Drone just fell out of the sky

telliott67 · Jun 24, 2016

I use the prop guards because sometimes I will fly close to objects filming, there there in case I bump into something

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flyNfrank · Jun 24, 2016

telliott67 said:
I use the prop guards because sometimes I will fly close to objects filming, there there in case I bump into something

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

You're not going to get decent help without details plus a flight log file.

Digdat0 · Jun 24, 2016

to me, that doesn't look like a lost prop or a dead motor, but electrical issues. i wonder if the logs show one battery cell decreasing voltage significantly. post the log please!

telliott67 · Jun 24, 2016

here is the flight records

telliott67 · Jun 24, 2016

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Heisnuts · Jun 24, 2016

Oh man... Is that the camera I see at the top? Looks like the lading sheered it right off...

Wolfiesden · Jun 24, 2016

telliott67 said:
This is how I found it

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Well, on the bright side, it stuck the landing Nadia Comaneci style

Sorry. Trying to cheer you up.

Digdat0 · Jun 24, 2016

So i spent a little time reviewing the log. The log indicates that the battery % is good enough, but if you look closer the overall battery VOLTAGE drops and this is why.

At 39:19.1 in the flight a warning pops saying "Tips__Low Power. Returning to Home Point". Battery level shows 54%, but the log shows 40% voltage.
At 41:44.4 another warning pops of "WarningPropulsion Output Limited. Aircraft motility has been lowered." Battery % is 38%, but your volts are only at 6% left.
And then at 41:59.5, another warning shows again of "WarningPropulsion Output Limited. Aircraft motility has been lowered.". Battery is at 36%, but volts only show 2% left.
At 42:36.5, the altitude starts to drop significantly. This is where you (IMO) started to fall. The battery showed 32% but voltage showed only 2%.

I believe that something in your aircraft, or software failed and resulted in your crash. The battery % and voltage readings are WAY off. And, despite the fact that the aircraft detected a low power state and attempted to return home, auto landing should have probably kicked in an landed, but it did not (did you have this feature disabled in DJI Go?). Instead, it appears as though the voltage ran so low that it stopped powering your engines. I believe, based on the video, there is evidence of the engines slowing, it falling, them trying to go again and then continued decrease in altitude. The landing doesn't look like a "my prop broke and I'm falling", its a slower/controlled descent .. like power was running somewhat, but not optimal and too late to fight gravity.

I personally think that one of the latest DJI firmware updates to batteries (to handle cold environments) is causing issues. I believe that under the right circumstances, the battery temp increases and as a result, the voltage drops and it stops producing the required force to keep the bird in flight.

I'd file a support ticket with DJI and try and get them to repair under warranty. I don't see anything you did wrong. You didn't even cancel the RTH .. it was making its way back.

Wibble · Jun 24, 2016

telliott67 said:
I use the prop guards because sometimes I will fly close to objects filming, there there in case I bump into something

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

You can get ones that are easily removable. Seriously for normal flight they are a pain!

flyNfrank · Jun 24, 2016

Digdat0 said:
So i spent a little time reviewing the log. The log indicates that the battery % is good enough, but if you look closer the overall battery VOLTAGE drops and this is why.

At 39:19.1 in the flight a warning pops saying "Tips__Low Power. Returning to Home Point". Battery level shows 54%, but the log shows 40% voltage.

At 41:44.4 another warning pops of "WarningPropulsion Output Limited. Aircraft motility has been lowered." Battery % is 38%, but your volts are only at 6% left.

And then at 41:59.5, another warning shows again of "WarningPropulsion Output Limited. Aircraft motility has been lowered.". Battery is at 36%, but volts only show 2% left.

At 42:36.5, the altitude starts to drop significantly. This is where you (IMO) started to fall. The battery showed 32% but voltage showed only 2%.

I believe that something in your aircraft, or software failed and resulted in your crash. The battery % and voltage readings are WAY off. And, despite the fact that the aircraft detected a low power state and attempted to return home, auto landing should have probably kicked in an landed, but it did not (did you have this feature disabled in DJI Go?). Instead, it appears as though the voltage ran so low that it stopped powering your engines. I believe, based on the video, there is evidence of the engines slowing, it falling, them trying to go again and then continued decrease in altitude. The landing doesn't look like a "my prop broke and I'm falling", its a slower/controlled descent .. like power was running somewhat, but not optimal and too late to fight gravity.

