Calibrate crash

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So i'm new to flying a quad. I've been flying this dji phantom 3 standard around 12 flights now. Never had a problem. I've taken to max altitude of 394 ft. I have only taken to two diff locations. I always calibrate first then fly. I took it out the other day and it wouldn't calibrate at all, kept saying IMU error possible magnetic interference. I must have tried for a half hour at least but no luck. I took outside again the next day to try to calibrate again. I tried several times and none showed success. The last time I tried to calibrate it showed the same IMU error but then all of a sudden it shows "Safe to fly" so i'm thinking its calibrated. I set to auto takeoff, assuming that if it wasn't calibrated that it wouldn't take off as it did that to me the day before. It wouldn't take off because it wasn't calibrated. So here I am with the ready to fly message. I set to auto takeoff. It lifts up about 3 ft, starts drifting off to the side, i try to correct it but would not respond. Some how it drifted more towards my patio and somehow i must have hit throttle up and then it took off, straight up into my patio roof. It slammed so hard and was at full throttle. I had no response from it so then after hitting the roof for bout 5 seconds it then slams to the ground with the sound of plastic grinding and parts breaking. It then shoots clear across my driveway about 15 ft, all while sideways. Finally it lands upside-down and was still full speed. i did not know how to stop it. The throttle down wasn't doing anything. I grabbed it by the landing gear and held it upright and did not know how to turn off. I managed to get my finger to the power button and held twice to turn of and didn't work. After about 1 min it just died down power and cut off. although it still had 95% battery left. The only setting i have changed was distance from 50 to 100. Luckily the only thing that damaged was two propellers but i'm still going to take for an exchange at the store i got it from less than 1 month ago.

Any ideas???
 
Post the internal TXT log and we'll check it out. If you're not sure how to find that log, see the "Manual method - DJ GO" instructions in the middle of this page.
 
So i'm new to flying a quad. I've been flying this dji phantom 3 standard around 12 flights now. Never had a problem. I've taken to max altitude of 394 ft. I have only taken to two diff locations. I always calibrate first then fly. I took it out the other day and it wouldn't calibrate at all, kept saying IMU error possible magnetic interference. I must have tried for a half hour at least but no luck. I took outside again the next day to try to calibrate again. I tried several times and none showed success. The last time I tried to calibrate it showed the same IMU error but then all of a sudden it shows "Safe to fly" so i'm thinking its calibrated. I set to auto takeoff, assuming that if it wasn't calibrated that it wouldn't take off as it did that to me the day before. It wouldn't take off because it wasn't calibrated. So here I am with the ready to fly message. I set to auto takeoff. It lifts up about 3 ft, starts drifting off to the side, i try to correct it but would not respond. Some how it drifted more towards my patio and somehow i must have hit throttle up and then it took off, straight up into my patio roof. It slammed so hard and was at full throttle. I had no response from it so then after hitting the roof for bout 5 seconds it then slams to the ground with the sound of plastic grinding and parts breaking. It then shoots clear across my driveway about 15 ft, all while sideways. Finally it lands upside-down and was still full speed. i did not know how to stop it. The throttle down wasn't doing anything. I grabbed it by the landing gear and held it upright and did not know how to turn off. I managed to get my finger to the power button and held twice to turn of and didn't work. After about 1 min it just died down power and cut off. although it still had 95% battery left. The only setting i have changed was distance from 50 to 100. Luckily the only thing that damaged was two propellers but i'm still going to take for an exchange at the store i got it from less than 1 month ago.

Any ideas???
Yes .. but you probably won't like them.
This might sound a bit harsh and I apologise if I've misunderstood something but going on what you've said, this is what I've come up with.

Sounds like 100% user error and not something you should be given an exchange for.
There's not much evidence that you read the manual if you didn't know how to shut off the motors.
Your choice of takeoff location was not good - close to a house and tree and on a concrete driveway with steel reinforcing rods just underneath.
That's the possible magnetic interference your Phantom was telling you about.

