My First CRASH

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Bad timing as I just got to Hawaii and wanted to shoot some great video of the big waves, but unfortunately crashed last night on a "test" flight. Not exactly sure what I did, but maybe someone can help. I powered on - went through the GPS process to set homepoint. I am in Naza mode and had one green flashing light and then 3 quick reds. I thought that meant I had minimal satellite reception (maybe error number one)............also a bit windy (maybe error number two). As soon as I launched (from my hotel balcony - error number 3) I didnt have good control of the craft. It didnt seem like it would hover and things got a little crazy from there hitting the hotel - crashing down to a roof and then dropping to the ground. I recovered everything, but have a broken camera (see photo). Curious what you guys think so I dont do this again. Maybe feeling confident was error #4.

Also - do I have to buy the entire gimble/camera assembly, or do you thing this is repairable? Thanks everyone for your help in advance.
 

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luckydog125 said:
I am in Naza mode and had one green flashing light and then 3 quick reds.
This means you had 5 or less satellites. You were flying in ATTI mode, which is why you had less control than you're used to when flying in GPS mode.

You'll find a few good repair shops at:
https://www.phantomhelp.com/#RepairShops

You could also send your Phantom to DJI. That won't save you money and you'll probably have a long turnaround time.
 
Sorry for your crash. Yup, not knowing your NAZA LEDs did not help you. You had 2 fundamental things not in your favor: 1. You had less than 5 sats (like msinger said) therefore no GPS-atti available. 2. You had no home point on the balcony (Its anyones guess as to where your home point actually was).

Add to that, the wind. And you were in Non-GPS atti without knowing it up front. The wind took you for a ride and it was hard to control because you weren't ready for it.

Know your NAZA signals. They are your friend.
 
The LED patterns are hard to remember. You can get an LED reference sticker from the site below. The sticker is high quality and is easy to reference if you stick it on the back of your remote controller.

http://www.uavstickers.com/phantom-identity-set.php
 
luckydog,
let me know if you need help with getting the bird / gimbal / camera back in the air.

i will be happy to help.

hani
 
Hope your visit to Hawaii has been a good one.

Sorry for your crash and I know hani is the best person to get it repaired.

I have a few concerns, I am hoping you are not in Oahu and flying in Waikiki. Drones in general is pretty low key here but it only takes one incident before the news jumps all over it. We don't have much content here just how our weather is 82 degrees all year round.

I'm pretty bias with Oahu because it is pretty populated here. That said if I was in any any other island I would fly my Dji near the hotels because 1. I'm lazy 2. Excited to fly 3. The hotels are very spread apart from each other, leaving you a lot of room for mistakes.

Bummer that you can't get good vids on this trip. Hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Hawaii.
 
I too crashed my P2V+. Took out a motor and broke the ESC in half. Also pulled a plug receptacle off the main board. Yes it landed hard. Before I started repairs I tried to power on. I got almost all of power on tone before the battery shut down. Replaced the shell one motor and ESC and main board. When finished I tried to power on. On the second push all the bars light up plus the red LED. But no tone (that tone comes from the battery). Then I hear a click like a relay opening (also comes from the battery) and it shuts down. I tried all batteries and all do the same thing. But they work just fine in my other P2V+. I've checked every wire, cable and connector all looks good. Any ideas?
 
Thanks for everyone's comments - confirmation that I understood all my mistakes. Expensive lesson learned. Hani - let me know how to reach you. Thanks.
 
Lucky dog, First welcome aboard. Second you are lucky that was the only damage. Hunch will have you fixed up good as new.
 
luckydog125 said:
I powered on - went through the GPS process to set homepoint.
Actually you didn't, otherwise you wouldn't have this:
luckydog125 said:
had one green flashing light and then 3 quick reds

Check this table:
Nzmv2-led_indi.png

So you will get one green then after that a few reds depending about how many satellites you have acquired. So at the very beginning when you have none you will have 3 reds, the it will be 2 reds then 1 then none when you have 7 and more satellites.
Naza M V2 manual says that home point will be recorded when you have 6 or more satellites and exact point of actually recording the position will be reported also by LED lights as rapidly flashing green lights. After that if you stay at 6 satellites you would still see one green and one red. When you then acquire the 7th satellite you will lose the last red and have only green flashing.

But here is a thing, in NAZA mode you have two separate moments during warm up procedure when you will see that rapid flashing green lights. In comparison, in the default PHANTOM mode you have only one and that one means home point recorded. In NAZA mode however you have two, one at always exactly 30 seconds after you turned on the phantom. That is a signal that your nose direction(compass heading) has been recoded. The second time you see rapid flashing green lights it means you have at least 6 satellites and home point has been recorded. Usually it is the second time, because it usually takes more than 30 seconds to acquire enough satellites, but occasionally it can even happen before that one for the compass on the 30 seconds mark.
So basically add to your mental preflight checklist that you need to see two times a rapid flashing green light to be sure. And also for best experience wait untill you have only greens without reds at the back(7 and more sats)
 
Thanks again - I realized what happened after it was too late. I will be back in the air in no time - love the hobby!
 

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