Iris went haywire on first day.. :(

ArduCopter Copter 3.1
1

Hi,

I got my Iris today… and I crashed my Iris today. I started of with mostly Loiter mode using the regular RC remote… everything was working like a charm. I wanted to test the auto-stuff so I set up a mission, which also worked fine. After charging my batteries I went out for another auto mission. This time the Iris started acting strange. I hit the RTL, trying to get it to fly back. It just became more aggressive and started to fly higher and further away. I seemed to get it back after a while and again tried to get it to land, but it just wouldn’t. I desperately switched between different modes trying to gain control again but after just under a minute or so the Iris hit earth… Aside from two broken arms, props and motors I am more concerned over what actually happened… Why did I loose control? Even when I switched back to Loiter mode it didn’t comply…

I’ve attached the logfile from the flight.

Also… where can one get Iris spares, like motors, arms and props? They don’t seem to sell them at 3DR…

2

Some more information:

  1. Just before the Iris started acting strange I had a flip-over on the ground (tall grass) and flipped it back by hand, could the upside-down experience have affected the behaviour experienced afterwards?

  2. I went through the Initial Setup in Mission Planner procedure earlier that day, before I read that one should not do that with the Iris. I did not load the Iris parameters either, so it was basically configured and calibrated based on the Mission Planner Init Setup. This is my own theory why it behaved strangely, however I did fly it for 30 minutes or so prior to the auto mission haywire. It acted perfectly fine in Loiter mode, and I did a few return home and lands as well, with no problems noticed at all.

-ra

3

Just got word back from 3DR. They confirmed my belief that the reconfiguration of the Iris was the problem. I had mistakenly chosen an X-frame instead of a V-frame. It’s a bit odd that it flew so well before the auto mission though.