p2 tumbling midflight

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I would open it up and check all the connections - that appeared to be a power loss. Or if it's that new, I'd send it back & ask for a replacement. Another note - at beginning of each video the camera is hanging at weird angle, normally they straighten up within seconds of powering up while waiting for GPS/Home spot lock.
 
You take off really fast after turning the camera on

are you allowing it to acquire satellites and then when its flashing green, giving it about 10 seconds or so just to be sure?

it looks like from the last video, you're taking off without letting everything set up and settle, the gimbal isn't even ready

just a thought.
 
Either you have a bad motor or a loose connection inside the P2. And the gimball seems to be slow to wake up. Return the whole thing for a working one.
 
return it back youve been lucky so far that you have not lost it .. i would of stopped at the first flight and shown the dealer the vid ..
 
I had never seen that before in a P 2 V, It looks like as if a suddenly very strong wind appeared in that moment, but it is no normal. I also think it is neither a matter of compass. It seems like the Phantom lost and regained power suddenly. It can be caused by loose wires inside the phantom. I have read about that.
 
If the solder joints look good, it could be a temperamental ESC. Maybe an intermittent heat related issue on a component.
 
Thank you guys for the responses. Ive only had the thing 2 weeks now, so it does seem a bit soon to start having motors failing. It just drives me nuts that the day before and that very same morning I was flying it around with no issues whatsoever. I definitely shouldnt have flown it any more after it first crapped out but I saw an opportunity to get some great video of fog rolling in to the bay, I just couldnt resist. I was hoping it might have had something to do with the battery, so when i swapped it out, I would be fine to fly again.

In response to taking off so quickly, I start the gopro recording only after the phantom has finished acquiring satellites and flashes the green led for me. It usually takes a good 30 seconds.

The gimbal being off at the start may be my fault. I crashed it on my very first flight which bent and cracked the mounting bracket. I bent it back and jb welded it the best I could, but I think it was hanging a little lower than it was supposed to, so when its on the ground ready to take off, the gimbal was touching the ground, not allowing it to be able to set itself in a perfectly horizontal position. Since DJI released this **** thing with no replacement parts available, I made the best out of what I had, otherwise I would have just bought a new bracket and replaced it. So maybe thats why for each of my flights, the camera starts off at a 45 and corrects itself a few seconds in.

Again thank you for the responses. Im going to be calling dronefly.com tomorrow and showing them these videos. Hopefully they work with me on getting this thing replaced or repaired under warranty. Im really hoping thy can help me out with a new gimbal though after this. Whatever is causing the sudden power loss, and caused that final crash in to wet sand; I now have salty sand that splashed up in to the phantoms motors as well as the gimbals. I sprayed it out the best I could with compressed air, but Im sure I didnt get all the sand out. Not to mention that crash also completely destroyed the mounting bracket beyond repair and I havent seen an american distributor with parts yet. Theres something about ordering directly from China that I really just dont feel comfortable with.
 
Crashing it badly enough to break the gimbal mounting bracket on your first flight might have caused more damage than you realized at the time. Certainly looks like there is a bad connection to one of the motors now. Sorry to sound harsh but I don't see how you can claim this is a warranty issue at this point.
 
One crash which honestly wasnt even that bad. That gimbal bracket is really weak. I had 4 or 5 perfect flights after that crash with no problems or crashes whatsoever.
 
I noticed in the first video, at 3:11, as the motors are stopping after the "emergency landing", it sounds like a clicking noise in one of the motors as it spins down. That is not normal and sounds like something is either caught inside the motor, or the motor is coming apart, either of which could possibly cause such a problem. I'm not sure what the noise was, but if it was a motor, I would definitely check into that.
 
There is another thread that discusses the little washers under the motor sometimes being knocked or jarred off the motor shaft. Search for that thread. It will explain what to look for and how to fix it.

Read that thread before you start to remove motors. The washer sometimes will still be in the Phantom shell or will attach itself to the magnetic part of the motor. It will save you a big hassle trying to find a replacement if it's still there.
 
freyjoel said:
There is another thread that discusses the little washers under the motor sometimes being knocked or jarred off the motor shaft. Search for that thread. It will explain what to look for and how to fix it.

