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Drone wouldn’t power up past idle

paparatzy

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Today while hand launching my Air2s, the drone propellers wouldn’t spin faster than an idle. That’s never happened and now I had to figure out what to do with a powered on and spinning drone in my hand and how to shut it down. Fortunately I had read enough to know to flip it over and it immediately shut down.

The temperature today was about 80° and I had just flown it for about 10 minutes or so and the battery level was about 43%. I was shooting a home for a Realtor and had finished in front and landed the drone. I didn’t power it or the controller off, just picked up the drone and walked around to the back of the home, lifted it in the air and using the take-off button on the controller tried to launch.

What would cause my drone to simply idle and not rev up to full speed to take off? There weren’t any obstacles around either.

Anyone else experienced this?
 
@paparatzy ,a combination of heat ,and the fact that you moved the drone while it was powered up, and the low remaining battery charge could all have been a contributing factor ,always power down before attempting to move the drone
 
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Do a sticks calibration and check if left stick forward is actually working. Needs to go up to 100
 
If it had been sitting on the ground how would you have stopped the propellers from spinning?
What errors did you get? Did you try any other take-off procedures?
Check page 48 of your user manual. Air 2s will not take off if conditions are unsafe for such.
Use one of the stopping motors option.
 
Do a sticks calibration and check if left stick forward is actually working. Needs to go up to 100
That reminds me, check the actual stick mode, I have been caught out by a non mode 2? controller with which something similar was happening.
 
@paparatzy ,a combination of heat ,and the fact that you moved the drone while it was powered up, and the low remaining battery charge could all have been a contributing factor ,always power down before attempting to move the drone
Thanks, I’ll add that to my safety procedures. Didn’t know that you shouldn’t move a drone while powered up.
 
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That reminds me, check the actual stick mode, I have been caught out by a non mode 2? controller with which something similar was happening.
I checked the stick mode and it is set at Mode 2, which has always been the case. I’m not sure what a “non mode2? controller” would be.
 
If it had been sitting on the ground how would you have stopped the propellers from spinning?
What errors did you get? Did you try any other take-off procedures?
Check page 48 of your user manual. Air 2s will not take off if conditions are unsafe for such.
Use one of the stopping motors option.
The first flight, I took off and landed on the ground and the propellers stopped. With both the controller and aircraft still powered on, I carried the drone to the back of the house, lifted the drone in the air and attempted to take off using the RC Take Off icon on the screen.

The aircraft propellers would only spin at an “idle” or low speed, not fast enough to leave my hand. There were no on screen errors. At that point, I’m holding a drone with slow spinning propellers and thinking that it would be useless to try to use the left stick to land, simply turned the drone belly side up and the motors stopped.

I did not try to push the left stick forward as at that point I was more concerned about stopping the propellers while holding the drone. Also, if there was something wrong (which I strongly suspected), I did not want to proceed putting the aircraft in the air with a possible problem.

I will check out the user manual. :)
 
Pushing both stick down to center stops the propellers.
When you did the controller take-off did you get a screen response to confirm take-off? If not, then check controller-drone connection.
In my opinion take-off from hand is risky for safety reasons and it also gives you limited options for control as you are attempting to hold controller and operate controller with your other hand. It's not like a Spark which has an automatic hand launch option.
 
Pushing both stick down to center stops the propellers.
When you did the controller take-off did you get a screen response to confirm take-off? If not, then check controller-drone connection.
In my opinion take-off from hand is risky for safety reasons and it also gives you limited options for control as you are attempting to hold controller and operate controller with your other hand. It's not like a Spark which has an automatic hand launch option.
Yes, I knew about pushing both sticks down, but my right hand was busy holding the drone with spinning blades. Now that you mention it, I made a huge mistake by thinking that not powering off the motors meant simply taking off again without needing that home point set and confirmation.

I plan on stepping back and reviewing all safety procedures I’m using and reevaluating my methods. I appreciate the experience expressed here in the forum.
 
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