I personally think that one of the latest DJI firmware updates to batteries (to handle cold environments) is causing issues. I believe that under the right circumstances, the battery temp increases and as a result, the voltage drops and it stops producing the required force to keep the bird in flight.

I'd file a support ticket with DJI and try and get them to repair under warranty. I don't see anything you did wrong. You didn't even cancel the RTH .. it was making its way back.

No doubt this is a legit issue. I just 90 minutes crawling all over the data and this is one I have never seen before. It took along time in my opinion to find anything wrong. Some of the numbers stated above are different from the data I had converted.

I had the Smart RTH being activated when it showed the battery at 54% remaining, and Volt Percentage at 39% all at the same point. And it was the Voltage Percentage which is what I also found to be the main issue.

One thing I did see that was NOT mentioned above was that this entire flight was flown in F-mode on the R/C mode switch.

At this point I would look at the P3X_FW_LOG file to check which battery firmware is installed.

llyons92 · Jun 24, 2016

Hope this gives you hope. My drone fell out of the sky with no error coming from me and dji is replacing it.

telliott67 · Jun 25, 2016

Thanks for all of your input everyone! I just went and got a 4 but I'm going to send in the 3 pro to see if the fix it I will post what DJI dose thanks again I will post a pic from the first night flight

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telliott67 · Jun 25, 2016

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Vertigo · Jun 25, 2016

I have to say, regardless of the cause, flying 13K ft away over a city, you're just asking for all kinds of trouble.

AAPhoto · Jun 25, 2016

I found that battery percentage doesn't seem to matter, but the voltage does. There's a setting you can turn on so you can see your voltage as you're flying. On a windy day, if the drone has to "work hard" to fight the wind to return home, you'll see this voltage drop. At 3.6 volts, it turns yellow and at 3.5v, it turns red. From what I've read, if it drops much below 3.5v, the battery will turn itself off to "protect itself" (from what, I don't know).

I've run into this issue myself on very windy days and when it happens, I just stop whatever it's doing, let it recover some voltage (just hovering) and then continue what I was doing. The same can happen if you fly at top speeds all the time. The key is to enable that setting and keep an eye on the voltage at all times.

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telliott67 · Jun 25, 2016

It was a calm day fully charged battery, and it's not like I was doing anything wrong. I've flown this area lots of times before, and the app said I had plenty of battery left

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richvohra · Jun 25, 2016

Is your firmware Updated? I lost my drone last month in the ocean and I was 50ft in the air and a 1/4 mile out. It completely lost power and interestingly enough a firmware release came the next day. A friend of mine who was with me that day had the same problem with losing signal and his fell out of the air later that day. Something is seriously going on and I don't think they want to admit it. I have been seeing this complaint a lot.

I was very fortunate I recorded everything and had the flight log. I contacted DJI and for two weeks they researched it and couldn't explain what happened and gave me a brand new one for free. I just got it but I am afraid to take it out now.

richvohra · Jun 25, 2016

llyons92 said:
Hope this gives you hope. My drone fell out of the sky with no error coming from me and dji is replacing it.

Luke same thing happened to me and I got the same error. Have you flown again? I am so nervous.

Something is seriously wrong and I fear they might have a class action coming their way.

It was the worse seeing mine get lost in the ocean.

llyons92 · Jun 25, 2016

richvohra said:
Luke same thing happened to me and I got the same error. Have you flown again? I am so nervous.

Something is seriously wrong and I fear they might have a class action coming their way.

It was the worse seeing mine get lost in the ocean.

I wont lie, I was nervous flying at first. All I could think about was the same thing happening again and my drone falling out of the sky as I watch in horror but seeing as they are correcting the problem and giving me another one, that has helped with my confidence.

AAPhoto · Jun 25, 2016

telliott67 said:
It was a calm day fully charged battery, and it's not like I was doing anything wrong. I've flown this area lots of times before, and the app said I had plenty of battery left

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Again, the battery percentage does not matter. Can you tell me what your VOLTAGE was? In the attached image, you can see what I'm referring to. With the setting enabled, you will see the voltage under the battery percentage (there's a red square around it). In the image, the voltage is 4.11v. If that number drops below 3.5v, the battery will turn off. Someone analyzed your logs earlier and pointed out your voltage dropped and this would align with this theory. You were flying pretty high so it could have just been a strong steady gust of wind.

The setting to enable it is in the following image.

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