Phantom 3 Advanced Crashed for No Obvious Reason

[geebee]

Today, I flew my DJI Phantom 3 Advanced two times.
The weather was clear and temperature in the 40s F.

The first flight lasted not quite 14 minutes.
That flight went fine.

During the second flight, the Phantom at 48 seconds into the flight, flipped over at 177 feet and fell like a stone, and hit an empty parking lot.
The machine is totaled.
Luckily, the memory card was recoverable, so I have the photos I was taking.

I have flown this machine over 120 flights, and not really had a problem.
All of my batteries are around 20 months old.

When I look at the flight data on www.healthydrones, there was a voltage drop of .13 volt right before the crash.

Would that be enough to cause a crash?

The earlier flight had some voltage drops of under .1 volts.

What voltage is the machine trying to maintain for healthy flight?

Wind speed is shown at between 11 and 17 mph, which doesn't strike me as excessive.
I was flying sideways and ascending when the Phantom failed.

I am looking for reasons, this craft crashed.
I am open to suggestions.
Is there a way to share the flight record with the group?

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Upload here and post results:
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

 

[geebee]

Today, I flew my DJI Phantom 3 Advanced two times.
The weather was clear and temperature in the 40s F.

The first flight lasted not quite 14 minutes.
That flight went fine.

During the second flight, the Phantom at 48 seconds into the flight, flipped over at 177 feet and fell like a stone, and hit an empty parking lot.
The machine is totaled.
Luckily, the memory card was recoverable, so I have the photos I was taking.

I have flown this machine over 120 flights, and not really had a problem.
All of my batteries are around 20 months old.

When I look at the flight data on www.healthydrones, there was a voltage drop of .13 volt right before the crash.

Would that be enough to cause a crash?

The earlier flight had some voltage drops of under .1 volts.

What voltage is the machine trying to maintain for healthy flight?

Wind speed is shown at between 11 and 17 mph, which doesn't strike me as excessive.
I was flying sideways and ascending when the Phantom failed.

I am looking for reasons, this craft crashed.
I am open to suggestions.
Is there a way to share the flight record with the group?

Here is the flight data
Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[Bigskyflyer]

Here is the flight data
Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

By any chance did you take off with out completely charging your battery? It looks like you started off with 84%.

 

[alokbhargava]

It appears your battery died. We're you flying without dji go or any other app to warn you of critical low voltage?

Not sure how you got 80% + voltage at cell voltages of 3.0 volts?

 

[Bigskyflyer]

It appears your battery died. We're you flying without dji go or any other app to warn you of critical low voltage?

Not sure how you got 80% + voltage at cell voltages of 3.0 volts?

Looks like he might have taken off with a battery that has been in storage a while, real weird voltage spikes. Possibly a bad battery and it just shut down.

 

[Roamer105]

Clearly a battery issue. Could not take the necessary power draw to accelerate - there might ha e been some wind making matters worse. The battery "collapsed".

 

[Roamer105]

This makes me take a closer look at 3 of my older batteries (1 year old with 60+ recharges). They show only 89% capacity on healthydrones.

 

[Bigskyflyer]

This makes me take a closer look at 3 of my older batteries (1 year old with 60+ recharges). They show only 89% capacity on healthydrones.

I hear you. I have my original battery from May of 2015. Seems to be working fine but I will be keeping my eye on it.

 

[With The Birds]

This makes me take a closer look at 3 of my older batteries (1 year old with 60+ recharges). They show only 89% capacity on healthydrones.

What's more important than the life % is the last recorded capacity and cell balance. 89% at 60 cycles is typical.

 

[Roamer105]

Cell balance is still pretty good. Maybe I have to go through another "recalibrate"....

 

[With The Birds]

Cell balance is still pretty good. Maybe I have to go through another "recalibrate"....

I wouldn't bother (I assume your talking about a deep discharge). Your just throwing a charge cycle away you could be flying with. It can't recover lost capacity, it can unduly stress the cells though.

 

[Digdat0]

volts were running way low, this is why DJI says to fully charge the battery, i think taking off at 84% was the cause. Once the battery gets down below 3v, it will fall from the sky and anything below 3.5v should initiate autoland, odd yours didnt. Out of curiosity what firmware version do ya have on the battery which was in it?

 

[geebee]

Thanks for everyone's input.

It does seem that the borderline state of the battery led to the crash.
I had charged it, I believe 2 days before.
Seeing it have 84% capacity when starting, may have been a warning sign not to fly with it. But I wasn't planning a long flight.
Looking back, this very same battery was in use during a flight where a low battery condition happened sooner than normal.
Pushing the control to fly very fast sideways, likely led to a need for more power than the battery could produce.

Lessons learned:
Monitor battery health.
Charge battery soon before flying.
If a battery is involved in a flight that doesn't go well, take it out of service.
Retire batteries either when minor problems develop or after a certain number of cycles or time.
Try not to fly at maximum speed, which can push the battery to its limits.

 

[airbender]

...
Try not to fly at maximum speed, which can push the battery to its limits.

I would think that max speed is fine, just do it slowly, don't just jam the sticks over to full within a second.

 

[Digdat0]

Thanks for everyone's input.

It does seem that the borderline state of the battery led to the crash.
I had charged it, I believe 2 days before.
Seeing it have 84% capacity when starting, may have been a warning sign not to fly with it. But I wasn't planning a long flight.
Looking back, this very same battery was in use during a flight where a low battery condition happened sooner than normal.
Pushing the control to fly very fast sideways, likely led to a need for more power than the battery could produce.

Lessons learned:
Monitor battery health.
Charge battery soon before flying.
If a battery is involved in a flight that doesn't go well, take it out of service.
Retire batteries either when minor problems develop or after a certain number of cycles or time.
Try not to fly at maximum speed, which can push the battery to its limits.

what version of firmware were you on? i recall either 1.5 or 1.6 had some issues with the battery, i personally had a p3p fall from the air similar and sent it in and because of the software issue it was covered under warranty. don't rule out software issue in the battery!