Add another fly away to the tally.

[losman26]

I got a compass error right away into my flight, hit return to home while flying in atti-, then lost RC signal immediately. The thing never came back,, and is probably stuck in a tree somewhere, who knows. I bought my p3 pro slightly used off of ebay, so probably DJI is not going to cover anything. Pretty convinced this is a defect. I got a compass error a couple of weeks ago while visiting Michigan as well out of nowhere like this, but managed to fly it back in atti mode. This time, I lost the RC as well. Calling DJI right now, 16 in the queue. I will get another drone eventually, probably not DJI depending on what happens.

 

[Wibble]

Can you post the flight logs please

 

[losman26]

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[flpholt]

sorry to hear that

 

[Meta4]

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

That one looks like a case for DJI. It was out of control.
The flight record is splattered with speed error, compass & yaw error and GPS error messages.
Upload your flight record to DJI using the cloud icon in the app first.
Then contact DJI online support and start the process.
Good Luck

If you wanted to search, the last GPS location shown was 41.00453828 -73.66938801
... but the Phantom was still 380 feet up and traveling north at about 50 mph and still had 91% battery left so it could be miles away.

 

[droneshop]

Why does no one flip to atti mode? Rth should be the last line of defense.

 

[Meta4]

Why does no one flip to atti mode? Rth should be the last line of defense.

Atti would not have helped in this case.
And looking at the flight record, you can see that the Phantom was switching to atti itself several times because of conflicting data but it didn't make any difference.
Atti isn't the magic solution to everything that some people think it is.

 

[losman26]

It automatically goes into atti. Even so, the RC signal went out immediately.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[losman26]

That one looks like a case for DJI. It was out of control.
The flight record is splattered with speed error, compass & yaw error and GPS error messages.
Upload your flight record to DJI using the cloud icon in the app first.
Then contact DJI online support and start the process.
Good Luck

If you wanted to search, the last GPS location shown was 41.00453828 -73.66938801
... but the Phantom was still 380 feet up and traveling north at about 50 mph and still had 91% battery left so it could be miles away.

When you say a case for DJI, do you mean them winning?

 

[losman26]

I don't understand why my flight log on the dji go app did not show this gps location.

 

[losman26]

I got a hold of DJI, and they hung up on me. I guess it's because I caught them at the tail end of their hours and the dude did not want to deal with it. I'm not very optimistic about getting a replacement after hearing all the stories here. Plus I bought it off ebay. I honestly believe this thing was defective. Got a compass error a couple of times a few weeks ago in Michigan out of nowhere. This time, I didn't even have the opportunity to try to fly it back in ATTI, because the RC signal got lost immediately. The thing wasn't even far away, and I had a pretty good line of sight! I knocked on a few houses on the last point, and nothing. Most of the people don't even speak English, and it would be a miracle for whoever finds it to actually call me.

I'm gonna wait this out and see how DJI responds.

 

[Meta4]

I don't understand why my flight log on the dji go app did not show this gps location.

I meant it's a good case to refer to DJI because the flight record doesn't indicate operator error.
I'd recommend trying their online help.
Upload the flight record via the app and go to: DJI Support - Phantom 3 Advanced
Click on Online Support and have a chat to see what they say.
Find your box because they will ask for the serial number - it's on the sticker with the bar code.

 

[losman26]

I did the chat. They told me to contact DJI USA.

 

[Vertigo]

It all starts with "speed error". Ive been trying to find out what that message actually means, if it refers to an error in GPS speed, motor speed or something else; all I discovered so far is that most people that see that error in their logs, also get all the other errors (yaw error, compass error etc) and typically never see their phantom again :'(.

One other thing that caught my eye is the surprising voltage drop. Around 1m30 it drops to critical levels even though the battery ought to be almost full. Yes, the phantom is climbing at that point, so some voltage sag is to be expected, but this seems excessive. The voltage recovers later, so Im not saying this is the cause, but I wonder if you had a bad motor. That might explain excessive current draw, which in turn could affect the compass.

 

[Wibble]

I tried to install the Google Earth plugin but it won't let me. Is that becuase I am using Windows 10? Seems support is running out for it.

 

[losman26]

It all starts with "speed error". Ive been trying to find out what that message actually means, if it refers to an error in GPS speed, motor speed or something else; all I discovered so far is that most people that see that error in their logs, also get all the other errors (yaw error, compass error etc) and typically never see their phantom again :'(.

One other thing that caught my eye is the surprising voltage drop. Around 1m30 it drops to critical levels even though the battery ought to be almost full. Yes, the phantom is climbing at that point, so some voltage sag is to be expected, but this seems excessive. The voltage recovers later, so Im not saying this is the cause, but I wonder if you had a bad motor. That might explain excessive current draw, which in turn could affect the compass.

It all seems bizarre to me that out of nowhere this would happen. I got a couple of compass errors out of nowhere a few weeks back while visiting family in Michigan, so I'm starting to think that there was something wrong with this thing from the get go. I also have a P3s which never, ever gave me a compass error. This P3 pro gave it to me more than a few times not too much longer after buying the thing. I don't understand the voltage part either. Batteries are not that old. Motors seemed ok. Not sure what else I could have done. I'm not that pissed off, because at least the thing didn't hurt someone, but I'm out $700. Not sure what DJI's take will be on this one.

 

[Vertigo]

Did you get the compass errors only when the props where spinning, or also before arming?

 

[BudWalker]

I got a compass error right away into my flight, hit return to home while flying in atti-, then lost RC signal immediately. The thing never came back,, and is probably stuck in a tree somewhere, who knows. I bought my p3 pro slightly used off of ebay, so probably DJI is not going to cover anything. Pretty convinced this is a defect. I got a compass error a couple of weeks ago while visiting Michigan as well out of nowhere like this, but managed to fly it back in atti mode. This time, I lost the RC as well. Calling DJI right now, 16 in the queue. I will get another drone eventually, probably not DJI depending on what happens.

There's no way you could have known this, but initiating RTH after seeing a compass error can cause a fly away. It depends on the specifics of the compass error that can only be obtained from the .DAT file. From your description I would guess this is what happened in your incident. I'll also speculate that since the compass error happened immediately after launch that the launch site was geomagnetically distorted. The compass error was a result of the sudden change when the AC left that distortion. Unfortunately, the AC will still be using the original, incorrect, yaw info. If you recover your AC and retrieve the .DAT we can determine if this is what happened.

 

[losman26]

Did you get the compass errors only when the props where spinning, or also before arming?

Never got a compass error on the ground before putting the thing up in the air. Never happened until I was about 1 min 30 secs in the air, all times that it happened. Probably happened a total of 5 times in the last month. I didn't think much of it before, because I never lost the RC signal and was able to fly it back or regain the GPS signal eventually.

 

[losman26]

There's no way you could have known this, but initiating RTH after seeing a compass error can cause a fly away. It depends on the specifics of the compass error that can only be obtained from the .DAT file. From your description I would guess this is what happened in your incident. I'll also speculate that since the compass error happened immediately after launch that the launch site was geomagnetically distorted. The compass error was a result of the sudden change when the AC left that distortion. Unfortunately, the AC will still be using the original, incorrect, yaw info. If you recover your AC and retrieve the .DAT we can determine if this is what happened.

not sure how initiating the RTH would cause a loss in the RC right away. I did RTH a few weeks, just to get the thing turned around, but it's in atti-mode anyways. Cannot understand the RC loss at such a short distance, when I had been flying 5000 ft in the same area prior. Bottom line is, the RTH didn't matter, because the RC signal loss happened right away.