When owners say: I always calibrate first then fly, that's usually an indication that they don't understand compass calibration or when it is necessary.
It's also often an indication that they risk giving their compass a bad calibration when they unnecessarily recalibrate in a bad location - like on a concrete driveway.

It looks like you've messed up the compass by trying to calibrate it where the normal magnetic field of the earth is distorted by all the steel in the concrete.
Once the Phantom lifts away from the distorted field you had adjusted it to, it's now in the normal magnetic field of the earth but the compass is having trouble working out anything because it's been adjusted for a completely different magnetic environment.

Some advice
1. Don't exchange your Phantom - take responsibility for your mistake
2. Read the manual, watch DJI tutorial videos, ask questions here for anything you don't understand before flying again
3. Go to a large open area well away from buildings, trees, concrete etc to fly
4. Calibrate your compass in the open away from any iron or steel
5. Stick with your good compass calibration rather than screwing it up unnecessarily
 
Your log shows compass and IMU errors -- just as you described. That explains the erratic fight behavior. You definitely should not have taken off until you were able to get a good compass calibration. Furthermore, you were flying in very close quarters, so there was not much room for error even if things had went as expected.

This definitely appears to be pilot error, so you're not going to be able to exchange it unless you lie to the seller.
 
Wow. Well this was where I had been flying from since I got it and never had issue. The manual does not go much into great description on stuff. So how was I supposed to turn it off?
 
Wow. Well this was where I had been flying from since I got it and never had issue. The manual does not go much into great description on stuff. So how was I supposed to turn it off?
Read this carefully and note the pink highlighted part
CSC is the emergency stop method
i-ZhRNmjb.jpg
 
Well this was where I had been flying from since I got it and never had issue.
Right. But, on your last few attempts, you saw messages about IMU errors and strong compass interference. It's never a good idea to attempt to take off when those errors occur. Live and learn I guess.
 
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YES, you take it back. If you have had it less than 30 days. There is absolutely no reason not to. I always take off from the grass if near a concrete driveway, don't blame yourself this happens and you can return for any reason. I have the P3 Standard and like mine. I had it for a month and had to send it to DJi for repair after doing a firmware update.

Also only shut the motors off by pulling the throttle down all the way. The CSC way will cause the P3S to tip over.
 
Yes I took back to the store I got it from and actually have up to 90 days to return if if I need to. I just exchanged for another one. The p3s did not come with a manual. I'll just look at it online.
 
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FYI, you can download the Phantom manual here.
 
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I hope you picked up on my advise about using the throttle down only to shut off the motors. See this video.
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I like Simon Newton's posts. Lot of good info.
 
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I can tell you from working in retail that most company's are able to ship back to the distributor for credit. There may be an issue with his original quad and not a pilot error. It seams like when someone has a crash many just want to blame it on pilot error. That is not always the case.

It's not being dishonest unless he did something on purpose or was totally irresponsible.
 
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If I have been flying it from that same spot in my backyard for most of the flights. All of a sudden I can't calibrate and then it tells me safe to fly. How is this my error?
 
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I hope you picked up on my advise about using the throttle down only to shut off the motors. See this video.
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I like Simon Newton's posts. Lot of good info.
I always land and stop the motors like shown in this video. To recap, land and hold the left stick fully down for a few seconds and motors stop. This video shows that the CSC method to stop the motors causes a motor speed surge for a half second or so before stopping. Thus causes tip over crashing quite a lot. I think DJI should fix this if they can to remove the surge.
 
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THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT ANY ONE MEMBER, IT APPLIES TO ALL-

I have gone through this thread and removed all the non-relavant content. Do not use the forum to argue your off topic views. As far as returning stuff, there are many different policies out there and no one here knows them all. Even Amazon will take back customer damaged & abused merchandise (thats how they list it), including expensive electronics like computers. It was his prerogative to return it and it is no business of ours. If the store took it back they obviously are OK with it.

The main thing to take away from thread is to fully read & understand the manual, have a good understanding of how your quad works and practice safe operation at all times.

*Any further discourse in this thread will earn you a warning so please keep replies civil and non-judgemental.
 

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