Flyaways

[PhantoMax]

Ok, I would like to sort a list of the people that had a flyaway loosing the Phantom.

So, could you write a brief description of the "accident"?

I lost my Phantom 2 Vision, so I contacted DJI, they replied, asking me to fill a form.

The main thing is they assume the flyaways are caused by non calibrated compass and or GPS.

My one was calibrated.

I don't agree with them.

I think that if compass and or GPS are not calibrated, Phantom should not take off and, shouldn't of course fly away.

So, in case they continue assuming this, I think we could arrange for a class action.

Waiting for your stories.

Max.

 

[jthorstad]

Here's my tale.

Short version: Phantom 1.1. I'd had it a month or so, 10-15 PERFECT flights.

I went to a frozen lake just before New Year's (I live in Minnesota) on a beautiful day. Out on the lake...obviously no power lines or anything around.

I was on my second battery, bringing the Phantom around to land, when I noticed I no longer had control of it. It was climbing and moving up, up and AWAY at top speed. I couldn't believe it.

As it became just a speck in the sky, I turned the controller off as a last-ditch effort to see if it would RTH. It just kept going, never to be seen again. GoPro 3 Silver attached.

YES, my compass was calibrated. YES...I had the series of green flashes for home location set. Yada yada yada. No WiFi on on the GoPro. I had done everything right. My Phantom bugged out and flew away, plain and simple.

Contacted B&H, and DJI. After a month of filling out their spreadsheet, I ended up getting a 1.1.1 for half price from B&H (a week before they lowered the price, BTW.)

I'm leaving it all behind me and trying to have fun with it again, including adding a GPS tracker to my new bird.

I can totally see how DJI and vendors are wary of saying it's their fault. Everyone will claim a flyaway and want a free quad. But when it happens to you...it sucks.

 

[GMANNZ]

I can totally see how DJI and vendors are wary of saying it's their fault. Everyone will claim a flyaway and want a free quad. But when it happens to you...it sucks.

Exactly

These things are so tech its not hard to see a milion and one ways these things could disappear, especially as soon as you add the human factor (as we all know humans are flawless :lol: ) ..... Microsoft windows crashes everyday ... so what, you cant sue them cause you lost 4 days work cause their software is **** ... thats life in the big technical world, ..... if I was a dealer or DJI, I would point blank say "prove its the Phantoms fault" and we'll talk, and given you no longer have one that might be difficult !!??

Its sucks things go wrong, but thats life .... there are so many variables involved there is no way in hell the manufacturer could possibly cover all scenarios across the planet someone might encounter .... but the key here to me is caveat emptor ... let the buyer beware if you want to spend money on a high tech flying camera, things will more than likely end in tears at some point.

And really, a class action lawsuit over a missing toy ???

 

[Marc70]

I've had over 75 flights, and recovered it a few times with fs & rh.
I knew all the proper steps to take.
http://youtu.be/DK32AD6yMEY
These things are faulty, and shouldn't be sold as flawless.
I agree a class action is merited. When a car suddenly causes an unwarranted action, airbags deployed, acceleration, whatever, it gets looked after, or a class action is instituted.

 

[GMANNZ]

I've had over 75 flights, and recovered it a few times with fs & rh.
I knew all the proper steps to take.
http://youtu.be/DK32AD6yMEY
These things are faulty, and shouldn't be sold as flawless.
I agree a class action is merited. When a car suddenly causes an unwarranted action, airbags deployed, acceleration, whatever, it gets looked after, or a class action is instituted.

Who said they are flawless and people would have no issues ???? ... all the manuals, docs etc etc describe many things that you need to be aware of, with warnings on usage and how these may or may not behave... ?? so seems pretty clear to me they aren't perfect .... nothing is.

the comparison of car safety and a high tech flying toy is hilarious.

To me if you cant afford to OR aren't prepared to lose one, ..... the way way easy logical and rational solution is to ..... NOT buy one .... ???

 

[Marc70]

Well with the dual antennas, new software, etc they certainly make it sound like they've solved the problem.
If they said that if you follow all instructions, it can still flyaway, then I wouldn't have bought one. Guess you' haven't had a flyaway YET, eh gmanz?
Referring to a car is just what came to mind... Make it a faulty blender that catches fire, FOR EXAMPLE!
There is a fault with the product!

