Here's one for you, gimble fries and goes up in smoke

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I'm moving pics from my Phantom 4 to my desktop when all of the sudden I smell something burning and I see smoke. I immediately took out the battery. Once I got my wits back I powered it up again and everything was fine except the gimble would not provide a picture. It would still pivot and stabilize, but no image, and said so on the screen. I'm sending it back to B&H and they are sending me a new one. Just when I thought I had the perfect bird. And, fwiw, the gimble protector was off at the time.

j
 
Why me! I was having too much fun and too much good luck I guess. I said the gimble fried, but it was actually working just fine, its the video card/board that got zapped. I still could have flown it, but no video. Lesson of the day, smoke and the smell of burning wires is a bad sign.
 
How long were you transferring the files? There is a known problem with the control board overheating when using the Flight Simulator, requiring a fan blowing over the gimbal assembly during that time.

Transferring files using the USB cable is painfully slow, so most folks remove the microSD card and copy directly on the PC.
 
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Have to agree. It's best to remove the memory card from the Phantom & transfer as opposed to going through the slow gimbal USB interface that requires the bird to be powered on.


How long were you transferring the files? There is a known problem with the control board overheating when using the Flight Simulator, requiring a fan blowing over the gimbal assembly during that time.

Transferring files using the USB cable is painfully slow, so most folks remove the microSD card and copy directly on the PC.
 
63 views and no words of wisdom? Anyone hear of this before?
How long were you transferring the files? There is a known problem with the control board overheating when using the Flight Simulator, requiring a fan blowing over the gimbal assembly during that time.
Transferring files using the USB cable is painfully slow, so most folks remove the microSD card and copy directly on the PC.
+1
What he said :)
You're the first to transfer without simply removing the sd card as far as I know... So... No words of wisdom from here... The next time you do it this way, you will burn up yet another bird... Really I have nothing to say other than, I'm sorry for your future losses :) hehe. You already learned that lesson so, there was really nothing to say :) Just never transfer directly from the bird... It will always over heat and possibly catch fire :D
I guess I found some wisdom - Your future if you continue down this path :) hahaha
Fire department uses its hose to get a drone to back away from a burning residence in New York • /r/gifs
 
Thing is I was transferring jpgs. But no chances from here on out. An added bonus....my computer died today too. It was old. Went to Best Buy and made sure to get the best monitor with a sd card port.
 
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Thing is I was transferring jpgs. But no chances from here on out. An added bonus....my computer died today too. It was old. Went to Best Buy and made sure to get the best monitor with a sd card port.
Sorry that happened and glad it ended up not being that bad.

It was not as bone headed a move as some are making it out to be. I'm sure there are plenty of people that just plug a wire into the bird to unload it although it's also slower. I think it's only USB 2.
 
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Thing is I was transferring jpgs. But no chances from here on out. An added bonus....my computer died today too. It was old. Went to Best Buy and made sure to get the best monitor with a sd card port.

****, I hate losing pc's. I don't have a P4 but my P3pro gets too hot even with the fan. So I take it down immediately after a flight and pull the battery right away because the battery heats up or continues to dissipate the heat after the Phantom along with its fan turns off. Like stated above, it's no big deal and we all learn it one way or another the first time. I never have had a cooling issue with the P3A, so it was a surprise the first time I felt the heat coming from the P3pro :)
 
Sorry to hear about your double bad luck. If I was away from home and forgot my card reader but wanted to do some editing I would have been quite likely to have used a USB cable instead, so thanks for sharing!
 
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How long were you transferring the files? There is a known problem with the control board overheating when using the Flight Simulator, requiring a fan blowing over the gimbal assembly during that time.

Transferring files using the USB cable is painfully slow, so most folks remove the microSD card and copy directly on the PC.

Agree 100%
 
Sorry that happened and glad it ended up not being that bad.

It was not as bone headed a move as some are making it out to be. I'm sure there are plenty of people that just plug a wire into the bird to unload it although it's also slower. I think it's only USB 2.
At the speed it actually transfers, more like USB 0.5. It's amazingly slow, likely due to the fact that USB needs processor cycles to work and DJI doesnt give the reader many cycles to play with.
 
At the speed it actually transfers, more like USB 0.5. It's amazingly slow, likely due to the fact that USB needs processor cycles to work and DJI doesnt give the reader many cycles to play with.
It's a good point, I wouldn't imagine the front bus on the Phantom is very wide. Valid.

I like to give kudos to B&H for replacing it, hassle free. I'll be back in the air next week

I love B&H. Next time you're in NYC, go visit their warehouse. It's quite a tour. Same thing with Fry's in Burbank. Unfortunately for my bank account, I'm not far away at all from Fry's. Random fact: the guy that owns Fry's is one of the founders and producers of CES.
 
So fella's, just for the record, I guess there is pretty much a consensus that the reason the video card fried is due to overheating brought on by the transfer of files over a USB cord?
 
So fella's, just for the record, I guess there is pretty much a consensus that the reason the video card fried is due to overheating brought on by the transfer of files over a USB cord?
It's too far from a definite to call it a consensus anything IMO.
 
DJI says you can transfer files from the phantom to the computer this way, some people don't have the USB adapter and DJI doesn't include one . You would think the hardware would be robust enough to allow people to transfer files from the phantom this way, after all they do provide the port to do so. Kind of shameful if you ask me.
 
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DJI says you can transfer files from the phantom to the computer this way, some people don't have the USB adapter and DJI doesn't include one . You would think the hardware would be robust enough to allow people to transfer files from the phantom this way, after all they do provide the port to do so. Kind of shameful if you ask me.
I have to agree, this is common practice and done millions of times a day in every other device, this is another example of poor engineering in elementary operations


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
guys, is there any way the Phantom battery could have fried the video board? Sorry to bring this back up, but I'm getting in my new bird next week and want to be sure I have all my bases covered.
 

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