Drone just fell out of the sky

[telliott67]

I wont lie, I was nervous flying at first. All I could think about was the same thing happening again and my drone falling out of the sky as I watch in horror but seeing as they are correcting the problem and giving me another one, that has helped with my confidence.

I just saw on the P4 discussion where a P3 fell out of the sky and hit a woman in the head! Just fallen out of the sky just like mine and yours! I'm great full that it didn't hit anyone or went into the river. From what kind of responses I'm seeing a pattern with the P3P


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[telliott67]

Again, the battery percentage does not matter. Can you tell me what your VOLTAGE was? In the attached image, you can see what I'm referring to. With the setting enabled, you will see the voltage under the battery percentage (there's a red square around it). In the image, the voltage is 4.11v. If that number drops below 3.5v, the battery will turn off. Someone analyzed your logs earlier and pointed out your voltage dropped and this would align with this theory. You were flying pretty high so it could have just been a strong steady gust of wind.

The setting to enable it is in the following image.

My flight log is posted have a look, if it was going to crash why didn't it go into auto land mode?


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[Digdat0]

Voltage dropping was the cause, but I do not think this was pilot error. There's a a bug in the firmware I believe.

 

[flyNfrank]

Can you tell me what your VOLTAGE was?

All the battery cell's were at 3.5.
3.54, 3.55, 3.53, 3.50
Combined= 14.12v

 

[flyNfrank]

Voltage dropping was the cause, but I do not think this was pilot error. There's a a bug in the firmware I believe.

I thought the Firmware Update v5.8 took care of the dropping from the sky issue? If so, then anyone with firmware above the v5.8 should be ok.

If members have the more recent firmware versions and this going, then there is a serious problem that needs addressed. I have older firmware installed on my P3 so I have to watch the volt reading as I fly.

But the real deal on this is we NEVER had these problem until the started jacking with the battery firmware on the smart batteries.

 

[ondesko]

Looks like it survived pretty good falling from so high up.. do you think you can fix this or are you sending it in to DJI

 

[Anthony Cirullo]

Im getting a parachute. I think loosing 2min of flight time is well worth it in the long run

 

[Pietro]

I'm going to take an educated guess and say you launched with less than a full charge and went into a critical voltage state because DJIs POS intelligent overpriced battery can't handle a flight that doesn't start off full charge.

I just bought a P4, I always hear: "don't take off without a fully charged battery". In my brief experience I tend to think carefully about the shot, I shoot it quickly and land, plan the next shot, take off etc. Sometime a shot only takes 5 minutes of get and the next one is in another location. Should I change battery even if I've only used it a little bit? Would it be better to hover in the air instead of landing and taking off again?

 

[Zuzua]

There doesn't appear to be much damage at least.

What you mean, the camera is some 10' away lying I the ground!

 

[lonjsnyder]

I just bought a P4, I always hear: "don't take off without a fully charged battery". In my brief experience I tend to think carefully about the shot, I shoot it quickly and land, plan the next shot, take off etc. Sometime a shot only takes 5 minutes of get and the next one is in another location. Should I change battery even if I've only used it a little bit? Would it be better to hover in the air instead of landing and taking off again?

I believe the potential problem is from partially discharged batteries that have been sitting around for many days. It is not from a "same day" partially discharged battery.


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[flyNfrank]

What you mean, the camera is some 10' away lying I the ground!

Apparently you have not seen many images of P3's that fell from the sky.

 

[Susruth]

I have to say, regardless of the cause, flying 13K ft away over a city, you're just asking for all kinds of trouble.

Must be a rich spoilt kid

 

[iAm]

I found that battery percentage doesn't seem to matter, but the voltage does. There's a setting you can turn on so you can see your voltage as you're flying. On a windy day, if the drone has to "work hard" to fight the wind to return home, you'll see this voltage drop. At 3.6 volts, it turns yellow and at 3.5v, it turns red. From what I've read, if it drops much below 3.5v, the battery will turn itself off to "protect itself" (from what, I don't know).

I've run into this issue myself on very windy days and when it happens, I just stop whatever it's doing, let it recover some voltage (just hovering) and then continue what I was doing. The same can happen if you fly at top speeds all the time. The key is to enable that setting and keep an eye on the voltage at all times.

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The very cold weather will cause the battery to use lot of voltage for height.

 

[lonjsnyder]

I just bought a P4, I always hear: "don't take off without a fully charged battery". In my brief experience I tend to think carefully about the shot, I shoot it quickly and land, plan the next shot, take off etc. Sometime a shot only takes 5 minutes of get and the next one is in another location. Should I change battery even if I've only used it a little bit? Would it be better to hover in the air instead of landing and taking off again?

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[Monte55]

The very cold weather will cause the battery to use lot of voltage for height.

What?? Explain

 

[iAm]

The battery requires more voltage to lift the craft in cold air because of the density difference of the air and also because the battery just doesn't like operating in cold temperatures.
Starting a cold battery will damage it.

 

[RocketBrew]

I always hear: "don't take off without a fully charged battery". In my brief experience I tend to think carefully about the shot, I shoot it quickly and land, plan the next shot, take off etc. Sometime a shot only takes 5 minutes of get and the next one is in another location. Should I change battery even if I've only used it a little bit? Would it be better to hover in the air instead of landing and taking off again?

My understanding is that type of usage is not the issue, and I have done that several times myself without a problem.

The issue is flying a battery down a bit (and I am speculating it is probably in the less than 70% range) and then letting it sit over some period of time, such as overnight or longer.

The "smart battery" is smart because is has a microcontroller in the head that has a memory. The problem seems to be the firmware that the microcontroller runs having issues reconciling the status when the battery is turned off after flight, and the actual status after it has cooled off and chemicals settled down. It then passes this information to the DJI app which incorrectly interprets it and shows inaccurate numbers on the app display.

By charging the battery to 100% before each flight you are minimizing that miscalculation, which applied to millions of users of varying capabilities is the safest standard.

 

[moswissa]

I just bought a P4, I always hear: "don't take off without a fully charged battery". In my brief experience I tend to think carefully about the shot, I shoot it quickly and land, plan the next shot, take off etc. Sometime a shot only takes 5 minutes of get and the next one is in another location. Should I change battery even if I've only used it a little bit? Would it be better to hover in the air instead of landing and taking off again?

Well thats what sucks about the P3 an P4 batteries. There is the major flaw DJI has yet to admit and its their batteries. Common sense should tell you any battery thats partially charged should work okay right? You dont expect to leave your house with a smart phone charged at 54% and have it die 3 min later right. unfortunately you cannot trust these expensive batteries. The P1 and P2 never had this issue

 

[telliott67]

No it's trashed the landing gear is buckled, and the shell is cracked bad in 3 places and who knows what it looks like on the inside. No it's toast it will turn on and start up and probably fly but not chancing it


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[llyons92]

Im getting a parachute. I think loosing 2min of flight time is well worth it in the long run

Have these been field tested and if so how effective are these?