 

[mikeydaddio]

No software or hardware can ever be 100%. Software has bugs (my Mac machine crashes more often than my Win7 machine BTW). And all hardware has a failure rate. All it takes is one motor to lose 50% power, one ESC to have an issue, and there goes your Phantom. This plays into what I said last week: that DJI needs to build in some redundancy code into the firmware so that it can do things like successfully land on 2 props. But no matter what you do, you'll never reduce the possibility of flyaways to 0%. And even if you reduced it to 3 in a million, all 3 of the people who had a problem would come here to post but the other 999,997 would be silent... off flying their Phantoms.

Mike

 

[GMANNZ]

No software or hardware can ever be 100%. Software has bugs (my Mac machine crashes more often than my Win7 machine BTW). And all hardware has a failure rate. All it takes is one motor to lose 50% power, one ESC to have an issue, and there goes your Phantom. This plays into what I said last week: that DJI needs to build in some redundancy code into the firmware so that it can do things like successfully land on 2 props. But no matter what you do, you'll never reduce the possibility of flyaways to 0%. And even if you reduced it to 3 in a million, all 3 of the people who had a problem would come here to post but the other 999,997 would be silent... off flying their Phantoms.

Mike

+1

 

[LandYachtMedia]

My advice is this - understand the hobby you are interested in before jumping in. Go to a local flying field and see how new people get started in the hobby. Until you understand the true risk and the true costs then don't buy into it.

Why is this my opinion?

The computer control of these machines has made it possible for people to pick up a controller and fly with ZERO knowledge about flight. That person will have no idea what it takes to fly and unstable craft because they aren't really flying it. The computer is. The person is merely suggesting what you want it to do. The COMPUTER is making all the decisions. You are more of an onlooker than you realize when you push on the controls. That control is an illusion. And a very convincing one. There is danger there.

What problem does that cause?

Since the operator doesn't understand how hard these things really are to fly They don't understand the true potential for loss here because the electronic nanny hides it from you. That is why it is heart breaking when the nanny has a bad day. You are lulled into a false sense of security. This is actually the operators fault and not the machines fault. You didn't do your homework before you spent your money. You made a bad assumption.

Why?

Because electronics fail. Even the best electronics fail. You have to have a plan B and a plan C. You also have to have some level of understanding that if you fly long enough you will suffer a loss. That is the nature of the hobby.

If/When my machine crashes I will be unhappy. The difference is that I have been in this hobby now for long enough that I understand how this works. Loss is part of it. You accept it and you rebuild.

 

[LandYachtMedia]

Oh.. I'm not letting DJI or any vendor off the hook if they produce a bad product. Selling crap isn't acceptable. Placing such emotional weight on it with phrases such as class action lawsuit sounds absurd over a toy. If we are talking about a toy that has choked or injured a number of children then I'm all for litigation to stop a problem. That isn't the kind of loss we are talking about here. The hurt here is to your wallet. You'll survive.

 

[discv]

No software or hardware can ever be 100%. Software has bugs (my Mac machine crashes more often than my Win7 machine BTW). And all hardware has a failure rate. All it takes is one motor to lose 50% power, one ESC to have an issue, and there goes your Phantom. This plays into what I said last week: that DJI needs to build in some redundancy code into the firmware so that it can do things like successfully land on 2 props. But no matter what you do, you'll never reduce the possibility of flyaways to 0%. And even if you reduced it to 3 in a million, all 3 of the people who had a problem would come here to post but the other 999,997 would be silent... off flying their Phantoms.

Mike

A hardware failure will never result in a 'flyaway'. Not wishing to rain on the parade, this type of poll has been tried many times-but no conclusions can ever be drawn. The main reason is that peoples perception of the facts often vary from the truth.
For example, it is always claimed that the Gopro wifi was not on. How could this be claimed as certain and without possible doubt?

 

[ElGuano]

DJI needs to build in some redundancy code into the firmware so that it can do things like successfully land on 2 props.

That's kind of a tall order. The Phantom isn't a acrobatic, TED-talk purpose-built research quad with massively overpowered motors. At its reasonable best, the max thrust on two 2212s is 1200g, and that's allowing for no balance, control modulation, and without considering prop efficiency and latency. Landing on just two props is more of a fundamental physics problem than a "firmware" tweak.

 

[OI Photography]

DJI needs to build in some redundancy code into the firmware so that it can do things like successfully land on 2 props.

That's kind of a tall order. The Phantom isn't a acrobatic, TED-talk purpose-built research quad with massively overpowered motors. At its reasonable best, the max thrust on two 2212s is 1200g, and that's allowing for no balance, control modulation, and without considering prop efficiency and latency. Landing on just two props is more of a fundamental physics problem than a "firmware" tweak.

