Lost my drone...for 15 minutes

i recalibrated my IMU last night inside my house where it was nice and cool, and then i went to my usual place to fly for some test flights. everything worked great, so i took a chance and recorded the charity event at my church today. it flew like a dream. four batteries worth of footage with no issues. it was neat to be able to video the thousands of families picking up school supplies for the new school year. i had kids follow me around all morning as i flew it around them and their families. it was an awesome time, and exactly why i purchased the drone.

i had a thought to try and eliminate these random fly-aways at takeoff. what do you think of connecting a retractable dog leash to the bottom landing gear until i'm sure that everything is ok? i'd launch it six feet up and let it hover until i knew it was stable. it would be at that time that i would remove the leash. if it decided to get a mind of its own, the leash would prevent it from flying off and i could try to bring it back down or kill the motors without it getting too far away.
 
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I'd be concerned that you say you got the typical imu calibration error.
I know there are some false error messages coming up lately (Gimbal Motor Overload and No Signal) but I haven't heard of one for IMU calibration.
I'd be wanting to sort that one out because it's not typical for most flyers.

If that arc was trying to fly straight, that looks like what you get with a compass needing calibration.
Hello Mr. Staff Member. I have just purchased and made my first flight two days ago. Every time I moved the gimbal up or down I got the Gymbal overload message. It only appeared whilst moving it up or down. I had told it to only move slowly at the 30% range. Everything else appeared to work perfectly. Should I be grounding my P3p after one flight?
 
I'd be concerned that you say you got the typical imu calibration error.
I know there are some false error messages coming up lately (Gimbal Motor Overload and No Signal) but I haven't heard of one for IMU calibration.
I'd be wanting to sort that one out because it's not typical for most flyers.

If that arc was trying to fly straight, that looks like what you get with a compass needing calibration.

FYI
I did get an IMU error today for the first time after several flights with no issues-- so I checked the IMU calibration and the app responded with no IMU calibration require. Reset the controller,, and phantom, Safe to Fly,,, Flew three flights after the error message-- no issues-- so it was a false message... cause unknown.
 
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Probably not. There are plenty of owners reporting the false alarm Gimbal Motor Overload message since the most recent firmware update.
I get it myself. Here's hoping that it gets fixed in the next update.
Here's one of several threads
http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/motor-gimble-overload.45581/
Thanks Meta4, just got message back from DJI China who said it will be corrected in an update. They told me it was still safe to fly so lets hope so.
 
i finally got around to uploading my logs from my controller to djilogs.com, and it appears that i was incorrect about how i took off when my flyaway occurred. i did indeed use auto-takeoff. from what i can see, it was in GPS-Atti mode from take off until i hit RTH. it stayed in RTH until i reconnected with it some 10 minutes later. i have no idea what i'm looking at, but can anyone who is more knowledgeable see anything odd in my logs? would the logs from the bird help, too?
 

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  • DJIFlightRecord_2015-07-04_[20-28-48].txt.Comprehensive.txt
    1.7 MB · Views: 340
There were many reports of IMU calibration errors for quite some time now. It's why people have been putting them in the fridge. I calibrated last week roughly 10 miles from here, so I don't think a compass calibration would be necessary.
Not really, i never had that. I only had gimbal IMU error once with my defective unit. IMU error sounds serious to me. You calibrated the Phantom3 at home on a level surface without touching it or just on the field?
 
I believe it is recommended to do a IMU calibration after each firmware upgrade and if you crash/drop the bird.
I second that you shouldn't put it in the fridge due to moisture. Besides the only reason to cool it down before calibration is to reduce IMU warmup time when you power on. Has nothing to do with strange flight behavior.
I don't calibrate IMU after firmware upgrades, and all values are within tolerances. Flies perfectly.
 
i was kinda hoping to get some feedback on the log, not get lost in the IMU error discussion...
 
@flyNfrank - can you provide some insight as to what may have occurred during my flyaway? i have attached my log a couple posts above. thanks in advance.
 
@flyNfrank - can you provide some insight as to what may have occurred during my flyaway? i have attached my log a couple posts above. thanks in advance.

Sorry, I just now saw your tag. But yeah sure, I'll take a look at it.

Btw, is July 4th the correct date for the fly-away?
 
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Sorry, I just now saw your tag. But yeah sure, I'll take a look at it.

Btw, is July 4th the correct date for the fly-away?
it is the correct date. i thought i was going to get some good fireworks videos, and i almost got a lost P3A instead. thank the good Lord i was able to reconnect with it and bring it back to me.
 
Ok I just started and see you have a file that I can not use.

I need you to connect your device used for the flight to the pc. It will probably open up showing "Internal storage/DJI/dji.pilot/FlightRecord/ Copy the flyaway file to desktop/upload to post in this thread. If you have trouble uploading, place file in folder a zip then upload to post in thread.

Then tag me and let me know the file is attached to post.
 
Ok I just started and see you have a file that I can not use.

I need you to connect your device used for the flight to the pc. It will probably open up showing "Internal storage/DJI/dji.pilot/FlightRecord/ Copy the flyaway file to desktop/upload to post in this thread. If you have trouble uploading, place file in folder a zip then upload to post in thread.

Then tag me and let me know the file is attached to post.
is this the file you are looking for, @flyNfrank ?
 

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  • DJIFlightRecord_2015-07-04_[20-28-48].txt
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Yes Sir that's the one. Thanks
 
wow, this thread reads like a true detective episode...as a noob looking to avoid this from happening to me, im curious what @flyNfrank finds...and shares hopefully. glad you got your bird back.
the biggest lesson i learned from this is to not turn your controller, etc. off, and head to the last known GPS coordinates ASAP. i was able to reconnect to my bird once i got close enough, and that is what saved me. the other lesson i learned is to switch to ATTI mode as soon as trouble starts. nothing else was working for me.
 
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Hey I been on this non stop but I just wanted to drop in here and let you know it will be either later or tomorrow until I have something. I can see where and when you selected to GoHome. It looks like the a/c (a/c = aircraft) was given additional commands to return home but the a/c ignored them and continued on. I have not read any part of this thread so I don't know if I'm repeating stuff that you already know or have been told by others. I will say if I had to make a call based on what I have seen so far, it would be all surrounding the compass.

Btw, also just to let you know there is a couple of columns of data that I have seen numerous times but never had to use them for any reason. But I do not know what exactly they are suppose to represent. So I have sent out a email to another Guru to get his thoughts on what they apply to. I have a feeling these may provide some good insight. I have to take a 30 minute break and then I will research these two columns more if the response I'm waiting on hasn't came in at that point.

-Frank
 

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