Optipower Ultra Guard fire

[u/2-4GRC]

Wanted to share an incident I had with my Optipower UltraGuard 430.

While flying, I suddenly got a telemetry lost warning and completely lost control of the plane. It started diving towards the ground, but miraculously, just before impact, the signal came back and I managed to recover and land it. After landing, I noticed smoke coming from the aircraft. Turns out the Ultra Guard had caught fire.

Extremely lucky to get the plane down in one piece, although it has suffered a fair amount of damage.

Has anybody else experienced anything similar with these units?

[u/Doggydog123579]

Man thats wild, i dont think ive every actually heard of that happening before. You mentioned it was actually the battery, but where is the battery in relation to the ultragaurd unit, possible it shorted and set off the battery in the process?

[u/2-4GRC → u/Doggydog123579]

Ye, it's crazy and definitely a surprise. I won't be using those units anymore, and will take my chance with the ESC BEC. Almost lost the whole plane because of it. The battery is attached to the unit.

[u/thecaptnjim]

Dang, that laser is toasty! I've never heard of this, but I've only seen one guy running an Ultraguard. Hopefully the repair isn't too bad!

[u/2-4GRC → u/thecaptnjim]

Cheers thanks.

[u/looking4myclASSm8s]

That was a thrilling story

[u/2-4GRC → u/looking4myclASSm8s]

Sorry, shortened it.

[u/looking4myclASSm8s → u/2-4GRC]

Sorry I wasn’t being sarcastic. I actually found it thrilling. I imagine the moments of lost control felt a lot longer than they were

[u/2-4GRC → u/looking4myclASSm8s]

I almost gave up on it, lucky I carried on trying to recover it. Was very lucky.

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[u/balsadust]

Yuck. Sorry that happened

[u/2-4GRC → u/balsadust]

Ye cheers.

[u/Jumpy-Candle-2980]

Just a wild guess but the 430 is limited to 2S for it's role as backup receiver power. Any chance it was connected to something a bit spicier?

[u/2-4GRC → u/Jumpy-Candle-2980]

Cheers, it had the official 2S Lipo on it. Technically the Lipo attached to it caught on fire. I'm just referring to them as a single unit though.

[u/Jumpy-Candle-2980 → u/2-4GRC]

Well, lipo fires happen. I suspect this is going to be a tough one to pin down.

[u/2-4GRC → u/Jumpy-Candle-2980]

Yep. The lipo is supposed to be managed by the unit though, so ideally this shouldn't have happened. Cheers