P v2+ crashing into water/ New phantom loosing GPS signal

[bsig]

Hi everyone

I’m reasonably experienced with the phantom vision plus although I have had for only three months I have managed over 100 flights. Never had any problems with it. As a matter of fact I have been very happy with it.

Yesterday I upgraded the firmware to 3.08, downloaded the corresponding app for my iphone and upgraded the firmware in the batteries.

After this I calibrated the compass and tested the phantom by doing a short flight.

Today I made several flights without problems. At the end of the day I decided to take some shots by the harbor. The battery was fully charged, the phantom in GPS mode and with 11 satellites. The takeoff was normal. I took the phantom to 10 meters height and slowly took it forward over the water. When the phantom had travelled about 20 meters from me over the water it started to descend rapidly. I tried to take it higher but it did not respond. The motors were on and it was like it had a mind of it’s own and had decided to commit a suicide. Seconds later it was in the water. It would require a diver to retrieve the phantom and is probably not worth it.

I have ordered a new p2v+. What irritates me most is that I have no idea what happened and how I can prevent this in the future.

All the best

bsig

 

[morph000]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

I've flown 200m out over water with no problem. Battery issue probably.

Apparently though they submerge well (just read this on a website):

The third Phantom (and GoPro) to go down was in Ontario, Canada, where Keri was getting follow shots of his friends jumping off of a cliff into a freshwater lake. He dropped the Phantom off the cliff a bit too fast, and the whole thing went underwater. Panicking, Keri gave the Phantom full throttle, and even though the quadcopter was completely submerged, it surfaced and proceeded to fly out of the water! There was dead silence from all of his friends, but Keri says that it was pretty cool to see it flying with water pouring out of it. Nothing was destroyed except for the battery, and the quadcopter survived so Keri and his friends could launch fireworks at it one evening.

 

[GerdS]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

I also have no further explanation about the reason for the auto-descending.
But in case of Naza decides for auto-landing it should be possible to regain control by switching to Atti-mode and back.

Regards, Gerd

 

[bsig]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

Hi all


I'm pretty sure that it was not landing because of a bad battery. I did not get any warning and the battery was good before takeoff. I was only maybe 30 seconds into the flight when the phantom started it's suicide mission. I tried flipping the s1 switch down and back up to GPS mode to try to regain control and all the time a had the left stick in full upward position to try to take it higher. Also the motors were not dead.

All the best

bsig

 

[doug86]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

[quote="bsig" When the phantom had travelled about 20 meters from me over the water it started to descend rapidly. I tried to take it higher but it did not respond. [/quote]

Such a bummer. Sorry for your loss. I too fly over water, and I'm nervous every time.

One thing I see in your post; you say it descended rapidly, which I think rules out a autoland kind of event. In fact, even if you want to, the software prevents a rapid descent ( I think its set to 2m/sec or something). Did it seem like it was coming down faster than a normal "full throttle down" descent? Did you see a "lost signal" alert on your FPV screen?

I wish we had more telemetry data downloaded off the Phantom during the flight, so we could trouble shoot stuff like this. Imagine if we could see what all the flight commands were when this happened.

 

[probonic]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

This sounds to me like VRS. I wonder if it hit some turbulence which caused it to lose lift, and once that happens it would just start descending into its own wash and keep going. Did you just try throttling it up or did you also try moving laterally?

 

[bsig]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

Thank you all for responding

No this was a calm day with no wind. I do not think that this was a VRS as the phantom did go down with about a 45 degree angle which should have prevented a VRS. Also it did not go that fast. The problem is that it was already rather low and did not respond to my commands (throttle full up and when that did not work --> Continued throttle up and S1 switched from GPS to Atti and again GPS mode). This is all I managed to do before it hit the water (much to the amusement of a few guys fishing from the dock). It never showed any signs of responding to my commands.

all the best

bsig (Iceland)

 

[bsig]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

Dear all

Thank you for your valuable responses. To clarify things I have drawn a map of the area with the flightpath:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/06wrgffyoqs9pey/Phantom_crash.jpg?dl=0

I have also included a photo of the boat that the phantom flew over just before i lost control:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozpxwkjlicnjvg5/IMG_0007.JPG?dl=0


All the best

bsig

 

[bsig]

New drone looses satellites when recording

I have just bought a new phantom 2 vision plus. Did some test flights yesterday. Worked beautifully., but I did not do any recordings. Today I went to the country to make some flyovers documentarians in an area where I have flown many times before. Then the strange thing happens. The drone loses all satellites when I start recording and switches to atti mode. One one occasion it dropped from 11 to zero just in seconds. Regained some satellites when I turned off recording. I could recreate the problem on the ground. Where it dropped from 9 to 4 when I started recorded. I never had this problem on my old drone (god bless his soul). It is difficult for me to use the drone until this is resolved. Any ideas. Do I need to buy the third phantom 2 vision plus, which will make this an expensive game.

 

[rrmccabe]

Re: Phantom v2+ crashing into water

Well sounds like the record/GPS interference is more pronounced on this one.

I would sent it back and get a new V+ with the new compass, GPS interference improvements and 7th channel.

 

[Guipago]

Re: P v2+ crashing into water/ New phantom loosing GPS signa

I'd guess that whatever electronics that boat had going the moment your Phantom flew over it jammed your signal, check out the anntenas on the boat mast, as to losing sats when recording there are posts somewhere here for that problem, might be in the vision + threads.