P3 crash, ugh!

[bobmyers]

stories like this make me glad i cancelled my order for a P3

Sorry, I cant agree with you, I have had no such experiences after 5 months of flying, upgrades. You wont hear many good stories here but you will hear about all the problems. Don't let the stories make your decisions if you want one of these amazing machines.

 

[flyguyphl]

I agree, these are very complicated machines, manufactured to be very inexpensive. I just completely disassembled mine and reassembled into a new shell. The build quality of the shell is pretty poor, just cheap plastic, but I guess if you want carbon fiber, your gonna have to pay a lot more for it. Basically you get what you pay for. I've haven't read the inspire forums, but I've seen and flown it before - badass, seems much more solid. BUT $2k more! The P3 is an amazing machine for the money.

 

[afx]

That doesnt sound right 500 miles your magnetic declination will not be the same. I would not recomend this at all.

in russian dji-club i've collected good statistics with crashes. it's in russian, but you may use translate.google.com to translate the whole page.
and those results show that many guys crashed even they calibrate compass each flight (including crash flight). so I don't think that calibration procedure is necessary for each start. i say this according to my experience and that statistics.

 

[Oregon Guns]

I have about 100 hours flying my P3 when it crashed today. Getting some video of fall foliage, when all of a sudden, after I cleared the tree line height, she was went crazy on me! Banked hard right, my app started saying "atti mode", even though I never hit the switch, went out of sight, I heard the motors revving really high, all I could do instinctively was just increase the pitch hoping she would get higher and I would be able to regain control, but no such luck. I heard it crash onto the street nearby, luckily I didn't hit anything or anybody.

Damage - three out of four of my carbon fiber props were broken at the hub. Found only one of the missing pieces at the scene. Two of the camera gimbal rubber supports were broken, but other two held and gimbal was still attached. Battery ejected. Shell scratched on top and lots of cracks now at the motor mounts. Not sure whether the crash caused those cracks or they were cracked before and thats what caused the crash. I never balanced my props and I'm thinking that may have been the cause? Maybe lost a blade in flight and things went downhill from there? I have no idea how hard it really hit.

Anyway, what's done is done, and am now left with what to do. It powers up fine, and I even put the old plastic props back on just to see if it would power up, all motors sounded good, so I took it up and just hovered it around a foot or two, and it seems fine. So, should I buy a new shell and replace it and fly it again? Can I trust it? Kind of shaken up now. Anything else I should do to get it flying again?

Thanks in advance for all your help out there.

Hello fellow pilot, question did you happen to calibrate the compass before you flew? That's the number one reason for flight delays. Or calibrating on a large piece of metal or too close to a metal structure. Anyway anytime after a crash and a repair make sure to calibrate the IMU and do this when the craft is as cool as possible. Good luck in the future let me know if I can help in anyway. David

 

[kdrak]

point and I was in trouble. I lost sight of it quickly, my ba

 

[kdrak]

I do not know what actually happened and what was the problem for banked hard reaction. However, if any situation like this arises then you should switch to ATTI mode and make an opposite aileron stick input from the banked reaction of the aircraft. In the event that this movement will not result in any correction then the aircraft is ungovernable and as last action is to press RTH.

 

[ROOF55NO]

I will never ever try to safe flight without compass calibrate, even you are in the same area. You see, there are many factors witch have forces affecting your compass, and these conditions changes, even within the same area you are. Only situation I DO NOT calibrate, replace the battery with the same RTH Lifting link position. Safe play with calibrated compass

 

[phantom13flyer]

Only time you calibrate compass is if the app tells you to or if your compass mod isn't between 1450-1550. I prefer to keep a compass mod between 1475-1525. There's no point in taking the chance that you might get a bad compass calibration. In this case less is more. Just check your compass mod before every flight !!! And ho from there !!

 

[phantom13flyer]

There's a lot of bad advice around here .

 

[bobmyers]

There's a lot of bad advice around here .

Yes, some of the advice is not based on experience or knowledge from some.

But there are many on here that know their stuff and are willing to share it.

It is fairly obvious who spends a lot of time flying, filming and trying to help others with the right answers if they are available if you hang around a bit and read the posts.

.

 

[flyguyphl]

Any idea what those compass mod numbers mean? What about the other values on that page, acceleration and gyroscope? What should they be, all zeros? Mine always says z -1, mod +1. Normal?

 

[bobmyers]

Any idea what those compass mod numbers mean? What about the other values on that page, acceleration and gyroscope? What should they be, all zeros? Mine always says z -1, mod +1. Normal?

Check this post--
compass values

 

[flyguyphl]

Thanks. Got her all back together today! New shell and battery tray, new balanced plastic props, even put my prop guards back on I mostly do real estate shots in close quarters. IMU calibrated, compass calibrated all values look good. All I could do was a quick hover test flight since it was getting too dark, but seemed to fly really good.

Only thing is that the camera gimbal starts out about 45 degrees off level, but when I do an auto calibration it fixes it. But if I shut down and start up again, back to 45 degrees off again til I recalibrate. Any ideas?

 

[bobmyers]

Thanks. Got her all back together today! New shell and battery tray, new balanced plastic props, even put my prop guards back on I mostly do real estate shots in close quarters. IMU calibrated, compass calibrated all values look good. All I could do was a quick hover test flight since it was getting too dark, but seemed to fly really good.

Only thing is that the camera gimbal starts out about 45 degrees off level, but when I do an auto calibration it fixes it. But if I shut down and start up again, back to 45 degrees off again til I recalibrate. Any ideas?

45 degrees is a lot. Maybe a loose grub nut on the motor shaft-- Can you post a photo of a pic when it is off that far and a shot of the P# gimbal when it is off that far?

 

[flyguyphl]

Here it is when I first turn the aircraft on. Perfectly straight when I do an auto calibtation. What's p number gimbal?

 

[bobmyers]

Here it is when I first turn the aircraft on. Perfectly straight when I do an auto calibtation. What's p number gimbal?

Try to level it in the app and see if you can set it level with that control. then shut it down and reboot every thing and see if it stays or goes back to this.

P# should have read P3-- sorry

 

[phantom13flyer]

Also if those ideas don't work . I calibrated mine while in the air and it's worked perfrct ever since. Just make sure it's a nice calm day no wind. However you got a serious slant though . Good luck and happy safe flying !!

 

[flyguyphl]

Looks like there was some very fine pieces of metal on the ring magnet that holds the gimbal piece on. The crash chiped a couple nicks of the magnet off. Pulled it off, cleaned all around the ring magnet, reinstalled, works good now. Was binding up a little before, now free motion all through.

Everything else seems to be working as new. I'm extra cautious about checking all the sensor values now before every flight, especially the compass mod values!

 

[JKDSensei]

I see no reason why you couldn't do a quick check of the compass mod value after doing a compass calibration right before you blast off.

It's sooooo easy to check compared to the P1 for example where you HAD to hook that puppy to a PC to see the mod value.

 

[JKDSensei]

Good work flyguyphl.....

Now go forth....and crash no more