Hello,
in the middle of a flight my Protos500 was suddenly no longer controllable. It just flew away and stopped responding. Not possible to stop the engine. RSSI was OK so that normal communication from the transmitter to the receiver seems to work. To activate the failsafe I disconnected the battery from my transmitter while I ran after the helicopter. The failsafe did not activate. The helicopter still flow away. I connected the battery again. I get connection back but still not controllable.
There was a small mountain where the Protos crashed. When I found it the Engine was still running.
After disconnecting the Battery of the Protos I connected again, started the engine and disconnected the battery of the transmitter -> the engine directly stopped (failsafe working correctly)
Perhaps the Spirit crashes? Why the spirit did not stopped the engine? Why the helicopter was not controllable although the connection was working?
While flight I could see that spirit telemetry was not working! ?
Before the Protos was uncontrollable something with the rear was not proper and I switched back to BANK 0 for landing.

Setup:
- Spirit pro 2.8.0
- Geolink 1.0.3
- YGE 95 LVT (telemetry connected to spirit with Uni cable)
- FrSky R-XSR (Connected to spirit with integration cable)
- Jumper t16 with OpenTx 2.3.7

Now I do not know what to do. I nearly have the same setup on my Logo but I do not trust it anymore.
I really want to know the reason before I fly again!
Since I tried the failsafe after the crash, I cannot see the log from the spirit

PS. The complete helicopter (mechanic) was destroyed.

I hope we can find the issue. Please help!

Best Regards
Bastian

Hello,

it is very sad helicopter is damaged.

Very often there is issue with electrostatic discharges with protos model.
I have 10 years of experience with them.

If belt is loose a powder is developed inside the boom.
Then it might create extremely big discharges.

This is likely the most probable reason for the problem.
If unit is hit by that strong discharge it could be unresponsive or in a random condition, same for any other electronic at the model.

Especially if you have receiver or other cables near the tail boom.

Other possibility is BEC problem. Some servos can draw more current than what this ESC can hamdle.

Please try BEC tester.

_________________
Spirit System developer

Hi,

BEC test was ok. I have done it more than once.
I have also a cable mounted from the tail boom to the engine. Do you think that electrostatic discharges could be the issue although the mounted cable?

If your protos is not very old (year 2009) then it should be made of conductive parts.
This include also tail boom holder.

For this reason tail boom tube has no painting at the ends. But sometime there is a kind of a glue or residue that shouldn't be there.

So even without grounding cable it should be conductive.

Grounding cable is good usually, but it must be feeded as far as possible from any other cable. For newer, properly built Protos models these cables are not needed at all.
Also I am afraid but GeoLink module might not work perfectly at the position.

Lastly I would not use R-XSR receiver. This receiver is good rather only for microhelicopters, cables are very fragile. A bigger receiver with servo connectors - X4R-SB or similar - is good option.
But this was very likely not reason for the crash.

At the current situation I recommend to remove grounding cable and measure continuity between boom and motor.

If it will be good, please remove blades and spin up rotor for few minutes at the bench. If you have a rubber plate it would be even better.
Observe if everything will still work properly and there is no receiver signal lost event in the log.

_________________
Spirit System developer

Hi ZeXx86,
after I have measured a lot, I could see that the boom has connection to the engine block but not to the engine itself. Perhaps there is some paint on the engine block and the screws

To verify if this is my issue I would like to change the tail boom and bearing shaft (currently it is still broken) so that I can do a dry run on my desk without blades to see if I can see the electrostatic discharges.
If I can see them I would build it up completely and be sure that connection from boom to engine is available. Than I would do the dry run again to see if the electrostatic discharges are still there or not.

My question is now if I do the dry run without changes and I get the electrostatic discharges could the spirit be damaged? If yes what is your suggestion to do?
How can I be sure that my spirit is working perfectly after the electrostatic discharges I had while flying?

Sell the spirit and buy the spirit2. It has protection against ESD.