My plus crashed on first flight!

cbjr1960 said:
So I got my plus late friday and put everything together, charged everything up and was looking forward to flying all day today. Removed the gimbal clamp, calibrated the compass, set her down and got the sat lock. Throttled up and was flying at about 70 feet and one of the props flew off! She came down through a tree and now the camera and gimbal are trashed. The props only go on one way so it couldn't be that. They are self tightening so it couldn't be that. The only thing I can think of is that that one motor locked up and centrifical force caused the prop to continue to spin and unscrew itself. Removed camera and gimbal, cleaned it up and installed other set of props and it seems to fly good although it needs a light touch on the sticks, but I think that is cause of the reduced weight. Any Thoughts? Could there have been a metal shaving in the motor from manufacturing? I'm going to call DJI on monday and wait on hold for a couple of hours and see what they have to say and if they will replace the camera assembly.

Hey cbjr1960! I had a scary RTH experience of instability during a night flight and it wasn't until it was close enough to regain control and stabilize. Rather than repeat myself read my comments on the Anyone flying in NAZA mode thread and also the thread on wrong altitude. I also commented on your experience. There might be a problem with the plus that is starting to emerge as people begin getting there new birds.
 
Ok, first props not cross threaded embedded in the prop hub is metal nut, shaft is metal, cross threading would have left markings on motor shaft, no marks are evident on shaft after checking with a loupe, and believe me ever I have cross threaded anything it just doesn't spin off. I had taken her up at full throttle to between 50 and 100 feet and then hovered there for a second and was traveling moderately to the left when out of the blue the prop just flew up and away. So at this time the motor was spinning and there was force on the prop so the self tightening prop should have been held firmly on the shaft. The only way for that prop to come off is if the motor stops for whatever reason and the prop still spins. I think that the likeliest reason for the motor to stop and then after the crash to run again is if something lodged between the motor housing and the large aluminum outer hub and then upon impact was dislodged. I have seen this happen from time to time with high speed low mass motors (I am an industrial automated machine mechanic and work on a lot of robotics) it is entirely possible to have something cause a motor to stop spinning and after power is removed the item falls away, these motors have speed but not a lot of torque. I will call Drones Etc. tomorrow and then they will tell me to Call DJI and then the fun (sic) will begin. I will strive to keep you guys posted.
 
cbjr1960 said:
Ok, first props not cross threaded embedded in the prop hub is metal nut, shaft is metal, cross threading would have left markings on motor shaft, no marks are evident on shaft after checking with a loupe, and believe me ever I have cross threaded anything it just doesn't spin off. I had taken her up at full throttle to between 50 and 100 feet and then hovered there for a second and was traveling moderately to the left when out of the blue the prop just flew up and away. So at this time the motor was spinning and there was force on the prop so the self tightening prop should have been held firmly on the shaft. The only way for that prop to come off is if the motor stops for whatever reason and the prop still spins. I think that the likeliest reason for the motor to stop and then after the crash to run again is if something lodged between the motor housing and the large aluminum outer hub and then upon impact was dislodged. I have seen this happen from time to time with high speed low mass motors (I am an industrial automated machine mechanic and work on a lot of robotics) it is entirely possible to have something cause a motor to stop spinning and after power is removed the item falls away, these motors have speed but not a lot of torque. I will call Drones Etc. tomorrow and then they will tell me to Call DJI and then the fun (sic) will begin. I will strive to keep you guys posted.

You are still avoiding answering the question that most people would like the answer to, DO YOU HAVE THE PROP THAT FLEW OFF?
 
No I don't, am going to look for it i a little while, I think it's in the neighbor rain bitter.
 
Flying at 70' and prop flies off it must be in the local vicinity ??? It is the only clue you have ??

just a thought !

:?
 
It's either in the neighbors pine tree or it's in his rain gutter, just did a search of the area and not on the ground anywhere.I saw the area it went in and I think it's in the tree. I'll shake the tree and see if it comes out.
 
cbjr1960 said:
It's either in the neighbors pine tree or it's in his rain gutter, just did a search of the area and not on the ground anywhere.I saw the area it went in and I think it's in the tree. I'll shake the tree and see if it comes out.

Shame the camera has come off the phantom you could have done with it to do an aerial search.
 
This post sounds a but suspect to me but assuming it is legit and not a troll as many have visited these forums with similar posts then the most likely scenario would be prop failure. Problem with prop failure is the way it was described happening and the most likely prop failure scenarios I think of off the top of my head don't jive up entirely with the explanation of what is said to have happened. Bottom line is I'm a bit skeptical about this one. If it is for real then I wish best of luck in having a resolution and fix to this at DJIs expense. Most important thing is no one got hurt when this occurred.
 
