A Crash Insight

Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Messages
134
Reaction score
4
Location
Eastern Shore, Maryland
Yesterday while hovering at about 8 ft from the ground and 10 ft from me, my PV2+ suddenly without warning accelerated vertically upward at the maximum speed. I had no control of the Phantom. It did not respond to any stick action. It hit the top branches of a lodge pole pine (about 80 ft up) then fell to the ground. It all happened in a couple of seconds. One critical bit of information I noticed: as it was rising, all Phantom lights were solid red. That indicated an error occurred. Bringing it inside, I checked it out with the Phantom assistant, and everything reported normal condition, except the battery showed 7% charge. I have the warning set at 20%. There was no low voltage warning before the crash.

One other fact to consider, several months ago the copter made an emergency landing, the controller giving the the low battery alarm, showing the battery voltage dropping suddenly from a 40% charge to 5%. Lucky it landed in the middle of a soybean field and there was no damage. In that case, the copter was too far away for me to see it or the lights. I was using this same battery yesterday. Gonna throw that battery away! Many other crashes folks have experienced could be the result of a bad battery.

I'm very lucky that the copter fell landing on its rear left arm and will require a new shell. All motors and controls checked out and work fine, The camera received no damage!
 
Don't red lights also mean low battery? It sounds like it might have been trying to return home.
 
msinger said:
Don't red lights also mean low battery? It sounds like it might have been trying to return home.

Yeah That's what I was thinking to. And also possibly the compass needed to be calibrated.
 
Definitely sounds like it thought it was critical battery, and was trying to return home. I assume you have RTH on Low Battery selected?

Take it off! =)
 
BuzzBuzzZoomZoom said:
Definitely sounds like it thought it was critical battery, and was trying to return home. I assume you have RTH on Low Battery selected?

Take it off! =)

Is this a "best practice"? I know i have mine turned on... because it seemed liked behavior I would typically want. I'm still pretty inexperienced with the phantom however.
 
dbfletcher said:
BuzzBuzzZoomZoom said:
Definitely sounds like it thought it was critical battery, and was trying to return home. I assume you have RTH on Low Battery selected?

Take it off! =)

Is this a "best practice"? I know i have mine turned on... because it seemed liked behavior I would typically want. I'm still pretty inexperienced with the phantom however.

IMO it is not best practice. I want as few "oh ****, its coming home on its own" occurrences as possible. I prefer to pay attention to the battery level and and the phantoms location and be in total control all the time. I have the feature turned off.
 
BlackTracer said:
dbfletcher said:
BuzzBuzzZoomZoom said:
Definitely sounds like it thought it was critical battery, and was trying to return home. I assume you have RTH on Low Battery selected?

Take it off! =)

Is this a "best practice"? I know i have mine turned on... because it seemed liked behavior I would typically want. I'm still pretty inexperienced with the phantom however.

IMO it is not best practice. I want as few "oh ****, its coming home on its own" occurrences as possible. I prefer to pay attention to the battery level and and the phantoms location and be in total control all the time. I have the feature turned off.

+1
 
Agreed. I do not have mine set to return to home automatically. I like to be in control :)
 
But you can always regain control cant you? I don't always fly with my phone/wifi connection. I like the idea that if i lose track of time just flying around... when it gets low, it will automatically come home. Admittedly, I have not had to use the feature yet... but i see some logic behind it.
 
dbfletcher said:
But you can always regain control cant you
You should be able to if you flip the S1 switch to the center (ATT). But, like in this case, many people are crashing their Phantoms before they realize what's going on and/or try to switch to ATT.
 
dbfletcher said:
I like the idea that if i lose track of time just flying around... when it gets low, it will automatically come home.
Nice in theory or an open field - not nice if there are obstacles in the way and you haven't planned for that.
 
Meta4 said:
dbfletcher said:
I like the idea that if i lose track of time just flying around... when it gets low, it will automatically come home.
Nice in theory or an open field - not nice if there are obstacles in the way and you haven't planned for that.

Yes, I have RTH turned on. The problem here is that the battery went from OK (40%) immediately to 7% without the normal warning. In a normal low battery warning you have control of the copter, critical voltage and you lose control. I'll have to think RTH for critical battery setting. Thanks for the info.

Still dumping that battery.
 
In Phantom mode, I would get the warning & just land. I switched to naza mode last night & thought the RTH mode was good in the battery section so I checked it. I flew about 10 minuets last night. ( pretty cool with the flashing lights at night:) Today I was out flying. I knew my battery was not fully charged so I kept it close. I get a warning that RTH will start in about 10 seconds. I start to bring it in & walk to catch it. As I get to it, off it goes! I was out in the open so I just let it come down & then caught it.
If you read, there are pro's & con's to each. I just don't like that it was in my grasp & then had to do all over again. If it RTH & you do not have the elevation & there is a tree or building in your way, you are going to hit something. The third thing I was reading is, RTH is very slow, You might wind up in auto land & it will land just wherever. to me not good scenario.
I definitely would check my battery though. That is not good dropping from 40% to 7% in a blink.
Good luck.
 
Poss Bad Cell In Battery That Caused The RTH To Trigger Early Eg Battery Used Cell 1 & 2, But 3 Was Faulty So RTH Activated. Quick Switch Of S1 Off & On, Should Of Gained Control.
 
Almost exactly what happened today to me. Flew up and then to the right BUT then it landed softly in grass no damage. Frankly I knew the S1 to Atti to regain control but my newbie son was flying and couldnt get it from him in time. Dodged a bullet for sure. I knew something was amiss straight away. On liftoff she wobbled then flew off. Should have killed the motors there and then. I think I should have recalibrated the compass before liftof.
 
I was unable to control a return to home initiated by a low battery failsafe... Luckily my landing was smooth ...
Is anyone experiencing the same issue ?
 
Same thing happened to me. Dumb Question IF, your not too high up, lets say 20 feet, and you kill the motors, will it land, come down straight or just plummet like a stone and crash?
 
So as the final thing to to in a flyaway in to do that rather then chase it?
 
That does assume you have enough control over it to kill the motors. With the true flyaways I've read about you have zero control so that wouldn't be an option.

However..

Retrieving SOMETHING is in my book better than retrieving nothing. Given the choice of crashing and getting some stuff back to rebuild versus watching it fly into oblivion and getting nothing back I would choose to crash it.
 

Recent Posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,352
Members
104,933
Latest member
mactechnic