P3P Falls from Sky for No Reason

[HWCM]

I don't know. I know that when I land and shut down all four props, my voltage will go up as much as 300 mv. But in this instance, your voltage jumped up a whopping 600 mv 4 secs before it started falling. What's the explanation? Did you lose a prop? Did you lose four props? Did you lose eight props?

Where's @msinger?

If you have a voltage spike, most likely it was from the esc pulling less power and like a motor stopped working and pulling current. But most likely an ESC failed or a wire came loose. So instead of the battery trying to power four motors of it only needed to power three. So a voltage spike happened.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[flyNfrank]

Unmatched Propulsion


Each motor has the power and precision needed to give you the best flight experience possible. Brushless motors work with lightning-fast ESCs to make your Phantom 3 fast, agile, and responsive.

These powerful motors give you the ability to speed up, quickly increase or decrease altitude, and stop immediately. DJI’s powerful air braking mechanisms stop your Phantom 3 instantly , making it hover in place as soon as you release the control sticks. Aerodynamic self-tightening propellers boost thrust and stay firmly in place no matter how you fly.

Phantom 3 Advanced - Aircraft | DJI

Once upon a time early on, the Air Brake setup was thought to be fault for spinning off props. While beta testing firmware for dji there was a revision made with in the firmware to address the issue. Once the revision was in place the testing performed was done by numerous combinations. Such as, climate, different devices used with app, different prop types, methods used to secure the props, and other things applied.

I would be one of the 1st to say otherwise, but I truly feel the revision completely took care of what many had been experiencing. For those that don't know, there is a place in the GO app to adjust the Brake Setting. From the MC Settings menu/Gain &Expo Tuning/ in the lower 1/2 of the page there is section named Brake. Here you can adjust setting between 70%-130%. The default setting is 100%. I'll let all that are interested know now to be sure to mention which Operating System you use(ios or android)when mentioning what setting you use or works for you. There is a difference between the two OS's. So what kind of effect does setting changes make? Basically, in one direction of the scale the AirCraft(A/C) will come to a more abrupt stop when Stick has been released to the neutral position. Where the opposite scale direction will allow the A/C to kind of slide through the usual stopping point.

If you were to adjust to the extreme limit of stopping, and installed your props finger tight, it WILL likely spin off a prop. I'm not a bit embarrassed to say since the day complaints began to come up about spinning off, I have installed my props using the tool and I tighten each prop to the point just before they would pop a thread. Of course I have never lost a prop.

 

[Mark The Droner]

So in summary...

The P3 is probably best described as having "air braking."

DJI claims the P4 has "active braking," although it's not really active braking - but it's more aggressive braking than the braking on a P3. Maybe we could call it "hard braking."

I hope I got this right.

Thanks guys

 

[Boofritz]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your P3. Very unfortunate situation indeed.
Without looking at your flight log, want to rule out the obvious first. Did you perform a standard pre-flight check of the copter? The flight looked nice and smooth up until the end just before it plummeted into the water, and it looks to me like either a prop came off or your lost a motor or an ESC. I'm guessing one of the later...again, just from the look of it in the video. A bird strike would've been quick and I didn't notice any birds in the video before the incident. Did see some rain starting to fall, but not enough where it would've caused that to happen.

Hopefully someone can look at your logs and offer some firm assessment as to why your bird took a death plunge into the lake.

I was also thinking a prop may have broken or came off or motor failure

 

[Static8]

Sorry to see this happen!! I'm always nervous when flying my P3P because I know anytime, prop or electronic issue might occur dropping my bird in the ocean or middle of the forest on side of a mountain. Unfortunately these are the risks and it will happen, reason why I'm debating on getting a hexacopter again, I remember losing a prop on my hex few years ago and was able to land it safely , no problem...quad this is what happens but from the video sure sound like a voltage issue, intermittent loss of connection at first then it stalled the motor completely...ESC sounds like the culprit if I was going to guess. Losing a prop would be sudden , no warning.

 

[William Pepper]

The picture started to break up which may have been a problem with range. Did you use range extenders? I agree with 80ariel. Very sorry for your lost and I believe based on the video DJI should pay to replace it.

 

[Static8]

I looked at the video few more times and for sure looks like software , electrical issue, It started freaking out at 310..ESC, no prop was lost in my opinion but same effect, ESC failed. I had this similar event happen to me on small racer and culprit was battery connection issue and couldn't power all 4 motors succinctly , so one motor failed completely.

