Lost contact with Phantom 2 tx. Now its in the bay

TodayTrader said:
sar104 said:
Any chance that you exposed the aircraft to salt water spray during these filming maneuvers?

Anything is possible I suppose but I did not see any

I began wondering if that might be a common issue with these events over water. Salt water spray and electronics is a very bad combination, and with the unprotected circuitry in the Phantom it might not take much to mess things up enough to trigger auto-land.
 
sar104 said:
TodayTrader said:
sar104 said:
Any chance that you exposed the aircraft to salt water spray during these filming maneuvers?

Anything is possible I suppose but I did not see any

I began wondering if that might be a common issue with these events over water. Salt water spray and electronics is a very bad combination, and with the unprotected circuitry in the Phantom it might not take much to mess things up enough to trigger auto-land.

Maybe it's time for DJI to start putting that out there as caution. Problem is, so many of the great shots involve water. Especially surfing.
 
TodayTrader said:
sar104 said:
I began wondering if that might be a common issue with these events over water. Salt water spray and electronics is a very bad combination, and with the unprotected circuitry in the Phantom it might not take much to mess things up enough to trigger auto-land.

Maybe it's time for DJI to start putting that out there as caution. Problem is, so many of the great shots involve water. Especially surfing.

It might be worth looking at ways to protect the ventilation ports from spray ingress for this kind of work. Maybe just a thin sheet of air filter material would be enough.
 
darwin-t said:
Do boats or people on boats use something that could interfere with the signal?

It was a sail bay. nothing but paddle boarders, sail boats and the Fly Board subject I was shooting.
 
sar104 said:
TodayTrader said:
sar104 said:
Any chance that you exposed the aircraft to salt water spray during these filming maneuvers?

Anything is possible I suppose but I did not see any

I began wondering if that might be a common issue with these events over water. Salt water spray and electronics is a very bad combination, and with the unprotected circuitry in the Phantom it might not take much to mess things up enough to trigger auto-land.

I think it's a common issue, period. When it's over water, it's catastrophic by nature and you nearly always hear about something like that. I think it's a systemic error that DJI is just not owning up to. I'm sure they're working on a fix, but it's against their nature to take responsibility if they can possibly avoid it...

-slinger
 
gunslinger said:
sar104 said:
I began wondering if that might be a common issue with these events over water. Salt water spray and electronics is a very bad combination, and with the unprotected circuitry in the Phantom it might not take much to mess things up enough to trigger auto-land.

I think it's a common issue, period. When it's over water, it's catastrophic by nature and you nearly always hear about something like that. I think it's a systemic error that DJI is just not owning up to. I'm sure they're working on a fix, but it's against their nature to take responsibility if they can possibly avoid it...

-slinger

Maybe, but I haven't seen the data to demonstrate it - possibly for the reason that you mention but possibly not. And whether there is a more widespread issue or not, I would still be concerned that hiding in the overall failures are some caused by this mechanism.
 
How heavy was your craft? It sounds like you were under 50% on your battery as well. What version of firmware were you using?
 
Both frequency bands we use - 2.4 Ghz and 8.4 Ghz are shared frequencies, used by a lot of different types of devices. Interference is always a possibility.
 
darwin-t said:
Both frequency bands we use - 2.4 Ghz and 8.4 Ghz are shared frequencies, used by a lot of different types of devices. Interference is always a possibility.
Phantoms don't use 8.4Ghz. What do mean by this?

Sent from my Galaxy Note 8
 
IrishSights said:
darwin-t said:
Both frequency bands we use - 2.4 Ghz and 8.4 Ghz are shared frequencies, used by a lot of different types of devices. Interference is always a possibility.
Phantoms don't use 8.4Ghz. What do mean by this?

Sent from my Galaxy Note 8

I'm sure it was just a typo.

There are a number of tools available at hobby prices you can use to check the RF environment.
The handheld " RF Explorer " spectrum analyser is popular with RC flyers. These come with different options and frequency coverage.

There is also a dedicated 2.4 GHz App for IOS devices called WiPry. This plugs into the accessory port of your iPad / iPod / iPhone and provides a realtime activity display of the 2.4GHz SRDS allocation.

I use an APM flight controller which is linked to my ground station via a 433MHz Mavlink interface. This part of the spectrum is very busy with all sorts of devices chirping away. To check the environment at a particular location I use an Android App called " SDR-Touch ". This works with cheap DVB-T USB dongles which are designed to provide digital TV on your PC. With this arrangement I can instantly see if there are potential interference causing devices close to my flying site and once identified I can reprogram my Mavlink interface to operate on a different frequency away from the interference. The dongle will receive between 22MHz and 1700MHz and in conjunction with the App will provide a realtime spectrum and waterfall display of 1MHz.

