X8 Startup noise issue

Archive
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Dear all,

Greetings from Jordan! We are out here with an X8 RTF which we have been using for weeks to image an archaeological site, and up to now… without problems! The X8 flies like a dream, and the auto mode is great when we want to assure complete coverage. However, we’ve run into a strange snag. Last Friday it made a new startup noise which, when looking it up online, suggested a new IO board firmware loaded successfully (according to: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common … PX4_Sounds). However, that is rather disconcerting when you’re in the middle of nowhere and you know you didn’t load any new firmware! Yikes!!

I took it back and reflashed the whole thing this Monday, and not wanting to test it in high-wind conditions that we had yesterday, took it out this morning. Once again, first flight was great, no problems. Powered down, put on the cameras, got ready to fly a mission, and the same bizarre sound again.

I’m attaching a link to a video that has the startup sound I’m talking about. If anyone has any ideas of what may be going wrong, or what I might need to do… I’m all ears!

A few notes:
It is extremely dusty here. We have a few cans of compressed air we use to try and clear out the motors and the board after a days flight and reduce the impact of the dust. It is stored in a fairly dustless room, and we always transport it in a clean(ish) box.

We are using the Spektrum dx7i for our controller, and a ground station through a Nexus 7 and DroidPilot.

Here is a link to the video on DropBox:

dropbox.com/s/lgfgfmrhhajno … tartup.mov

Thanks!

Matt

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It appears that the issue was the safety switch and it was somehow locked into the on position. 3DR support got back to me and suggested I follow that up after seeing the video. I fiddle with the switch, and voila! All good. It all makes sense now since the issue would only ever show up after arming the copter (toggling the switch) and therefore reactivate the problem that was there before. Hopefully this is helpful for someone else down the road if they run into a similar issue.

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Same thing happened to me…but it my case, my battery was pressing down on the safety switch…as soon as I moved the battery and restarted, all was normal.

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Bill