 

[WetDog]

So in summary...

The P3 is probably best described as having "air braking."

DJI claims the P4 has "active braking," although it's not really active braking - but it's more aggressive braking than the braking on a P3. Maybe we could call it "hard braking."

I hope I got this right.

Thanks guys

It's a semantics issue. Marketing folks just try to use the most impressive words possible. Conformity with usual and customary word use or even plain old reality is really down on the list for these folks.

It is obvious that the P3s/ P4s don't STOP the motors during braking (see Bud Walker's post above). This is different from RC aircraft and apparently racing quads.

But the question remains, can whatever a Phantom class UAV is doing to slow down throw a prop? The answer is 'probably not, but it's possible'. I guess.

 

[rkingsb353]

Could this mean that it was a battery issue? I actually bought a new battery right before leaving for Norway (yes, this was bought in the U.S. so I don't have the 2 year EU warranty someone mentioned above). This was actually the first time I used that new battery, so if it was a bad battery, it may explain exactly why it fell on its first flight..... Would it be possible to find more evidence that it was the battery?

In the pass my wife gave me a new battery and the first time out I had the same thing happen. I was still under warranty and was fixed with no charge.I got the battery at Best Buy and took it back with the drone to show the damage.They said they could not replace the drone but would give me $200 towards a new one.I bought the drone from DJI

 

[flyNfrank]

So in summary...

The P3 is probably best described as having "air braking."

DJI claims the P4 has "active braking," although it's not really active braking - but it's more aggressive braking than the braking on a P3. Maybe we could call it "hard braking."

I hope I got this right.

Thanks guys

That is correct, the P3 has Air Braking. As I say, it use to be a lot more noticeable. I wouldn't even have to mention it, you know something was in effect. As I remember the air braking behavior, I use to feel as though what was taking place would reduce the life span of the A/C. Before the firmware was changed, I dialed the brake down to a point that I was more use to when flying the P2V+'s. The default setting (100%) seems to be good now. If you have android, the only setting that needs attention is the Yaw. I have mine set at 130% (150% is max). The 130% slows down the turning speed. The ios seem to function just fine at the default setting. Btw, I use firmware 1.4.1 which it's possible other firmware may not need any change with Yaw setting.

 

[noki49]

Unmatched Propulsion


Aerodynamic self-tightening propellers boost thrust and stay firmly in place no matter how you fly.

Phantom 3 Advanced - Aircraft | DJI

This seems a risky statement for DJI to make.
I'd read that as a guarantee you'd never lose prop no matter what you did.
Anyone who's lost a phantom 3 due to throwing a prop should be able to make a claim against DJI based on that statement.

 

[iflyhelis]

This is why I like model helicopters, they can "Auto-Rotate Down" under control even if you lose the engine. These birds are positive pitch only without having a way to control it if you lose a motor/ESC/Prop.

I already had a prop loss at my 13th flight, The bird is still flying now, but I sure don't trust it at all!

Anyone want to buy a P3P/4K? I am sure I would get my money back........

Kurt

Hi,

I went on vacation to Norway a few weeks back and had a traumatic experience... I chose Norway because I wanted to film its beautiful fjords with my P3P, and 3 minutes into my first flight in Norway, my P3P fell from the sky for no reason. There wasn't any wind, any obstacles, and it was flying fine for 3 minutes until it just started to spin around and fell into the lake... I am assuming it was some sort of engine malfunction for one of the engines. As you will be able to see in the attached video, it was a huge lake and I was not able to retrieve my P3P. I've flown my P3P for over a year in various situations and never had an incident like this. I have a video of the entire flight as well as the flight log retrieved from my phone, so I am hoping to prove that it's not my fault and possibly get DJI to give me a new phantom or some sort of compensation.

Could any experts out there help me prove it is not my fault? I have no idea how to read the flight log and would love to get some advice on how to proceed with DJI.

Thank you in advance.

[Edit 1]: i tried uploading an excel version of the flight log for your convenience (both csv and xls), but the website won't let me upload. Please let me know if anyone needs an excel version, and I'd be happy to send it over!

 

[pe9999]

Active braking is in the ecs programing, not in the motors. Basically it is for racing quads so that when you lower the throttle to zero, the escs send a reverse voltage to immediately stop the motors with braking force. This is the allow the quad to drop instantly to go under flags or poles on a racing course, not to stop it going forward. Unlike the phantom, the phantom "braking" works by lowering the speed of the two motors driving the quad forward and speeds up the opposite motors. ie the two rear motors slow down causing the rear to drop and the front motors speed up to push the quad back slightly.


