After the kids went to bed last night I finally had some free time to play with the P4 I've had since release day. Got my Beta copy of Litchi all set up and a few test journeys plotted in.
First was a waypoint orbit to a building down the highway about half a mile. Orbited at 130 feet, shot some video, and flew home. Everything went great, I didn't even really bother orienting the antennas and still never went below about 50% on the signal.
Second was a lap around my subdivision with a few sweeps at the corners. I started to lose signal when it was in the far corner from me, but I wasn't too worried since I was flying lower (80 feet) and there are a row of two-story townhouses blocking line-of-sight. Signal dropped. Still not worried, the whole flightplan was maybe five minutes long, and I was more than halfway done, so I should hear it coming in no more than a minute or so.
When that doesn't happen after about four or five minutes I start to wonder if somehow the failsafe wasn't working and it decided to either hover or land if it lost signal. I head over on foot to look for it near where I last saw it on the map, but it's nowhere to be found. If it tried to land it would have possible been in somebody's yard or a tree, and it's after midnight at this point so I don't want to get shot creeping around somebody's yard so I decide to call it a night and look in the morning. On the way home I realize that even if it hung in a tree or landed somewhere out of sight, I still should have been able to get a signal on the remote (It had plenty of battery when it left and had only flown for maybe 3.5 minutes). The fact that I wasn't able to reconnect seems...not good.
Woke up this morning and headed over there again to see what I can find. Sure enough, first driveway past where I saw it on the map...
Well lookie there: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
You may have to blow that up to full-size to tell but on the left edge of the driveway is my P4 (upside down) and in the bottom-right corner are the pieces of my battery. The white pieces between them are just random trash, not anything related to my drone.
Battery closeup: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
The bird closeup: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
Back in my car right-side up: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
What used to be a set of props: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
The only visible damage other than a little scuff: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
Motors all turn fine and new props will lock in place (even on the broken mount) but those things spin so fast I don't want to run it with that chunk missing.
Bad news not evident from the photos: Gimbal is trashed. When I turn it on the gimbal goes to one side and I get "Gimbal motor overload" error. Camera still works, though.
Guess I have an appointment with DJI repair in my future, would appreciate any tips or recommendations on that.
My questions:
1. Why did I crash? I was flying at 70-something feet, the trees there are maybe 50' tops. The video doesn't show anything, it was too dark to see if any branches were close and it just all of a sudden ends while the drone is in the air. If I had hit a tree wouldn't there have been a few seconds of tumbling/falling?
2. How the hell did that battery get so far away? I bet it was 20 feet from the drone, and all of the pieces were together (although I did move them a little closer together for the closeup photo). That seems like the battery ejected mid-air rather than on the ground. An impact hard enough to throw the battery that far would have done more damage to the drone than what it was.
Any ideas?
First was a waypoint orbit to a building down the highway about half a mile. Orbited at 130 feet, shot some video, and flew home. Everything went great, I didn't even really bother orienting the antennas and still never went below about 50% on the signal.
Second was a lap around my subdivision with a few sweeps at the corners. I started to lose signal when it was in the far corner from me, but I wasn't too worried since I was flying lower (80 feet) and there are a row of two-story townhouses blocking line-of-sight. Signal dropped. Still not worried, the whole flightplan was maybe five minutes long, and I was more than halfway done, so I should hear it coming in no more than a minute or so.
When that doesn't happen after about four or five minutes I start to wonder if somehow the failsafe wasn't working and it decided to either hover or land if it lost signal. I head over on foot to look for it near where I last saw it on the map, but it's nowhere to be found. If it tried to land it would have possible been in somebody's yard or a tree, and it's after midnight at this point so I don't want to get shot creeping around somebody's yard so I decide to call it a night and look in the morning. On the way home I realize that even if it hung in a tree or landed somewhere out of sight, I still should have been able to get a signal on the remote (It had plenty of battery when it left and had only flown for maybe 3.5 minutes). The fact that I wasn't able to reconnect seems...not good.
Woke up this morning and headed over there again to see what I can find. Sure enough, first driveway past where I saw it on the map...
Well lookie there: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
You may have to blow that up to full-size to tell but on the left edge of the driveway is my P4 (upside down) and in the bottom-right corner are the pieces of my battery. The white pieces between them are just random trash, not anything related to my drone.
Battery closeup: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
The bird closeup: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
Back in my car right-side up: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
What used to be a set of props: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
The only visible damage other than a little scuff: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet
Motors all turn fine and new props will lock in place (even on the broken mount) but those things spin so fast I don't want to run it with that chunk missing.
Bad news not evident from the photos: Gimbal is trashed. When I turn it on the gimbal goes to one side and I get "Gimbal motor overload" error. Camera still works, though.
Guess I have an appointment with DJI repair in my future, would appreciate any tips or recommendations on that.
My questions:
1. Why did I crash? I was flying at 70-something feet, the trees there are maybe 50' tops. The video doesn't show anything, it was too dark to see if any branches were close and it just all of a sudden ends while the drone is in the air. If I had hit a tree wouldn't there have been a few seconds of tumbling/falling?
2. How the hell did that battery get so far away? I bet it was 20 feet from the drone, and all of the pieces were together (although I did move them a little closer together for the closeup photo). That seems like the battery ejected mid-air rather than on the ground. An impact hard enough to throw the battery that far would have done more damage to the drone than what it was.
Any ideas?
