying new parts until the issue disappears, unless there's something here that points to a specific part.

 

[SSgt Duramax]

I kind of have a feeling it may be the ESC.... The motor being weird, this could potentially be caused by a brown out. Although my crappy hobby king radio does this too (I wouldn't wish this radio on anyone, by the way $20 is still too much for it) and it is 100% the cheapness of it, although I don't think that is your problem.

If you have or can borrow another ESC, try that before jumping to anything else, that is just my opinion. Don't go buying all new parts, diagnose the problem with what you have then you can go from there.

 

[Merv]

...I want to blame the ESC for the engine roughness and cutting power to the receiver...

It could be the ESC.
It could also be a bad Rx, bad antenna placement, a bad servo wire or a bad servo connecter.
These intermittent problems are difficult to trace. I’d keep the plane grounded until you get this sorted out.
Try going through all of the connections, wiggling one at a time to see if the problem can be duplicated.

It would be a shame to replace everything if the problem is simply a bad connection that could be easily fixed.

 

[peter123]

I kind of have a feeling it may be the ESC.... The motor being weird, this could potentially be caused by a brown out.

Try going through all of the connections, wiggling one at a time to see if the problem can be duplicated.

Thanks for the help. I'll put the whole thing together and just keep messing with it until I can duplicate it if possible. Shame it's such a hard thing to diagnose since there's so many variables.

 

[SSgt Duramax]

I had a rash of ESC issues today since reading this. My daughters plane kept cutting out, and one of the motors on my FPV sled started acting up too. Weird, I think you jinxed me.

 

[Tench745]

I would start with simple things.
-Make sure your antennas are still intact and not blocked by any part of the airplane. I had one plane where I taped an antenna to the landing gear wire so any time the gear leg was between me and the antenna I lost signal. Took a test flight or two to realize what I'd done.
-Make sure your ESC to motor connections are all secure and can't accidentally touch one another. If two of the wires touch it can cause the motor to get jittery and/or stop altogether. If this is happening, worst case scenario it will fry your ESC.
-If you have a watt meter hook it up and move all of your controls to the stops at the same time to make sure your servos aren't drawing more current than the BEC can supply.
As always, when working on your plane make sure to take the prop off first!
One last test that will require the prop on:
-Check your amp draw at full power to make sure you're not pulling more than your ESC or battery can supply.

 

[peter123]

I had a rash of ESC issues today since reading this. My daughters plane kept cutting out, and one of the motors on my FPV sled started acting up too. Weird, I think you jinxed me.

My apologies for the curse I may have spread

I would start with simple things.
-Make sure your antennas are still intact and not blocked by any part of the airplane. I had one plane where I taped an antenna to the landing gear wire so any time the gear leg was between me and the antenna I lost signal. Took a test flight or two to realize what I'd done.
-Make sure your ESC to motor connections are all secure and can't accidentally touch one another. If two of the wires touch it can cause the motor to get jittery and/or stop altogether. If this is happening, worst case scenario it will fry your ESC.
-If you have a watt meter hook it up and move all of your controls to the stops at the same time to make sure your servos aren't drawing more current than the BEC can supply.
As always, when working on your plane make sure to take the prop off first!
One last test that will require the prop on:
-Check your amp draw at full power to make sure you're not pulling more than your ESC or battery can supply.

Thanks. Gonna start by flying a different plane with a different setup for a while so I can rule out the transmitter, then I'll definitely be trying each of those things you suggested. Antenna placement is definitely a possibility too since the receiver I've got has very small antennas.

 

[Gavinski]

Had a crash the other day and I'm not sure what the deal is. Plane suddenly lost all control & power near the ground and impacted. There's also an engine noise that I've noticed as well. Here are some videos of the incidents:

In this video I thought it would be funny to strafe my friend while he ran out to retrieve his crashed plane, but that doesn't go as planned. After the engine cuts I am unable to control the plane whatsoever. After I recovered it the controls all responded normally as if nothing happened.

This video features the engine noise. No clue is this is related to the sudden loss of control but this seems to coincide with reduced thrust and difficulty climbing:

Did some testing this morning and just let the motor run for a while and didn't notice anything unusual. I had another incident too (not on video) where the plane decided to ignore all control inputs, but maintained the same power setting and climbed instead of cutting power and diving into the ground. Here's my setup (FliteTest Powerpack C from a few years ago):

Transmitter: Spektrum DX6i
Receiver: Spektrum AR6100e
ESC: EMAX BLHeli 30A
Motor: GrandTurbo GT2215/09

No clue what's causing this. I want to blame the ESC for the engine roughness and cutting power to the receiver, but it could be the transmitter (or anything really). Thinking I'm better off just buying new parts until the issue disappears, unless there's something here that points to a specific part.

Think is was the ESC, Just a thought LOL

 

[Bricks]

How good is your battery?