Sent from my HTC6535LVW using PhantomPilots mobile app

Can you list the name of the racer ESC that can send a reverse charge to the motor.

 

[PunaPhantom]

Thought I saw some raindrops on the image starting at around 3:09. There's definitely some moisture spots visible on the lens at 3:15. Again, not enough to cause or explain what happened.

That initial "glitch" at 3:19 and again at 3:22...was that you course-correcting? Did you initiate those sudden movements? If not, then those points in time probably indicate when the issue started; they were sudden and extreme enough to cause the arm and prop to significantly dip into the picture. That happened to me today for the first time (although to a much lesser extent) and the cause was a sudden gust of wind at about 145'.

Also, the copter seemed to fall in a spiraling motion rather than just drop, which to me implies the loss of one of the four motors somehow. Again, I'm not an expert by any means so I hope someone with log-reading experience can help solve this mystery.

I fly a lot around here in Hawaii up in the mountains where the clouds are pretty low.... and the mist does mess up the lens... notice how low the mist is in this video.

To ache... sorry to hear of this brother... hope DJI do you a solid like they did me (had an unfortunate RTH while UNDER the canopy of a forest... shot up... then tangled up and fell back to earth... shattered both halves of shell, broke one motor, camera gimble and main board... they repaired it for $177 - phenomenal I thought...) hope your experience with them is equally beneficial... Aloha

 

[BudWalker]

I looked at @achoe s flight some. I'm not totally satisfied with the explanation here. The .DAT would've helped some.

There are 3 plots needed to tell the story. Without the motor data in the .DAT it's hard to tell exactly when the prop/ESC/motor issue started. But, it looks to me) like it started at 249.5 (4 mins , 9.5 secs) which is indicated with the onset of the aggressive yawing. This can be seen in the 1st plot. It looks like it got worse at 252 secs which is coincident the P3 starting to descend in the 2nd plot. This was also the time that COMPASS_ERROR_LARGE and SPEED_ERROR_LARGE errors started to occur.

As for the 600mv jump in voltage that occurred just before the prop/motor/ESC issue at 249.5 I think that may have been due to recovery after the maneuvering that was done around 244.5. As a result of that maneuvering the current had increased and the voltage dropped. When it was complete the current and voltage values were reverting back to what they had been before the maneuvering. That was the 600mv jump in voltage. Also notice that with prop/motor/ESC incident the current increases and the voltage drops.

 

[Erised]

Thanks for the graphs Bud! At 244 I wonder if that large yaw spike was from the pilot or the AC, could this be the onset of a truster starting to fail, the amps remained high for a few secs. The AC at 249 is trying to recover big time. The high amp draw sugest it could be ECS or motor and not the prop. IMO

 

[BudWalker]

Thanks for the graphs Bud! At 244 I wonder if that large yaw spike was from the pilot or the AC, could this be the onset of a truster starting to fail. The AC at 249 is trying to recover big time.

It's not actually a spike. It's just passing through 180 degrees to -180 degrees. That's about 3 secs / 360 degrees. There was some input from the pilot causing it to rotate

 

[Erised]

Thanks for clarifying that for me Bud.

 

[HWCM]

Kiss ESCs do it. I think any 3D ESC does.

Can you list the name of the racer ESC that can send a reverse charge to the motor.

 

[IIIDaemon]

.
..

Hi,

I went on vacation to Norway..

.
...Achoe, I don't think anyone here can tell you that it wasn't your fault based on the nfo provided, most likely it was a sequence of events that led up to
the lost or crash of your craft.. please find attached 1ea file, filename:
.
Achoe - 2016-07-09_[13-36-35].pdf
.
...'These' Battery Cell issues in and of themselves wouldn't ordinarily cause a crash, the average & gusting wind speeds on or near the ground are very diff
than those at 340ft/agl, also the Mode-Chg to ATTI didn't help, thanks for the FlightLog File...
.
IIIDaemon
www.GasRecovery.net
.
...also, loosing a Prop or ESC Failure exhibits a much diff flight path to the ground than did yours, they
typically tumble much more violently then yours did, And is nearly always captured in the data, loosing
a prop is yet another and one of many knee jerk diagnosis made because it cannot be disproved...
.