Regards

Nidge
 
Nidge said:
...
I use an APM flight controller which is linked to my ground station via a 433MHz Mavlink interface. This part of the spectrum is very busy with all sorts of devices chirping away. To check the environment at a particular location I use an Android App called " SDR-Touch ". This works with cheap DVB-T USB dongles which are designed to provide digital TV on your PC. With this arrangement I can instantly see if there are potential interference causing devices close to my flying site and once identified I can reprogram my Mavlink interface to operate on a different frequency away from the interference. The dongle will receive between 22MHz and 1700MHz and in conjunction with the App will provide a realtime spectrum and waterfall display of 1MHz.

Regards

Nidge
Sorry @nidge but its all Pingu language to me :)

Sent from my Galaxy Note 8
 
IrishSights said:
Nidge said:
...
I use an APM flight controller which is linked to my ground station via a 433MHz Mavlink interface. This part of the spectrum is very busy with all sorts of devices chirping away. To check the environment at a particular location I use an Android App called " SDR-Touch ". This works with cheap DVB-T USB dongles which are designed to provide digital TV on your PC. With this arrangement I can instantly see if there are potential interference causing devices close to my flying site and once identified I can reprogram my Mavlink interface to operate on a different frequency away from the interference. The dongle will receive between 22MHz and 1700MHz and in conjunction with the App will provide a realtime spectrum and waterfall display of 1MHz.

Regards

Nidge
Sorry @nidge but its all Pingu language to me :)

Sent from my Galaxy Note 8

Solar flares? Inversion layers? Troposphere disturbances? Honestly, I just stick my head out the window... If the sun is out and the trees aren't being blown madly, I go flying! That's about as high tech as I get.
 
Sent from my Galaxy Note 8[/quote]

Solar flares? Inversion layers? Troposphere disturbances? Honestly, I just stick my head out the window... If the sun is out and the trees aren't being blown madly, I go flying! That's about as high tech as I get.[/quote]

Well said. Me too and that is the way it should be if you are going to build and send these things out to the masses. Keep it simple
 
All of a sudden I lost my hover from about 20 feet above the water and down she went.

On another forum, the pilot was hovering their copter above a pool - and down it went. Could this comment apply to your case:
Seeing you were hovering over a spot on what is a near perfect reflector of radio signals, it is possible that your RX antenna ended up in a place where the direct and reflected signal cancelled out creating a dead zone. If you were moving you would not have had this problem.
http://openrcforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=3504#p51191
 
Sorry for your loss Today Trader(and anyone else who this has happened to).
This problem is not just related to flying over water. I had this happen to me
shortly after getting my first Phantom 2(non vision). I was about 10 minutes into
my flight. The Phantom started oscillating and came down hard from about 60'.
Luckily it did not seem to hurt anything except it was unstable after that. AlleRc.
replaced it. That was in Feb. The weather hasn't been that great here in Washington
state so I haven't flown that much until the last month. I have done all the updates and
calibrations religiously and about two weeks ago my new one did exactly the same thing.
I have been trying to figure this out. I am afraid to fly it. I had 50% battery left.( 6 minutes
into my flight). The Phantom hit hard and bounced on its top. I had no control. This time I was 60
meters up, luckily it didn't break anything. I had 3.02 firmware in it. Now I have 3.04,
I have been testing it, I do have the compass calibration problem and it seems worse with
3.04.
 
Did it just descend into the water or did it tumble? If the later, one possibility is a failed blade. I've had my P2 fall from 200m after a blade failure.

Its interesting that someone mentioned about battery problems too..... I've just sent back one of my batteries after it started to report it was 255% charged one minute and 10% the next (causing the P2 to start autoland!). The other battieries I have don't do this so I am sure the problem lies in the battery rather than the Phantom 2
 
Hi
First sorry to hear this , i would loos my mind if it happened to me
And i really hope you guys can get you investment back , one way ir another
I will speak on behalf of a friend .
So my friend was expirenting the same thing no water involved.
He was flying in the desert filming , after upgrading fw 3.0 a month old phantom
Then 50 meter in the air the phantom went down uncontrolled .
He was inputting elevator up as he could but phantom went down .
He landed on soft send and everything looked ok.
Day later it happened againg at the second flight of the day.
This time gimbal brock and the craft wont fly properly.

He managed to send gimbal to dji for a fix.
I tried to tell that i sew some posting about this , but dealer and dji was cancaling it all out.

So is there a failure on this phantom ?
What can he do about it ?
He has a vido of the events.
I will ask him to upload it here tomorrow.

Any suggestion ?

All so another friend today report a battery went to 8% in 1 min
Then back to 90%
What are all of this stories ?

I am flying a year and half old phantom 1 over water 200 meters hight 1 km away desert beach city never had nothing still flying on fw 3.12 because of the idea that if its working don't brack it . i guess it was smart .

I am sorry for my bad English
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk
 
Seems like 3.0 is the common denominator in this thread. As you all know DJI does not beta test anything. From DJIs past, it seems like a firmware bug. It could be killing the battery or superfluously adding in random "no fly zones" and killing the bird in mid flight. If it's not broke don't fix it. Go back to 1.08.
 

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