Well, anyone here can post and think anything they like, it doesn't really make any difference to me, if anyone here thinks that I got nothing better to do than make **** up and post it here than those people need to get lives, never asked anybody for advice was just relaying what happened to me. I've been fixing industrial machinery and robotics longer than a few of you have been alive and I've seen some things happen with machines that defy logic, just cause it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it didn't happen.
 
Word my brother... I've been involved with machinery and electronics in some form or another all my 30 some odd years of adulthood... I've seen absolutely magical failures that mysteriously vanish when the investigation comes around... don't sweat the naysayers bro... you seen what you saw and you da only one that can confirm the circumstances.... none of us can speculate from the armchair keyboard seat so might as well sit back and see how it goes for you.
 
I'm a complete novice. Just got the P2V+ yesterday. Spent the day reading the manual, charging batteries, and making sure everything was working as it should. Did a quick compass calibration today...solid green both horizontal and vertical. Then tried the first flight. First attempt resulted in the machine tilting to the right (looking from the back). Props hit the grass and stopped, but no damage. Repeated and same thing. Moved the Phantom to an less grassy spot...this time it tilted back toward me, and props hit the ground, but no damage.

All looked good. GPS mode. I was pretty tentative in applying power to lift off, though. Didn't want to have to contend with a runaway quad, but it never got airborne. I did hang on to the machine and powered it up pretty well. I couldn't really tell if it was stable enough to let it go, so I didn't. It seemed like it wanted to go somewhere, rather than just hover, but I couldn't really tell.

Checked gains and I thought they were pretty high. 200, 200, 125, 125, but they seem to be the defaults, and I'm not aware of any specific values that are recommended.

Like I said, I am a really nube, so can only ask advice at this point.

I welcome all comments and critiques.

Thanks for the help
 
I went through the same thing till I learned to punch it till its up a few feet. You will not have a problem with it zooming up and away. It is easy to let up once it is safely clear, e.g. 3 to 8 feet up.

Yes I'm repeating what was said: forget a gradual throttle. Gas it till its airborne, then ease up and adjust.
 
How do you crack up the flight speed by playing with the gains?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
bigjet said:
Like I said, I am a really nube, so can only ask advice at this point.

I welcome all comments and critiques.

Thanks for the help

Gun it, like dirtybird said.

When you lift off, do it with FULL throttle left stick all the way to the top and stays at the top kind of lift off.

Drop stick back to neutral after your quad gets about 5 feet off the ground. Then leave it hover there until you get comfortable / stablize.
 
Also take notice when you do your compass calibration to do it as far in the open as you can and remove any metal objects, keys, or stand near anything metallic, keep the phone off until ready, and some prefer to walk the aircraft around in its circle. Interestingly the manual says to make sure the nose is pointing downward when doing the vertical calibration.

When you do your take off just ensure you have at least 7 satellites to get a good lock and just hover and check everything over before flying off, and just dont be too bold when flying about until you get used to it, which wont be long.

Another important one is not to descend quickly or vertically or you will get the wobbles, just glide down descending slowly into clean air.

Enjoy cos they are great fun !!

;)
 
pyrophantom said:
When you do your take off just ensure you have at least 7 satellites to get a good lock and just hover and check everything over before flying off, and just dont be too bold when flying about until you get used to it, which wont be long.

Why at least 7 satellites? Is there a basis for that or is that just based on "the more the better"?

I am asking because:

Mathematically, you need 4 GPS satellites lock to trilateration your latitude, longitude, altitude and time.

DJI manual seems to based their operations of P2V+ on 6 satellites lock.

So I am curious why 7 as that doesn't seem like an arbitrary number.
 
cbjr1960 said:
So I got my plus late friday and put everything together, charged everything up and was looking forward to flying all day today. Removed the gimbal clamp, calibrated the compass, set her down and got the sat lock. Throttled up and was flying at about 70 feet and one of the props flew off! She came down through a tree and now the camera and gimbal are trashed. The props only go on one way so it couldn't be that. They are self tightening so it couldn't be that. The only thing I can think of is that that one motor locked up and centrifical force caused the prop to continue to spin and unscrew itself. Removed camera and gimbal, cleaned it up and installed other set of props and it seems to fly good although it needs a light touch on the sticks, but I think that is cause of the reduced weight. Any Thoughts? Could there have been a metal shaving in the motor from manufacturing? I'm going to call DJI on monday and wait on hold for a couple of hours and see what they have to say and if they will replace the camera assembly.

Don't mean to ask a stupid question, but did you put the silver tip props on silver posts and black tip props on black posts?
 

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