ar 2.0 unstable and poor video

New poster, new to drones, please be gentle..
I have a AR 2.0 Drone, it was a present and was a factory reconditioned unit from Parrot themselves in France (where I live). It flew fine for a few hours flight time until a incident involving getting a leg stuck in a tree and falling heavily to the ground.
After that it was really unstable then a motor dropped apart (I mean physically, the coil can detached from the end bell and was hanging off), I changed out the motor and esc, but the problems persisted.

One of the legs had been damaged in the incident despite having zipties on the legs as it got hooked on a branch through the original foot itself, so I had 3d printed a leg repair, and I figured this might have been unbalancing the drone with its weight when the new motor didnt help so I ordered a replacement central cross.
For good measure, I replaced all the gears and axle shafts (but not the props themselves), and fitted a replacement central cross, the props appear straight when restrained in the hand and flight is attempted although they have the odd nick and mark on them. I swapped out the bearings in the new cross for ceramic units while I was at it. The only other anomoly is one of the leds on the esc's has got wiped off. It was flickering when I first flew it from a bad contact, but its departed. I can probably fix that if its relevant.

I have also been plagued by bad video as the battery level drops, it starts off as the odd flicker about 50% then when the pack starts to drop it becomes very noisy indeed. This also co-incides with a steady degradation of its flying abilities until about 30% all it can do is throw itself at the ground. Forget attempting a flip at anything below 90% battery level.

I have two battery packs, the original 1500mAh parrot one, and a 2300 high capacity, they both do the noise and instability as the voltage begins to drop so I think its unlikely to be the pack at fault though yes it is even more unstable with the big pack on. I ran through the how to reset it linked on this forum, but it did not cure the issue.

Extremely frustrated, I want to fix this but I'm out of ideas, and now someone has given me another present of the gps module, but its not even stable enough to fly back to the home point if I try it.

Any ideas what to look at/replace next? Ive had 3 hours fun and months of grief from it so far.

 

Welcome to the world of Parrot, sorry to say there are more problems with Parrots line of UAV's than probably any other manufacture out there.

But to help you along with the AR Drone 2.0 go here.... https://www.droneflyers.com/2013/03/how-to-troubleshoot-your-ar-drone-1-0-and-2-0-after-a-crash/

If nothing else works then a suitable replacement would be any listed here..... https://www.droneflyers.com/2014/11/beginners-only-the-best-first-quadcopter/

ready for more advanced flight..... https://www.droneflyers.com/2014/11/best-quadcopters-for-2015/

 

Hi thanks for the links, Ive already ran through the parrot guide and it at least cured the drone wanting to spin gently continually after the cross rebuild.
To be clear the esc without the led lighting is actually missing its surface mount led, when I say its wiped off I mean mechanically.
I am new to drones, before I have flown rc heli's and lots of tamiya rc car stuff. I had my eye on a dj but I sort of have to stick with the parrot for now because it was a gift and I dont want to upset the giver. If I can get it to fly well again, I can probably find a way to give it my son in place of his heli next time it drops to bits mid air and get the dj as a upgrade

It has a electrical issue I think, its actually still under warantee, I may see about it going back to base to get sorted, maybe I can unplug each esc in turn when the videos bad see if one of them is the source of the noise, otherwise its the main board...

 

There is also the issue in France with the WiFi power level, I believe your limited to power output and in some cases if your even allowed to use WiFi outdoors ( http://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/proposed-laws-to-restrict-wireless-signals-in-france-would-cause-unfounded-anxiety-national-academy-of-medicine-warns )

This is probably the cause of your noise levels, low power, longer distance = bad reception.

You can get replacement ECS's from a lot of venders....this would be faster than sending it to Parrot.

Also check out http://www.ardrone-flyers.com/ for more information on the AR Drone 2.0

 

I am not sure its wifi interference, and I think this because it has no noise when the battery is full, and it gets progressively worse as the battery becomes depleted. Plus the distance between the drone or the phone doesnt alter it and I'm recording to onboard memory, not the remote phone, also the only wifi in the area is mine, and this is away from where the signal strength is strong. Where I live its very very isolated and rural out in the countryside.

Take a look, this is at the start of the last flight video, I'm stood maybe 30ft away but this is being recorded to the flight controller card so its not noise on the wifi link but between the camera and main board, and I suspect on the dc rail that powers everything. Its the same with or without the flight controller as I tested without in case it was that.


And here it is with the battery about 40%. I'm stood nearer, and it actually gets a lot worse than this but it gets so uncontrollable I cut short the flight to stop further damage.


Not sure what the ecs is, but suspect its the embedded processor board that runs the drone. The idea behind sending it back to parrot is that its 6 months old and under waranty, and the board itself is 120e to replace.
I'm not sure this is accident damage, on the day of the big tree crash it was hovering stable about 40ft up and then flew sideways straight into a large tree and got stuck in the canopy. We thought it had caught a thermal somehow but now not so sure.

 

I meant ESC, sorry about the dyslexic typing...LOL

Only other thing I can think of is poor connections, try unplugging and then reconnecting every connector (one at a time). The picture tells me it has to do with electronic noise and probably due to the motors high current draw with lower voltage available.

You can also try to move the motor wires further away from the main boards.

One other thing, try a new USB drive.......there are certain ones that caused problems like this in the past.

The incident you describe is classic Parrot fly away too, something they have never been able to fix (even the new BeBop does it)

 

I changed out the esc with the bad led for the one that was on the motor that fell apart in case the esc sustained any other damage, and its got four leds now, but its still unstable. I just flew it indoors, and its pot luck if it manages to stabilize or fly sideways into something immediately, and even when it stabilizes, it starts to drift sideways, or go up and down in height until it crashes or ends up sucked to the celing, and thats with the phone on the desk flat. And as the battery dipped the interference came in. When it was new, I could leave it hovering for minutes and navigate doorways and fly under the table and other tricks.
When I replaced the main cross, I had to undo and remake every connection in it as everything has to come out and the harness stays in the cross as you probably know.
I'm half tempted to buy new props to eliminate them as by now there a few stress marks on them where they've been flexed back into shape after so many crashes and my indoor hull is now held together with cocktail sticks and tape, but I've thrown enough good money after bad already. Do you think parrot will honour a repair on it with ceramic ball bearings in the cross for the prop gears, or should I take them back out and fit the brass bushings as per original before sending it back? I don't think theyre the problem as it does the same with the bushings in on the original cross, but I dont want to make life easy for them to duck the warantee on the main board if theyre crap at after sales support.

 

On the usb, I tried a few other keys, and also leaving the key out and using video to just the phone, and symptoms exactly the same. The usb key from the video which the images are taken from is the orange parrot flight controller they sell.

 

Parrot has a history of denying warranties for anything they can think of, send it back as stock as possible if you are going to send it back.

Propellers are an issue, in my guide I have a whole section dedicated to balancing and straightening them... https://www.droneflyers.com/2013/03/how-to-troubleshoot-your-ar-drone-1-0-and-2-0-after-a-crash/

 

I looked through the Q&A and Troubleshooting Sections but didn't find an answer to this problem listed:
If the drone just sits there with the LEDs flashing red, then the one underneath turns green, then all 4 motors make a buzzing sound and turn the blades about 1/2 turn, then the LED turns red again and goes out and the whole thing repeats over and over is there some way to find out what's wrong?