DONT TRUST THE DEFAULT SETTINGS!! - A cautionary tale. So, as a little gift to myself this year, I purchased a brand new Walkera Tali H500 hexacopter in carbon fiber black. It was a bit pricey, but I had worked hard and had a little bonus money and cashed in some vacation time I hadnt used. This was what I had been calling my dream drone, the one I probably would never get, but here it was in my living room the day after Christmas. I had done my research. I knew everything about this drone, or so I thought. I followed all of the setup and calibration procedures. Sadly, right off I was not getting any power to the gimbal that holds the camera steady under the hexacopter. I got out my multimeter and sure enough, no power at the actual port in the drone that is supposed to supply power and data signal to the gimbal. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed. I figured Id at least get in some flying time before giving up on it. I took it outside and lifted off. It flew like a dream. It was powerful, fast and agile. It seemed like it would go forever, boasting a 25 minute flight time on one charge. Suddenly, the radio buzzed twice, which is the low voltage alarm warning me it was time to recharge the batteries. Before I could react, the drone shut down and I watched it just fall out of the sky. It slammed into the ground, bits of shattered plastic flying into the air. It was a very helpless feeling. I was basically watching my dream drone that I had saved up for plummet to Earth, wondering why the hell it just shut off mid-flight. A huge range of emotions came over me all at once. I wanted to scream, cry, laugh and throw my controller across the field all at once. I took a deep breath and remained calm, despite the gravity (no pun intended) of what was happening. I gathered up the shattered remains of my 4 hour old grown-up toy and began the slow, depressing walk back to the house. After a bit of searching online, I discovered that by default, the controller warning voltage is set to the same as the hexacopters fail-safe voltage, which ironically is where the hexacopter simply shuts down (by default). So basically, by the time the controller warns the pilot that the battery is running low, its already falling out of the sky. This is documented NOWHERE in the paperwork that comes with the drone. The information I read outlined how I can set the controller to warn me sooner and how to change the settings on the hexacopter so it will try to land instead of simply cutting power to the motors, but that was little help at this point. So the final damage report. The plastic body is trashed. As you can see from the photos, two of the arms are smashed. One of the carbon fiber landing gear broke at the mounting pipe. The other is intact. Since the gimbal wasnt working and I didnt have it installed, the camera and mount suffered no damage. I took everything apart and diagnosed the electronic components. Everything is in working order. I was even able to fix the plug for the gimbal once it was apart. There were a few bad solder joints keeping power from reaching the plug. All of the broken bits are replaceable and available for less than $100. I should be able to order a new body and install all of the guts out of the old one into the new one. All of this said, Im not saying Im completely free of blame. Had the camera been working I probably would have been paying more attention to the display on the screen and noticed the battery level was low before the warning buzzer went off. Sadly, Im not the only one who learned this lesson about default settings the hard way. At the end of the day, Ive decided Im not going to let this destroy my mood. Yes, it sucks, but its fixable. Had it been a complete loss, I would probably be a lot more upset. Lesson learned the hard way, but learned none the less. If anyone wants to donate replacement parts, theyre on my Amazon wish list, haha! Landing gear parts are only $8.00! amazon/gp/registry/wishlist/3M56TFDJ773GI/ref=topnav_lists_1 Ill have lots of lovely aerial shots and video to post once I get things back up and running. Aerial photography and video is a hobby Im hoping to learn a lot more about in the near future. Ill certainly have a great tool for it once Im done crashing the hell out of it. Thanks for listening to me whine. Have a good night all!
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 01:30:29 +0000
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