True dat. Plus, surviving on 2/4 motors would probably mean they'd have to be adjacent motors instead of opposing just to avoid uncontrollable auto-rotation...and trying to fly with only one side of the aircraft providing lift adds problems beyond just total amount of thrust.

 

[mikeydaddio]

A hardware failure will never result in a 'flyaway'. Not wishing to rain on the parade, this type of poll has been tried many times-but no conclusions can ever be drawn. The main reason is that peoples perception of the facts often vary from the truth.
For example, it is always claimed that the Gopro wifi was not on. How could this be claimed as certain and without possible doubt?

Then by the same token, how can you be sure that a hardware failure will never result in a flyaway? You're not making sense. If the Phantom is facing toward you and one of the two rear motors loses enough power that the IMU can't compensate, it WILL fly away! Three's nothing else it can do. If the IMU can't keep up with the demand, the back is going to lose thrust and it'll do nothing but increase power to that motor until it can't any more, and when it can't, the rear will tilt down and off it goes... away from you at an angle pitching toward the side with the faulty motor (or ESC)!

And that's just one scenario where it can happen!

Mike

 

[ericdes]

Did anyone have a FLYAWAY WITHOUT A CAMERA?

Apparently some gopros enable wifi on their own even if you turn it off.
Some speculate that the gopro emit some rf signals that can interfere with the Phantom.

 

[Visioneer]

... surviving on 2/4 motors would probably mean they'd have to be adjacent motors instead of opposing just to avoid uncontrollable auto-rotation...and trying to fly with only one side of the aircraft providing lift adds problems beyond just total amount of thrust.

Two prop flight is demonstrated at 6:50 in this video. If he could make it fly any other way, he probably would have (playing with the math is clearly his thing).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ

 

[Visioneer]

The computer control of these machines has made it possible for people to pick up a controller and fly with ZERO knowledge about flight. That person will have no idea what it takes to fly an unstable craft because they aren't really flying it. The computer is. The person is merely suggesting what you want it to do. The COMPUTER is making all the decisions. You are more of an onlooker than you realize when you push on the controls. That control is an illusion. And a very convincing one. There is danger there.

If anyone doubts that (and doesn't care if they crash), try manual mode. I am NOT recommending that you try ... unless you are very skilled or VERY lucky, you will crash ... and likely in short order.

 

[OI Photography]

A hardware failure will never result in a 'flyaway'. Not wishing to rain on the parade, this type of poll has been tried many times-but no conclusions can ever be drawn. The main reason is that peoples perception of the facts often vary from the truth.
For example, it is always claimed that the Gopro wifi was not on. How could this be claimed as certain and without possible doubt?

Then by the same token, how can you be sure that a hardware failure will never result in a flyaway? You're not making sense. If the Phantom is facing toward you and one of the two rear motors loses enough power that the IMU can't compensate, it WILL fly away! Three's nothing else it can do. If the IMU can't keep up with the demand, the back is going to lose thrust and it'll do nothing but increase power to that motor until it can't any more, and when it can't, the rear will tilt down and off it goes... away from you at an angle pitching toward the side with the faulty motor (or ESC)!

And that's just one scenario where it can happen!

Mike

You would have a significant torque imbalance at that point in addition to the thrust imbalance you describe, I believe the outcome of that situation (loss of partial thrust on 1 axis) would be the Phantom spiraling toward the ground, not flying off.

I can personally attest that any hardware failure resulting in loss of full thrust on one axis will make your Phantom drop like it was shot out of the sky.

 

[PhantoMax]

Ok,

I got a response from DJI, they sent two different forms to fill, the first one was already obsolete so I had to complete another one, answering questions, writing remarks, serial number and other things.

They read it and decided or assumed that my P2V flown away beacuase of the compass calibration.

I connected some days before the P2V to the Phantom Assistant and the compass was PERFECTLY calibrated.

So, they offer the 50% of the price paid...

They don't know IMHO how to solve the problem of flyways, of course is cheaper to refund half of paid and close the claim.

I told them I want my P2V back, don't want money that are not enough to pay a new P2V.

I'm not and we are not their firms and we do not have to make "quality test" for DJI loosing our Phantoms.

 

[discv]

The offer of 50% discount from DJI is interesting- in that they decided that the flyaway was caused by incorrect compass calibration.
If that was the case, since that would be classed as a user error, I wonder why they should accept any liability.

My guess is they either don't know or won't say the true cause, and hope that PhantoMax will accept and go away.

PhantoMax- I would take that offer, excepting litigation, I reckon it's the best deal to hit the table.