Had my first little crash today

[JaysDMC]

Used poor judgement today and flew in some windy conditions. Windier than what I'm used to at least.

You can see at around .27 seconds into the video the Phantom suddenly accelerated. My guess is there was a bit of a vacuum created by the wind and that tunnel I was going through. By the time it shot out of the tunnel you hear the motors spin up to correct itself. Unfortunately it couldn't and it hit the sand then flipped upside down.

At first I thought I was in real trouble. Sand ended up down into the motor housing. I cleaned up and blew out as must sand as possible and eventually worked up the nerve to fire it back up again. At first, 3 motors came to life and motor 4 just twitched. However, it too spun up and flew again fine.

I'll say, these copters are quite strong. Granted, I hit sand and not concrete. But sand and electrical motors don't play well together.

Gimbal survived as well. It took longer to get that working than it did to get the drone to fly again.

Got lucky, never again in the wind though!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2MGl0JQq7I[/youtube]

 

[OI Photography]

Ahhh yes, "Unprotected Beach"...been there many times myself

Nice port-a-potty-pan at the beginning!

 

[amrflyingdude]

good lesson to share.

My "wind" policy is pretty broad, I don't mind wind but I do mind windshear which is exactly what happened to you. Totally agree, something blew your phantom out of control, most likely a sudden wind gust coming out of the tunnel.

Again, great lesson to share! thanks again!

 

[RoyVa]

Flying over the water has no effect on Phantom other than extending the radio signals a little further as it cause the signal to skip rather than be adsorbed. It improves reception. I have two Phantoms and I live in a area that has lots of water and I have flown over water for over a year and a quarter with no issues or problems. Nothing in the water to affect it unless you run into a ship or lighthouse... It's all electronics, radio signals and computer controlled.

 

[Mark The Droner]

My understanding is that if you use circular polarized antennas, the skip on water won't help much because the polarity will reverse, effectively making it invisible to the receiving antenna. So for increased distance over water, think linear polarity...

 

[kenjancef]

So question: in a case like that, with sand in toe motors, would it be advised to not fire up the quad, and maybe take an air blower and blow out the sand? Is there anything in the motor that would have it be a bad thing to do? I am a computer tech, and in my office we have this super powerful blower, we use it to blow dust out of computers. It's like a vacuum in reverse. So in case this ever happened to me, would it be safe to use such a blower?

 

[RoyVa]

Sand is what is used on sandpaper so just keep that in mind. Anytime you get sand or grit in the motors they need to be clean befor flying to prevent damage to the staters or rotor. Best is to blow out the dirt or grit with compressed air and tapping on them to try to get it the best you can. Turn the motor slowly by hand trying to feel for any resistance or even listen to hear if any residue remains. You want the props to spin freely with no feel or sounds of any trash remaining. Blow them out till you are satisfied. When clean you should be good to go. Any remaining micro particles should come out after you start flying it again with the high speed and prop wash it help to clear them also.with the new motors today they are press fitted and cannot be easily disassembled for cleaning like we use to do. So tapping and air are the method of blowing them out now.

 

[Fyod]

I would take the time and take them apart. Its not that complicated. Compressed air can lodge sand even further, not helping at all.
I often see people taking compressed air to their laptop fans, not realizing that they're blowing most of the dust even further into the laptop.