[darkdave]

So my day began with me installing Revolution on my RD290 and I had problems with one particular engine going to full power sporadically causing the drone to flip over again and again during testing. So I'm guessing this is a problem with the ESC and not the Revolution Board.

I put that project aside and then focused on my QAV250 (Chinese Clone) and flew fine in Basic mode on another Revolution Board from another supplier. Now when I enabled the GPS mode from my apartment window and flew it on Attitude mode for a while (to give the INS time and data to calibrate properly) before switching to Velocity Roam, there seemed to be a lot of interference from wind (seemed). So I switched back to attitude mode but still there seemed to be gust trying to flip it over, so I hit the return to base function and after a short while I lost video feed and telemetry. When I stuck my video receiver our the window surely enough i regained video feed and could see that the drone was hovering above my building.

So I went downstairs to try and regain control of the drone that was now hovering above my building. I could not re-establish a solid connection and only had partial control. Yaw wasnt working and only rolling action seemed to be working but only sporadically. So I was fighting to land the drone  and eventually the drone ended up on top of my roof.

Now I have to wait for my variable blade copter to return from the repair shop and use it as a "Thunder Bird" rescue drone by tethering a grapling hook to it and try and hook my downed drone up with my bigger drone and hope i dont lose the rescue drone too. The rescue drone uses it's own proprietry 3DQ flight controller.

Here is a video of my "rescue drone".
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYyNzk0NzUwMA==.html
Close any popup windows asking you to login.
After this test flight there was some problems with the proprietry flight controller, hopefully it wont happen again and cause it to end up next to my down drone on the roof.

So what can you do to help me?

1. Has anyone else had problems configuring Hexacopters and experienced volatile instability like I have? Or is it just my ESC? I notice that for quads such as the QAV250 its smooth as a baby's bottom during take off.

2. Has anyone else had problems reconnecting to their drone via the 433MHZ channel after a disconnection? I know some of you are thinking I could have set it to autoland after return to base, but if that happened it might have hit the building it was hovering next to. I dont understand why I only had partial and sporadic control of the drone after reconnection. Doesn't make sense. I did make sure that my antenna was perpendicular to the drone for polarity.

3. Anyone got suggestions of a design for a grapling hook to pick up my smaller drone with my bigger drone? I am thinking of teathering one at the mid section of the larger one. The smaller drone has some plastic zip tie band loops above it. I tied my GPS rod to the bow of the drone to create a tension plastic line for my FPV antenna to hang on to. So A hook could in theory get into that loop and lift off baby!

Attachments:

The Blue Propeller quad with good stable ESCs is a QAV250(not the one I crashed on the roof but uses the same ESC and engines).

The other drone is a RD290 Im trying to work but the "South West" Engine is creating a lot of problem by flipping the drone over when it revs too high intermitently.

David

[darkdave]

Attached: I forgot to include a close up pic of the Hexcacopter's engine in case some of you might recognize it.

[TheOtherCliff]

It sounds like your RC radio stopped working in the end.

The default termination of RTB is "hover" (not "land").  So you would have had to switch it back to some other mode to land it.  Since that didn't work, something fishy is going on with your control.  I presume that you tried switching to another mode...

You really need to walk before you run.  You should get Attitude mode flying well with INS13, then add VelocityRoam, then either RTB, then FPV, and test and get it working well before going to the next level.  Always have fallback modes on your switch.

[darkdave]

I know how to set up land after RTB but I delibrately did not because it was a high rise area and it could land on the roof of a building (which it ended up doing anyway in the end).

I know how to work Vroam and RTB. The problem wasnt my lack of knowledge of those functions, I already "ran" in my previous Mark 2 Ironman days "Jarvis, sometimes you have to run before you can walk". The problem is that when I did switch to other modes as you assumed correctly I had no yaw control (this was in Attitude mode NOT Vroam). And the roll control that I did have was limited and sporadic. The problem was the control link to the board. It was not stable. I did not have the same problem with another board that I have now transfered to the hexacopter. Only this board, so I will be sure to make a note that this manufacturer did not build the transceiver properly. On Board 1 (hexacopter now) I hit RTB when I was losing control of the quad also due to wind issues (these QAV250's suck in windy conditions especially with a GPS rod) and it did RTB properly, I then commanded the drone to move North of my building by roughly 100m so that I could have more horzontal line of sight control with advantageous perpendicular radio polarity instead of poor parallel vertical above my head polarity control (this is the part that was different between the two boards at identical point in the two scenarios, I HAD CONTROL THAT TIME) I then flew the drone to a safe zone and landed.

By the way attached is a photo of my MacGyvered drone rescue hook.... BEHOLD... THE HOOKS OF LIFE!!

Ingredience:

1. One part fan grill
2. Two cloth hangers
And no sticky tape or chewing gum!

My house cleaner is going to be mad at me because she used those hangars to hang up my suit and tie. Now their on the couch instead of the closet.

Been practicing on my hexacopter using my hands as a simulator... and my mouth for soundFX "... bzzzzzzz...vaoow..."

[darkdave]

Forgot to show you guys the last recorded FPV footage from the roofed drone. Check out the attached photo.

[12many]

I'm no expert but that little hex going to be able to lift a quad?

I'd suggest flying a reconnaissance mission first, find your quad and game out how to recover it.

You might want to go with something much more simple for a hook - probably a grapple-hook style out of a coat hangar.  Something that can hook a wire or gps stalk or something?  Try testing it on your hex first.

Of course you could always talk to the security or the building supervisor.  Or bribe someone who has access to the roof?  It's kind of the anti-climatic solution but maybe you could buy him a few drinks and get him to copy his key so you can use the roof as your own personal helipad? 


Great story though - I'm interested to hear how it turns out!

[darkdave]

I think you've had 12 too many beer cans

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYyNzk0NzUwMA==.html

THAT'S THE RESCUE DRONE!

The hex is what I practice on with the gadget I made which incidently IS made up of 2 clothing hangers and 1 fan grill.

And yes I will video document the rescue attempt and post it on youku and post the link here (Youku is China's knockoff of Youtube).

Hopefully that's not all it ends up being... an attempt.

[darkdave]

There was no need for a dramatic rescue of my smaller drone by my bigger one. A maintenence guy found it as he climbed up the maintenence ladder which is btw rusted to hell and scarry looking to climb. It goes straight up with no breaks.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTYzNDg0MTUwNA==.html

Above is video evidence I was correct about my suspicions about a faulty tranceiver in teh board.

Attached are photos by a DJI phantom drone belonging to the engineering club of the campus. They helped to take photos of my drone before the retrieval.

David