- Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Video

Re: I crashed it into a lake... UPDATE : FOUND IT!

guessing at 2 of the possible causes of failure

1. #3 motor red wire not connected to esc at esc solder point

2. Greenish corrosion at the smart battery verification prong connections. ( EDIT / UPDATE - on video you can hear motors turning while in bottom of lake, phantom was on for a little while at bottom of lake so does not seem to be battery or battery connection issue, greenish corrosion likely from electrolysis, funtioning battery + brakish salt water)

gopro is dry! Will post video soon
 

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Re: I crashed it into a lake... so far not found

Great you found your quad.
 
Re: I crashed it into a lake... so far not found

This just got interesting! I'm curious to see the video of it going in the drink. Hope you figure out what happened also, so you know how not to repeat it next time and maybe we all will learn something from this...!
 
Re: I crashed it into a lake... Now with VIDEO

THE VIDEO - Put together a quick little edit of the few seconds before crash into lake.

----> http://youtu.be/IXJfbjRdOBE



.
 
Re: I crashed it into a lake... so far not found

Your Phantom may not be absolute trash. Hire a SCUBA diver, who has a dry suit as that temperature is too cold for a wetsuit. Though it is only four feet deep, diving with sweeping with your hands is preferable to your feet. Kicking around stirs up a lot of silt.

Other options include a small boat with sonar equipment. Although a little harder on shore, if you could make a triangle fix, it would narrow the search down. If on a boat and you drop something and you don't have a GPS unit, look at the shore. Find an object that lines up with where you lost it. Then find an object on another shore, that lines up. A third would be great, but not required.

If you can find a SCUBA diver who is trained in Rescue and Recovery, it would be a great start. Perhaps you know a fireman, who know of someone or a police officer. I've trained divers, in this speciality, in law enforcement and the fire department.

Anyway, your Phantom is lost, but still is repairable. Once you find it, feel free to PMSG me and I'll tell you how to recover it. :)
 
Re: I crashed it into a lake... so far not found

mendezl said:
VIDEO - Put together a quick little edit of the few secs before failure / crash. Will post full video in a while.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXJfbjRdOBE&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Oh wow, I wonder if that wire from your motor to your esc got disconnected somehow during flight? At first it looked like you flipped into manual mode, and then lost power to 1 if not 2 of your motors. Or maybe the motors lost power as it was disconnecting from the solder point, and made it tip forward? Not sure, but I hope you get it up in the air again soon. At least you was able to find it.
 
Re: I crashed it into a lake...UPDATE: Found it! - UPDATE: V

Do you know the rice method? PMSG if you would like.
 
Re: I crashed it into a lake...UPDATE: Found it! - UPDATE: V

Wow....your bird went crazy and then deep! Great video....sorry for your loss!
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

Is it possible to do remote control inputs to make the phantom tumble / loop on itself around its axis that quickly?

Nano qx arrives on tuesday... looks like that will be my main quad for a while
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

I don't think so... It looked like your phantom was angled forward much more than what is normally possible just before it went haywire. I really have no idea what just happened there. I've flown manually before, and I don't recall it being able to do that. The sudden loss of control really does look like it was a prop that stopped spinning, which could be ESC failure. This would very much be possible with the broken ESC wire you have in those pictures. I can't see any other explanation.
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

Prophecies said:
I don't think so... It looked like your phantom was angled forward much more than what is normally possible just before it went haywire. I really have no idea what just happened there. I've flown manually before, and I don't recall it being able to do that.

The gopro was directly mounted to phantom, no gimbal. I had the gopro tilted down maybe 10° to keep the propellers out of the video. It was in ATTI mode. So when flying full forward the gopro does look down a good bit (35° atti tilt max + 10° gopro tilt)
 

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Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

I'm gonna guess you lost a motor or ESC.
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

mendezl said:
Prophecies said:
I don't think so... It looked like your phantom was angled forward much more than what is normally possible just before it went haywire. I really have no idea what just happened there. I've flown manually before, and I don't recall it being able to do that.

The gopro was directly mounted to phantom, no gimbal. I had the gopro tilted down maybe 10° to keep the propellers out of the video. It was in ATTI mode. So when flying full forward the gopro does look down a good bit (35° atti tilt max + 10° gopro tilt)

OH! No gimbal! I'm sorry, that would explain the low angle then! In that case, it really does just look like you were going about in one direction and you lost power to your motor/ESC.
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

Wow! Glad you found it and I hope you can get it up and flying again. Thanks for sharing the video and pics.
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

Very pleased you found it. Good work.
ESC disconnect is odd though.
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

Looking at that real close it looks like the wire is gone where it was soldered . Could it had not just shorted out when it hit the water and burnt ?
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

A heroic effort to get it back. You deserve all the luck in the world for it to start working again. I know you have probably already began drying out, but I would have given it a **** good flush with filtered water then pack in rice in a warm dry place for a week. Good luck
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

pilsburypie said:
A heroic effort to get it back. You deserve all the luck in the world for it to start working again. I know you have probably already began drying out, but I would have given it a **** good flush with filtered water then pack in rice in a warm dry place for a week. Good luck

exactly what I did, was thinking keep it in the rice for 2 days... but a week it is I guess. And I have it in the garage where it is cold, so I guess I'll put it inside.

I guess the ESC wire could have shorted when it hit the wire, I was thinking it shorted in flight causing the crash, not sure how to tell what exactly happened. I do not think that this can be replicated on purpose using remote control inputs. Doing CSC could do it, but I hear motors on and turning during the tumble and upon hitting water, and Im 100% sure I did not CSC. At 29 secs in the video I thought I heard noice from the phantom's motors, but now I think it is noice from a ski boat that was nearby and had left the area. I am ofcourse biased, but It seems that the red wire at ESC solder point failed, either from vibrations, ESC overload and overheat and that was the weakest point, or simply wire failure.

I am going to attempt to file a RMA with DJI to get the phantom fixed / replaced under warranty. It is going to be very hard because:
1. DJI is notorious for hard to deal with regarding crashes.
2. They could say phantom is modified because I added fpv gear, I probably opened the phantom 20 times since I had it.
3. I stupidly put locktite on the shell screws a few months ago and the locktite corroded the shell plastic, so I bought a new replacement shell and did a complete electronics transplant into the new shell (Flew it maybe 60 times with the new shell.) (but why would they sell a replacement shell if it voids warranty?)
4. The new DJI shell does not have any serial or model numbers, those are on the original shell.
5. DJI will say it was due to pilot error.
6. Once found, I rinsed it with tap water and placed it in rice. DJI could say that this alone voids warranty.

Any tips on succesfully dealing with DJI and getting this thing warrantied?
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

Pray and keep your fingers crossed ! Hope ya the best with them !!!
 
Re: - Crash into a lake... UPDATE: Found it!... UPDATE: Vide

The rescue equipment. Large rake with 8 foot poles for wide searching area. Placed two poles 300 feet apart with line in between to use as guide, would walk along the line while dragging the rake slowly and feeling for anything at bottom. There were numerous false alarms (rocks, stumps, shells, glass bottle, frisbee, etc) Them move the poles 6 feet and do it again... About 100 times. This morning I feel like I got hit by a car, swore everywhere.
 

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