Hobbyking Quanum Nova

[Mark_T]

Yes Davy GPS is working takes a round 10 mins from when I initially power it up, and then all most instantly after battery change.Did a bit of flying just before dusk the other day and was quite impressed with the lights. How long do you get from your batteries, I stop flying when the Led's start to flash but measuring the voltage on my lipo indicator says there are at 3.75 volts. I fly my other rc planes till they reach 3.5volts which seems fine. Do you think I would have a problem if I flew the quad to 3.5 volts

I would be inclined to check how much power you are putting back into the packs rather than just looking at the voltage as it is a very unreliable way of checking what is coming out.

A pack hitting 3.5V under load is generally going to be perfectly fine, but if it reads 3.5V a few mins after it comes off load then you've probably taken out too much as the voltage recovers quickly once the load is off.

[RG1]

I had a funny thing happen to me the other day I had been flying for a few minutes fairly close when I seemed to loose control it didn't respond to controls and it started to rise. It got higher and higher and I began to panic so I switched the transmitter off ( thought I'd seen a guy on you tube do it) it then leveled off and landed at my feet. What a relief but why did it happen. I presume I must have had GPS lock for it to do this, what would have happened if I didn't have gps lock.

[Mark_T]

I had a funny thing happen to me the other day I had been flying for a few minutes fairly close when I seemed to loose control it didn't respond to controls and it started to rise. It got higher and higher and I began to panic so I switched the transmitter off ( thought I'd seen a guy on you tube do it) it then leveled off and landed at my feet. What a relief but why did it happen. I presume I must have had GPS lock for it to do this, what would have happened if I didn't have gps lock.

You are describing the 'RTH' function and yes, that requires a GPS lock before take-off.

It always starts by climbing as an attempt to avoid any tall objects between where it is and where 'home' is located.

It sounds like you lost your link to the model, probably even before you turned off the radio.

Without GPS lock it would probably have become a fly-away.

Also, take care with the standard radio it ships with, once you turn it off, it will not rebind with the model even if turned on again until you have power cycled the model.

[Carlcox89]

You are describing the 'RTH' function and yes, that requires a GPS lock before take-off.

It always starts by climbing as an attempt to avoid any tall objects between where it is and where 'home' is located.

It sounds like you lost your link to the model, probably even before you turned off the radio.

Without GPS lock it would probably have become a fly-away.

Also, take care with the standard radio it ships with, once you turn it off, it will not rebind with the model even if turned on again until you have power cycled the model.

Im waiting for my first quad (the Nova) and been reading about it and APM.
I think you can set what to do when gps fails (check GPS Failsafe & Glitch Protection | ArduCopter )
That's one of my worries about flying that thing :P but if it's possible like i stated above then nothing to worry about !

[Mark_T]

Im waiting for my first quad (the Nova) and been reading about it and APM.
I think you can set what to do when gps fails (check GPS Failsafe & Glitch Protection | ArduCopter )
That's one of my worries about flying that thing :P but if it's possible like i stated above then nothing to worry about !

Those are new features in V3.1 and above, which the Quanum does not ship with, but you can upload the new version to it.

They will help reduce the chances of a 'fly-away' but it still leaves you some distance from 'nothing to worry about' and you should still make sure you can fly in the modes that do not depend on GPS so you can switch to one of those and fly back to a safe landing location.

I'm still convinced that most 'fly-aways' with any type of multirotor are down to blind reliance on the automated systems to save the day when all that was needed was to switch to manual mode and fly home instead of watching it vanish into the distance

A solid radio link is part of this as well and I wouldn't regard the standard TX/RX it ships with as 'solid'. Once it disconnects in flight it cannot reconnect, unlike Spektrum, Futaba etc.