Crashed doing Waypoint in Litchi, battery drained but never got warning

[Luap]

Was looking at the Dat file.
At around 2:50 minutes values of Voltage, Amps,Remaining Capacity, Useful time all freeze. All other telemetry data keeps on working.
Seems like the issue is communication error between smart batteries and a/c CPU. This does not seem related to what flyNfrank posts on "similar battery issues".
I've recorded In Dashware 1st 15 seconds where the battery telemetry freeze happens and then the last 15 seconds of end of flight.

 

[BudWalker]

I looked at the .DAT itself; not the .csv that gets generated by DatCon when it reads the .DAT. The .DAT file is a recording of data that occurs on the P3 internal bus. It's a stream of records where each record comes from a particular module; e.g. the IMU, the gps, or the battery. When the battery values stopped changing in this flight it was because the battery module stopped putting it's records on the bus.

 

[dottat4]

Man....that beep beep beep beep brings back memories. The second you know it's likely falling back to earth. I feel for you op. Been there. Just finally flew mine again this weekend five months after repair.

Looking at your damage and knowing what mine was I would be surprised if you don't need a new board. The various connectors tend to rip free from the board.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[Digdat0]

Man....that beep beep beep beep brings back memories. The second you know it's likely falling back to earth. I feel for you op. Been there. Just finally flew mine again this weekend five months after repair.Looking at your damage and knowing what mine was I would be surprised if you don't need a new board. The various connectors tend to rip free from the board.

Thanks man From what i can tell, all electronics are working still, definitely need to replace two motors but I can start and run and stop the motors and in DJI Go all of the functions work fine, I get GPS and no errors of any sort. I am optimistic that the battery and arm took the brunt of it and there is no more damage, but we shall see.

 

[henick]

That's something in 1.7 firmware. It's the protection they put in place to stop the device from ascending too quickly and causing the battery to fail due to the combination of under voltage from a partially depleted battery and too much demand from a rapid ascent. It would seem to be their temporary stop-gap to drones falling from the sky. I believe it then warns of limited propulsion...

I personally appreciate the warning popping up rather than the alternative... I guess it's annoying a bit but so are most safety features of other things. Seatbelts bother me sometimes too haha.

If I am correct, you shouldn't be able to reproduce it on a full battery because the mAH pool is deep enough to supply the demand of the ascent. That's why the issues on partial charge.

 

[Digdat0]

I went ahead and sent the unit in to Dji to have them checkout and see what all needs to be replaced. I'll likely Buy the parts and do myself. Hope to hear back soon.

 

[Digdat0]

Update: I've got closure on the situation, DJI ended up repairing the drone under warranty, saving me a total of $354 (not including labor). It seems that there was some issue on the hardware, they didn't share the actual diagnosis. This was actually a SUPER painless interaction with DJI. They received it, analyzed, fixed and shipped back out. No back and forth, no arguments or anything. I made sure to include all of my paperwork and typed a 2 page letter describing the situation surrounding the crash, as well as the evidence everyone here helped me compile. I think that made the situation very easy for them to diagnose and they did the right thing and just fixed it.

I initiated the support case on April 22nd, received the shipping label same day, but didn't end up dropping off at Fedex until April 25th. They received it April 28th, did the work quickly and shipped it back out on May 2nd, I received it today the 5th. This was FAST, considering they had to diagnose and repair.

They ended up replacing the entire shell, the bottom cover, two motors, the main control board, the gimbal pitch axis component, the gimbal vibration damper plate AND the battery. Here's the invoice:

I wanted to also say thank you to everyone who provided help, insights and analysis into my crash. This helped it be covered under warranty as it proved hardware issues. This is a terrific forum and I look forward to this community growing. Don't become the DJI forums and all krusty, keep being awesome Cheers!

 

[sinxa]

Update: I've got closure on the situation, DJI ended up repairing the drone under warranty, saving me a total of $354 (not including labor). It seems that there was some issue on the hardware, they didn't share the actual diagnosis. This was actually a SUPER painless interaction with DJI. They received it, analyzed, fixed and shipped back out. No back and forth, no arguments or anything. I made sure to include all of my paperwork and typed a 2 page letter describing the situation surrounding the crash, as well as the evidence everyone here helped me compile. I think that made the situation very easy for them to diagnose and they did the right thing and just fixed it.

I initiated the support case on April 22nd, received the shipping label same day, but didn't end up dropping off at Fedex until April 25th. They received it April 28th, did the work quickly and shipped it back out on May 2nd, I received it today the 5th. This was FAST, considering they had to diagnose and repair.

They ended up replacing the entire shell, the bottom cover, two motors, the main control board, the gimbal pitch axis component, the gimbal vibration damper plate AND the battery. Here's the invoice:

I wanted to also say thank you to everyone who provided help, insights and analysis into my crash. This helped it be covered under warranty as it proved hardware issues. This is a terrific forum and I look forward to this community growing. Don't become the DJI forums and all krusty, keep being awesome Cheers!

Glad to hear that, can you tell us what's the hardware issue you've mentioned?

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[royster]

In your explantation of the events leading to the crash, did you happen to mention you were using the Litchi app?

 

[Digdat0]

Glad to hear that, can you tell us what's the hardware issue you've mentioned?

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

They didn't tell me, unfortunately. I'm assuming it was a battery issue, which one of their subsequent updates fixed.

 

[Digdat0]

In your explantation of the events leading to the crash, did you happen to mention you were using the Litchi app?

Yes I did, and i even provided them the Litchi flight log. This was before they decided 3rd party apps were not supported :/

 

[Pharm]

Interesting that in the first pic there are two motors with props, one with a sheared hub and one with no prop at all. Was the missing prop found?

 

[Digdat0]

Interesting that in the first pic there are two motors with props, one with a sheared hub and one with no prop at all. Was the missing prop found?

I took that prop off, so yes i did find it

 

[Pharm]

I took that prop off, so yes i did find it

Ok. Why did you take it off? Just curious.

 

[Digdat0]

Ok. Why did you take it off? Just curious.

It was still ... Complete, not broken. I put it on a wall as a souvenir.

 

[Pharm]

It was still ... Complete, not broken. I put it on a wall as a souvenir.

Haha. Ok.

 

[tagiles]

I wanted to add my two cents. Whenever something glitches I bring it home right away. I have lost a big bird to a no-battery-warning-sounding glitch (3DR Pixhawk, Tower app on android) but it was my fault in the end because I was too heavy and gone too long - no excuse!

21min - you are crazy. What happens if the wind picks up when you're landing? I always like to be within a mile or so and headed home at 30% (~16 minutes) with a phantom.

I am from Canada, fly for work and pleasure. When flying for pleasure, we cannot fly within 500 feet of ANYTHING - Cars, people, buildings, etc. I cannot believe you are allowed to fly over those parking lots and near the sports stadiums. That is shocking - what if it hit someone or someone's property on the ground? Do you have permission from the Uni? I am not a stickler for rules by any means, just surprising to see. Not fair!

Great report, great read, thanks. Can't believe DJI fixed it for you
Cheers
Tom