FLY AWAYS?

Joined
Jun 1, 2013
Messages
51
Reaction score
0
What is DJI doing about FLY AWAYS? Im going to keep posting until I hear back from them This is a serious issue that no one is addressing and when it happens to you you will feel the same as I do AND no not by operator error but the most resent firmware update! beware! :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLRwOeeHdlg

Took lots of flack, DJI did nothing, I got told it was operator error.

Here is an article posted on a well known Photography Blog

http://www.photographybay.com/2013/07/2 ... d-cameras/


If you can get DJI to do something, I am in your debt. I lost 1 to the lake, and almost lost this one.

At this point, they won't return a call, email - or anyting. It happened to me twice.

I would buy anew Tx RX like I did (DX8) and that so far, 6 flights seems to be a fix. I think it's the cheap radio they include.

D
 
start posting on the face book page as thats what I did and will keep doing so should everyone else do it everyday post all over the page I know its rude but how else can you get them to wake up??? this is a serious matter and they should be accountable for it but No they are more interested in advertising and shoot the bull in hollywood trust me the day is coming when they will be nothing but a thought unless they wake the *** up
 
Do you guys think that no other RC flying machine has ever been lost? sure some may be issues with the autopilot but you should learn to fly without relying on GPS. A field I practice at that is very popular with all sorts of RC flying machines has so many different planes quads and helis lost in the Forrest that I have heard of so it shows that most all things that go up will come down, not always where the pilot intended it to. Most of the time its a mechanical issue, radio interference or simple pilot error. The main problem with the Phantom and NAZA in general is that ist so easy to fly and many people get into it relying purely on the GPS, or IOC modes. I think if you cant bring it back in ATTI mode at least from wherever your flying then your a high risk of having a flyaway issue. If your pushing LOS to beyond where you can tell orientation or flying in places with radio interference or poor GPS then your asking for trouble relying on the GPS to do its thing.

If you crashed your quad or lost orientation for whatever reasons that is pilot error, if you lost control of it in GPS mode and then tried to rely on RTH then that is pilot error every time. You should be capable enough to fly it without GPS and ony use it as an aid at times but be aware of when it is likely to have issues. If your flying GPS mode near any obstacles or power lines your asking for trouble and losing control in such situations is pilot error. If your flying purely in GPS mode only fly in a big open field away from people, houses, powerlines etc and only in good LOS distance, ensure your pre flight checks are all done and everything is operating as it should. If you wat to fly in more risky places learn to fly the quad in ATTI and manual modes but also be aware of possible radio interference and make sure you know your radio's range and keep well inside its limitations.

That will cover at least 95% of the so called flyaways and the remaining 5% can be down to issues with the NAZA or radio interferance issues.
 
I so disagree ! its DJI issue that needs to be address or at least act as if the give a dam :evil:
 
Completely agree with martcerv. I too have had a fly away in GPS mode, couldn't recover in time, and crashed it doing full tilt throttle into the ground. I was probably flying it in a place I really shouldn't have been flying either, and I'll be the first to admit that, though at the time, I really couldn't figure out why it happened and I was confused and severely pissed off at DJI as was the OP in this thread.

Upon close inspection later, it was my fault entirely. I had the phantom packed in my car's trunk for several hours in it's case.... RIGHT UNDERNEATH the 6x9 speakers mounted on the rear deck of the trunk. This is something I constantly had to remind myself NOT to do, yet I ended up stupidly forgetting my own warning and doing it anyway. The large magnets on the speakers did a number on the compass, and that in turn screwed up the positioning algorithm the phantom relied on in GPS mode, pitching it uncontrollably into the ground.

I manned it up and fixed it myself. The crash was severe enough to crack one arm of the airframe. The cost of replacement shells isn't unreasonable, so I just took it apart, moved everything over to a new shell, and called it a day. Now call me what you will, but I suspect a good number of these fly aways are user error.... they just don't know it yet and want DJI to pay for their error. I also suspect a good number of these fly aways happened in GPS mode and involve issues with the compass.

