P2 Dropping from the sky

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HI!
im not sure if this is the place to post my question but here it goes
yesterday i was flying in the open, gps and everythin normal 75% battery, i raised my P2 and suddenly it started descending very fast almost falling whit the engines still on
i give maximum throttle but did not work until it hit the floor, it happend to me twice, gps every time, any sugestions?
 
Yes, SELL your Phantom 2 and take up knitting... It's much safer and less expensive. :)

I am kidding, but I am recovering from a fall as well. Mine is a Phantom 2 - fairly new - no crashes or hard hits. Finally got it tuned where everything was working perfectly. Flying downtown in an open parking lot. Bringing it down to move locations and on descent the lights flickered and it started to freefall. My heart stopped and in a split second I saw it was heading down towards a vehicle pulling out of a space. I gave it full throttle and it started to respond, sort of half recovery as I watched in horror it slamming down onto the concrete. It did soften the blow giving it throttle, but it landed either ON or directly in front of a car just pulling out. I hauled *** over to see if everything was alright and the dad was getting out - asked me what the hell was that. Mom riding shotgun and young son in the backseat, I asked if everyone was ok. He was still stunned and said "what the hell was that???" I got to the front of the car and the Phantom was going nuts... flipped over and going full throttle - grinding the blades down to the nub. I smelled burning - picked up the Phantom and tried to shut it off with the RC, but it was being psychotic and wouldn't listen. I finally pushed the battery off and it shutdown. Phew!!!

I'm directly in front of this family's car still and I went back around and said I'm so sorry again probably 5 times. I asked if it hit them and he really didn't know and said it was OK. Poor guy was still in shock and told me to don't worry about it. I have no idea why it just decided to quit. This is the 2nd time something like this happened and the first time I lost a Phantom 2 with a brand new GoPro Hero 3+ on it. Working on restoring it. Gimbal is bent and have to change the FPV system. Really starting to think flying my P2V+ is the way to go. I just really like the extra FPV range of the Phantom 2.

Sorry you're having this trouble. I do not know why myself, but operator error is out of the question. I am a pretty experienced pilot and I saw what it did this time, the lights flickered off for a few seconds as it fell. It was at night so it was much easier to see.

Good luck. I hope you find the trouble.
 
I am having the same problem. I flew it a number of times normally. Then this started happening. I sought help from DJI Support. No response - typical of them. I went back to my dealer and he suggested a number of tests having to do with validating battery capacity and testing with more than one battery. All tried and nothing helped. Atlanta Hobby suggested recalibrating the IMU - which I did. No help. Atlanta Hobby then suggested that the barometric sensor might have gone wonky. This item is part of the NAZA flight controller - a $229 part. So - I ordered one. Warranty? DJI is apparently buried with repair backlog so warranty is only OK if you are willing to wait for a long, long time - perhaps months - to get your item back. I want to get flying again, so I ordered one on Thursday. Hoping it will show up Saturday. Still don't know if it will fix the problem. If it does not, then I will start replacing more parts. The main board is $59 and the RX is $49 - so none of that is terribly expensive. I've already had it apart, so that doesn't bother me.

If anyone else has had this problem and knows the fix, I'd be most appreciative - as would these other gentlemen.

Thanks,

John Gaither
 
Replaced the MC today and fixed it. Atlanta Hobby - Jesse - correctly identified the source of the problem. Most likely a bad barometric sensor in the MC. Not a cheap part - $229. I bought one and installed and flew successfully today. Kudos also to Damon at Florida UAV for getting the part to me quickly. Great service.

Hope this helps.

JG
 
I also have the same problem. I am a newbie with this.
Flying normal and then it start to loose altitude, Like lost signal from the transmitter. I believe GoPro Wi-Fi being on interferes with the receiver. I had carbon fiber props on at the time. I try tomorrow without Wi-Fi and report.
 
zinkracer said:
Replaced the MC today and fixed it. Atlanta Hobby - Jesse - correctly identified the source of the problem. Most likely a bad barometric sensor in the MC. Not a cheap part - $229. I bought one and installed and flew successfully today. Kudos also to Damon at Florida UAV for getting the part to me quickly. Great service.

Hope this helps.

JG

Don't toss your old one just yet. Most times to cure this is to reload the default settings then do complete recalibration of everything - advanced IMU, Stick cal and compass cal.
 
