Setting minimum rotor speed to prevent crashes

ArduCopter
1

So yesterday was my first test flight with my drone, and sadly I already crash it, breaking one of the propellers. here was how the crash happened:

At one point it started to go up slightly faster than I was expecting which in response I lowered the throttle a bit too much, which in turn made the drone descend even faster, which then I raised the throttle way higher than necessary… I think you get the idea. At one point I cut the throttle entirely making the drone fall to the ground.

While the crash was mainly caused by my lack of experience I think there are some tweaks that could be done to prevent further problems, hear me out. At the moment I need to increase the throttle almost half way through its range as to the drone start leaving the ground. Wouldn’t it be safer if at zero throttle the drone was barely leaving the ground? This would mean that if in the event of the throttle being cut, the drone would descend very slowly, thus preventing crashes.

So what do you guys think? Is it a good idea? If so what would be the best way to achieve it? I am Mission Planner and I am not really sure how to set the minimum rotor speed.

Any other tips to helping preventing future crashes are also very welcomed.

Finally, sorry if I am asking some basic/simple stuff. I am just starting working with drones so there is a lot of things that I don’t know. There is a lot of information available online but at times it can be very overwhelming.

2

You could set the min motor speed to like 20-30% - but I highly advise against doing so.

If you’re aircraft is well tuned and you are flying in loiter, the aircraft won’t descend faster than the speeds that you have set. Usually in stabilize mode we want the ability to cut throttle fully in case something goes wrong.

3

There is a planned “low altitude fence” feature that will prevent this from happening. Until then you need to practice more using a simulator or a cheaper drone.