On the other hand, all the H3-2D issues are another matter entirely....and at least DJI was decent enough to have the dealer exchange mine for another, though I did have to pay for shipping one way.
 
cssfly said:
I so disagree ! its DJI issue that needs to be address or at least act as if the give a dam :evil:

If you have a case that can be clearly shown to be 100% the fault of DJI then I am sure they will deal with it as they should. You need to have all the evidence to prove it is in no way pilot error, Im sure there are some cases where it is the fault of the craft or NAZA and DJI would love to get solid evidence of a clear fault if there is one so they can fix it.

If like the majority of people that lose control or crash who are quite inexperienced flying A GPS assisted RC quadcopter and partially or fully to blame for their "flyaway" then what can DJI realistically do about it? What do you want them to do for you, replace it because you say you had a flyaway with no evidence to show they are clearly at fault. Sorry it may sound harsh but thats the truth, its great that DJI has made an RTF quad fairly affordable and simple to get in the air, they cant be responsible for how every user fly's it.

Can you clearly say what caused your flyaway? if not how can this be fixed if its an issue, simply saying you lost control and it flew away just isnt going to get you very far with DJI.
 
yes buddy tell that to all the other who have blogs made face book pages and have watched all thier $$$ fly away after doing all the regular flight checks before they fly...... maybe you need to work for DJI as they could care less stop drinking the freaking coool aid :evil: :evil:
 
Im not saying that there may not be an issue in some way, just of the most cases I have read into they have all been very inconclusive and very hard to rule out user error being a big part of the problems. Just because there is a very loud minority and some people may have lost phantoms through no fault of their own, it doesn't mean that every single crash and loss of control is by some way a fault of the manufacturer.

You haven't said anything about your case here other then asking dji to do something, but what are they meant to do with posts like this. There is no info and all that I can assume is you lost yours after the latest firmware update, which thousands of others have flown without issues so its obviously not the only thing that contributed to your loss. If this update was the problem then how come not everyone has had a flyaway after the update? I have probably had more then 20 flights since updating but mine came back to me each time using the exact same update your saying nobody should use because it causes flyaways.
 
I have a theory about the fly-away issue, which is that it occurs when the device goes into failsafe mode but has bad positional information. This might explain it suddenly stop accepting commands and flying off in a random direction.

Possibilities include not being able to get a positional lock at start and relying on an uninitialized value, or a firmware bug causing the start location to get overridden.

So my question is:

For people who have experienced fly-aways:

1) Did it happen after several minutes of flying, ie when the battery might have been running low... or did it occur shortly after takeoff?
2) What height were you at? (curious if it was > 60')

If the above is valid, then one potential workaround would be to set the failsafe to land rather than GTH?

EDIT: This is clearly not what happened in Darren's case where it was flying randomly once it crossed the road.
 
Mine happened several minutes after flying. Before takeoff, the LED indicated compass error even after I had calibrated it on the field, but the error went away after it hovered a bit so I thought it'd be ok to keep flying. Then after hovering for a bit in GPS mode, it started heading off in a direction of its own, my controls still worked to a point, I could correct its trajectory but it wanted to go on its own to some unknown destination. It became increasingly difficult to keep it in one spot, then my corrections seemed less and less effective until it just ran itself into the ground trying to reach its unkown destination.

This behavior seemed pretty spot on for a compass error.

1. GPS tells the NAZA that the quad is drifting due to outside forces and it needs to head due west in order to keep its current position hold.

2. NAZA looks at (bad) compass data to determine the best course to arrive at those GPS coordinates.

3. NAZA attempts to take quad to said GPS coordinates according to (bad) compass data (i.e. due west is actually south), but fails to arrive at suggested GPS destination.