The new MC did not solve the problem. On the second flight, the problem came back. I then purchased a second P2 from my dealer. I updated all the firmware and flew it. Same problem. I am preparing to connect the transmitter to Assistant and update that firmware as well. I'm lost and confused basically. I don't know if I have just a bad TX or a firmware problem or perhaps something associated with the gimbal and the video TX and the iOSD mini. Too many components to test. If I had nothing else to do and was really rigid about my testing and flights then maybe I could isolate the situation, but GEEZ, I have a job too!
 
georgekale said:
I believe GoPro Wi-Fi being on interferes with the receiver.

There is no doubt that having the GoPro's WiFi on and streaming video will cause issues with controlling the Phantom 2. It floods the same 2.4 ghz channel that the RC uses to control the Phantom 2.

Also, if you have FPV, Check the OSD icon for the battery in the upper left corner (for the DJI OSD Mini). If the icon goes from full battery to zero battery while in flight, then you may have a faulty battery. This is described in another thread here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17324
 
georgekale said:
I also have the same problem. I am a newbie with this.
Flying normal and then it start to loose altitude, Like lost signal from the transmitter. I believe GoPro Wi-Fi being on interferes with the receiver. I had carbon fiber props on at the time. I try tomorrow without Wi-Fi and report.


Carbon Fiber props will do this too.
 
tbwester said:
georgekale said:
I also have the same problem. I am a newbie with this.
Flying normal and then it start to loose altitude, Like lost signal from the transmitter. I believe GoPro Wi-Fi being on interferes with the receiver. I had carbon fiber props on at the time. I try tomorrow without Wi-Fi and report.


Carbon Fiber props will do this too.

Why would carbon fiber props contribute to this problem?
 
They have been reported by more than a few to be avoided as they have some bad issues. It may be due to the fact that they do not flex like the DJI props do.

Tom
 
tom3holer said:
On a P2 non vision YOU NEVER FLY WITH THE GOPRO WIFI ON or you will surely crash.
The control freq is the same as the wifi freq.


T

I flew once with wifi on gopro and the quad decided to fly into a wall and controls did nothing... A definite avoid for me.
 
Zinnware said:
georgekale said:
I believe GoPro Wi-Fi being on interferes with the receiver.

There is no doubt that having the GoPro's WiFi on and streaming video will cause issues with controlling the Phantom 2. It floods the same 2.4 ghz channel that the RC uses to control the Phantom 2.

Also, if you have FPV, Check the OSD icon for the battery in the upper left corner (for the DJI OSD Mini). If the icon goes from full battery to zero battery while in flight, then you may have a faulty battery. This is described in another thread here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17324


You are NOT supposed to fly with the GoPro WiFi turned on. Use one WiFi signal at a time, either the GoPro or your Phantom, but not both.
 
zinkracer said:
tbwester said:
georgekale said:
I also have the same problem. I am a newbie with this.
Flying normal and then it start to loose altitude, Like lost signal from the transmitter. I believe GoPro Wi-Fi being on interferes with the receiver. I had carbon fiber props on at the time. I try tomorrow without Wi-Fi and report.


Carbon Fiber props will do this too.

Why would carbon fiber props contribute to this problem?


Carbon fiber reduces the signal strength......all those carbon fiber mounting plates that people think are cool, I just laugh.
 
And here I thought I was the only one with a phantom2 that simply dropped out of the air for no apparent reason. It actually happened three times and now it simply will not go higher that about half a meter. Any idea how I can do some tests to find out what the problem is.
 
Landy said:
And here I thought I was the only one with a phantom2 that simply dropped out of the air for no apparent reason. It actually happened three times and now it simply will not go higher that about half a meter. Any idea how I can do some tests to find out what the problem is.

Phantom is afraid, very afraid!

Seriously, without more information it would be very hard to diagnose your problem. Are you saying that it is now underpowered, or are you saying that there is some sort of altitude restriction? Are you able to fly in different directions and yaw okay? Have you tried different batteries?
 
Yes it appears to be under powered.Even if I hold it down it feels as if the motors do no want to go faster. I do have two batteries (both fairly new) and it doe the same with both. I removed everything I installed like iosd mini, btu, h33d gimbal.With the first fall it was hovering and the next moment it just started rocking from left to right and as it appears to try and correct itself it just made matters worse until the rocking went out of control and then the phantom just drops, whilst rocking quite violently (about a 200 meter drop). Trying throttle up at that point made no difference, or shall I say there was no reaction by the phantom. This happened about three times with about one normal flight in between. Actually the last time it happened it was hovering about 20meters up and just started defending quite fast again with no reaction on throttling up. After that which is my current experience, it will lift up about 50 cm and within about seconds it will just pull quick to the one side after which I power it off - not without damaging a few propellers every time.
 

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