Read that thread before you start to remove motors. The washer sometimes will still be in the Phantom shell or will attach itself to the magnetic part of the motor. It will save you a big hassle trying to find a replacement if it's still there.
Ravecreative said:
yeh - i agree - check the bushes on the motors, i've heard these can come loose, and bind the motor - that'd cause an instant fall from the sky

What the above are trying to explain is sometimes when a motor stops intermitently it's caused by a "C' clip on bottom of the motor coming lose. It holds the lower shaft and BUSHING. It happens occassionally and as stated the clip can lodge in motor or completely fall free. If it's as new as I suspect - I'd be asking for a replacement from the vendor you bought from.
 
Its only 2 weeks old. Have maybe 10 flights on it. I contacted the distributor today. Their return policy seems pretty terrible but understandable by the nature of what they're selling. Im anxious to hear what they say.
I went ahead and opened the phantom up just now, checking connections. As far as I can tell, all the solder points and connectors look fine. The left-front motor sounds just a little rough when I spin it, but that may be the one that got a bunch of sand in it from the crash.

The only thing that looks questionable is the 4-wire cable coming out of the front side of the orange box, to the "motherboard". It looks like it has a kink in it and was pinched in the shell. The wire cover doesnt look like it broke and exposed the actual wire, so im just assuming its all intact.

I thought about firing it up without the props to really listen and watch, or would that be a bad idea?
 
I pulled up the motor that seemed to be turning the worst. I see that ring youre talking about but its not loose at all. Ill check the other 3 and report back if I find any loose.
 
tonym206 said:
The left-front motor sounds just a little rough when I spin it, but that may be the one that got a bunch of sand in it from the crash.

If any of that sand found its way into the bearing, you may have damaged the bearing. But do check for missing circlips as well. And yes, spinning up the motors without the props is a good way to listen for a motor that doesn't sound like the others. If you find a motor that is suspicious, I'd vote to replace it.
 
Im still waiting to hear from dronefly, if they believe this is a defective motor or if being only a couple weeks old, its my fault for it to fail. Due to the sand, Im looking at ordering new motors all around. I dont want to risk this thing dropping from the sky again because theres still a little sand in one of the other motors wearing something down to the point of failure.

Heres a video of my P2 just running the motors. The front-left is definitely messed up and making a noise like something is loose inside it. The C-clip looked just fine though, nothing appears to be loose.

http://youtu.be/my0PiuoE6Xg

At 1:06 one of the motors makes a jacked up sound. Im not really sure how to describe it, but it happened once while I was holding the phantom, and I could feel it jerk the whole thing. It sounds like its either binding up, or... I have no idea. Hear it for yourself! It was hard to tell which motor it was, but in the end, I believe it was the front-left. It does it again at 1:58 and 3:48.
 
Tony - I'd talk to Dronefly (nicely) and send them that video. You definetly have a motor that sounds more like a blender being a couple weeks old that should be a warranty issue. I have over a 100+ flights on mine and they sound nothing like that.
 
Thank you for all of you who chimed in on this. I finally got ahold of the place i bought the P2 from today. I sent them emails with links to the youtube videos and an explanation of what happened at the beginning of the week, and they never bothered to respond. I finally called yesterday, got transferred around to finally leave a voicemail for the tech guys. No return call, so I had to leave another message today (with the customer support guys because the mailbox for tech support was full), and finally, just now, an hour before they close, I called again and finally got through. Basically, if you fly it and it isnt a failure on your very first flight, there is no support from them. There is no returns, there is no warranty, there is no help.

Thats fine, motors arent that expensive. If im lucky and thats all it is, i will replace that myself. However, I absolutely will not be buying those replacements from dronefly. I understand where a distributor comes up with its return policies on stuff like this, but I cant get my mind around how they wont even consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, that particular motor I had was the one dud out of the batch. So its my fault it failed midflight, after a handful of perfect flights with no issues at all. I like to think that when a customer drops over a grand with you, you might think about working with them.
 

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