Another Fly Away

Opwan said:
I would have to rule out the bad cell account as it was a quality made 6 cell not a month old with around 20 charges on it. Every charge was made at 2 amps taking 5 hours. I did not push the battery to even 1C charge rate. Also checked voltage of each cell before the flight. .

No offense but your attention to detail (obvious), age of battery and number of charges has very little to do with its ability to fail.

You are putting way too much faith in the technology. I know its frustrating but you can't and never will be able to account for everything that happens with one of these things.

You keep trying to rule out that there was no operator error which is entirely possible but stuff fails no matter how hard you try to maintain it.

The battery circuitry in one of these things has more going on than you or I probably understand. Its designed to calculate fly time left and also force an auto-land if it thinks its needed.

Your description screams auto-land. For whatever reason.
 
The subject line says: "Another Fly Away"

Please tell me that this has not happened to YOU before. If it has, what terrible thing have you done to deserve THAT MUCH bad luck? :(
 
Opwan said:
Actually it has with a Phantom Vision+,
Yea this loss hurt a lot but I'll get over it. :D
Wow! I must say you have a very strong and optimistic disposition my friend! I had a P2V fly back to China this past July. Still to this day, every time I drive by the area where that happened, I pause for a moment of silence. . .

I know what you meant though in your OP about the time you had invested in R&D. I was more upset about the time I had invested in it (lost) than the financial loss. I probably had as many hours in modding, balancing, performance tuning, testing, reading, learning, etc. as I did actually flying the thing. I still can't believe that on its 100th anniversary flight, THAT's when it decided to take off. :(

Here's my moment of silence in tribute to YOUR loss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I mourn with thee.

Best wishes to you :!:
 
Opwan said:
They know they have " issues" hence the public seminar they had a while back.
Would you please elaborate on that statement? I hadn't heard of any such seminar. Is there any archival video of said seminar?
 
Opwan said:
ATC Drone Flyer said:
Opwan said:
They know they have " issues" hence the public seminar they had a while back.
Would you please elaborate on that statement? I hadn't heard of any such seminar. Is there any archival video of said seminar?
Here it is. It's well documented elsewhere on other forums also but I'm not going to announce it on there until I get a response from DJI, so far they are being supportive in my situation. Time will tell. WooKoong from what I've read has been pretty reliable so far but A2 is still schetchy. You won't find it here as most guys on here are flying Phantoms.
http://www.photographybay.com/2014/01/1 ... phantom-2/

I personally don't know of any known issues as you stated and that video you just linked to did not elude to that either.

I would be surprised if you can get anywhere with DJI using "known issues" as a crutch. Going to be even tougher since you cant produce the phantom to send back to them.

You keep talking about doing everything right and I have no doubt you have. Not to add to your frustration but even at $2500 this is hobby level Chinese product. There is risk with it. I fly mine every time knowing that one of these flights its not coming back.

I am surprised with all the stuff you have done including low voltage buzzers that you did not add a tracking device to it.
 
You have been on the defensive since you started this thread and you wont find anywhere I said you have done ANYTHING wrong.

You just will not accept the fact that **** happens.

I truly hope you do resolve this and wish you the best.
 
Opwan said:
How long have you had your "Phantom"? :D

Actually I am a new flyer with not near your knowledge or flying experience.
 
sorry for your loss
I had a $2k F450 fly away on me,.never to be seen again. had my contact info on it as well, but no clue (and it went down in a populated area!).
now I only fly with a GPS tracker (tagg.com),
 
Gizmo3000 said:
sorry for your loss
I had a $2k F450 fly away on me,.never to be seen again. had my contact info on it as well, but no clue (and it went down in a populated area!).
now I only fly with a GPS tracker (tagg.com),

I've been lucky. I "mislaid" my Phantom a couple of weeks ago (not a "flyaway" - pure pilot error) and got a phone call from the gentleman whose garden it had landed in about an hour later. Thank goodness that I had a label on it with my name and phone number on! It had hit a tree in his garden and fallen to the ground. Cost me one prop, a replacement ESC, and a bent gimbal. No damage to the GoPro, fortunately.
 
Opwan said:
If I ever build another one it WILL have a tracker on it. I had actually looked at a couple and was eventually going to get one....too late! I was going to purchase one but the monthly fee turned me off.
Any loss of these "machines" is bad. Even more with all your labor and cost you placed into it. As so many others have stated, I hope it shows up soon.
.
Do lots of research on trackers. I have seen ones that I went into :shock: when I saw the cost and cost of service. There are many that will do the job and cost much less. An example of mine, if I recall correctly it cost about $50.00 and have service for abound $3.00 a month. Not what I would call high on something you had put $2,500.00 into and many hours of labor.
 
Just my 2 cents.....most of those devices aren't really GPS trackers but rely on cell towers......so if you are in the middle of an a deserted area it might not work well for you....
 
Opwan said:
If I ever build another one it WILL have a tracker on it. I had actually looked at a couple and was eventually going to get one....too late! I was going to purchase one but the monthly fee turned me off.

Consider the Marco Polo for RC. It does not require a monthly fee. I'm sure you could get a second opinion from rrmccabe who I believe owns one.
 
ZAPPATA007 said:
Just my 2 cents.....most of those devices aren't really GPS trackers but rely on cell towers......so if you are in the middle of an a deserted area it might not work well for you....
Disagree somewhat. I would change that statement to: Some of those devices are not really GPS trackers, but rely on cell towers. Yes, you need the cell service to contact the device and it back to you. I would still state the best chance to get your lost quad back is to have a tracker that uses both.
 
Happyflyer said:
I would still state the best chance to get your lost quad back is to have a tracker that uses both.

... AND have your contact details prominently displayed on your Phantom!
 
I hate to turn this thread into YET ANOTHER GPS Tracker thread, so I'll be brief:
After my own "Fly Away" incident I bought one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321470325104?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT
The current price on eBay is $52.28 but it often goes on sale for under $50
It has a REAL GPS module inside, it's packed with cool features, and I was able to get a POST-Paid SIM Card (Mobile Data Plan) from T-Mobile that only costs $10 a month. I have it configured to upload its location coordinates once every minute, and as with most GPS devices has location accuracy of +/- 10 meters.

I haven't actually needed to use it to find a lost aircraft yet, but it does give me great peace-of-mind knowing that its there when i need it. . .
 
Opwan said:
Thanks for the info guys, if I ever build another one I will definitely check into one. Right now it's gonna take a long time to get over this financial hit to the ol wallet. :D

You haven't given up on it, have you? You know roughly where it is - keep searching!
 
Get an Eagletree OSD with GPS. Assuming you fly FPV record your flts on a ground station and DVR. Even easier use the new Fat shark HD goggles with a built in DVR. If you crash just hit replay and record the last GPS positions. Take out your phone and plug the coordinates into Google earth. Walk out and get it! Bring a can of mace or better still a whiskey bottle for your neighbor!
 
Well even in the best if builds, there are a lot of things that can go seriously wrong. I've built some real decent birds and have still had problems. That's why I install my Gimbals after I have proof tested the bird usually with a solid mounted GoPro but always running a OSD with GPS. I fly out in the desert and it can be really difficult finding a downed bird without the GPS. Put the money in it first then install the Gimbal once your convinced it's a solid machine. Don't sweat it! We all
Make mistakes and have unexplainable "issues". Just take what you learn and move on!-Rob
 
Opwan said:
Lost a week old H3-3D that was junk too, horizon tilt and left twitch.
Please elaborate. . .
Does that statement mean that you were able to recover your lost aircraft after all?
 

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