4. NAZA repeats the attempt over and over again from step 1.
 
There are way too many variables to determine what's the main cause of Flyaways, the only known fact is going into manual mode allow you to regain control. Your talking about sensitive electronics, even a simple crash can affect certain components. So many different stories on what happen and the behavior of the Phantom, leads me to believe many occurrences are user error. Granted flyaways do occur and have been documented on other platforms as well, however the amount seems greater with Phantoms, why could because many are new pilots that attempt crazy stunts and simply lose control, then blame the equipment.

DJI would be hard pressed to take it on the word of the user that simply claims a true "flyaway" occurred. They have in fact replaced or repaired quads that have documented proof of such incidents. Even so the risk is still there that when your in the sport of RC anything can go wrong at any time. That's why I've been learning to control my quad in manual mode lately.
 
Cubby taking off with a compass error is pretty risky in GPS mode, I hope the crash didnt cause too much trouble in your case.

If flying in GPS mode and its doing weird things trying ATTI mode should help as it doesn't use compass data, that is only in GPS and IOC modes. Manual is the most likely way of regaining control assuming your loss of control isnt due to radio interference, but if you haven't learned to fly manual mode then switching to it will just end in a crash fairly quickly.

Not sure about setting failsafe to land rather then rth, it may save a flyaway but as these are much rarer then a simple control loss your more likely to have a crash landing this way when it would likely have safely made the rth journey back or in the right direction where you can regain control.

Landing on any loss of radio would make flying over water or any objects extremely risky as any signal interference can force it into failsafe. I would not fly deliberately to a point where I need to rely on RTH or IOC to get back to me but as a last resort rth sounds a better option then landing where it is.

if you are experiencing any strange flying characteristics in GPS mode id suggest to switch to atti mode or manual if your comfortable with it and bring it back asap. Remaining in GPS mode, switching to IOC, activating failsafe or switching off the radio I think are the worst things you could do if the GPS is misbehaving.
 
Thanks, those are all very valid points. I agree, sounds like you're better off leaving failsafe in RTH mode and hoping that if it ever starts misbehaving you can switch to manual control.
 
I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but, can someone show me where it says the compass isn't used in particular modes???

I'm gonna go on the record here and say that the compass data is used in all flight modes (except maybe MANUAL mode)! I'm pretty sure the survey data showed a slightly higher % of flyaways in GPS mode over ATTI, but there was still fly aways in ATTI mode.

GPS mode uses all sensors and "can" hover on the spot. I believe that in ATTI mode, its only the GPS data that it ignored, and the data from the compass and the barometer (altimeter) is used to calculate the motor speeds!
 
I haven't seen anywhere written if and when the compass is used, just assumed atti mode is simply using the accelerometer in the NAZA as a gyro to keep it flying level. It will use the barometer for altitude and I see no reason why it would need to use compass data. Atti has no effect on heading it simply limits max pitch angles and auto levels the craft like a gyro. What would be the purpose of the compass data in such flight controls?

There is no doubt that GPS atti is the easiest mode to fly but also in my opinion the riskiest as bad GPS signal can easily drift you off course and cause you to fight the auto pilot, it does random moves quite regularly. Anyone relying 100% on this will get into trouble at some point and if you cant fully control the quad in at least atti mode then any GPS issues will cause you to lose control.
 
I was hoping someone would ask ;)

The compass data would be what is use to determine the nose direction!

Think of it like this, imagine the phantom hovering in say ATTI mode (but not drifting etc) what is telling the naza that its not rotating/twisting (Yawing? Is that the correct term, I'm still a noob to flight terms)?

Apple referred to it as "rotation around gravity". a six axis gyro can be rotated without showing ANY data, providing the "rotation" is on the 0 point of every axis (highly unlikely, but still possible)
 
DJI repaired my phantom after a fly away. No charge but took a couple weeks. they have a very small customer service department.

I just read about the magnet thing and when my phantom dove at the ground i to had it in my trunk beside my prop balancer which has 2 very strong magnets.

Any way DJI did me ok, other than being slow i have no complaints.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,355
Members
104,934
Latest member
jody.paugh@fullerandsons.