The question of whether it is legal or illegal is irrelevant for this discussion. The question should be whether any of these reported unusual drone behaviors are caused by the drone electronics, or people making a hobby out of disrupting them. The technology is there, and as a high voltage enthusiast, myself, I know there are people who would find this entertaining.
Phantom 3 fell from the sky today (lost power?)
- Thread starter jwegener
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That cant be the question. As ,again, we all know what happens to a P3 if its signal is interrupted. Basically nothing... it goes home! There is nothing, short of an EMP that can take down a P3!
So many pilots have had this happen by not taking off with a fully charged battery.
Instruction manual does say never to take off without fully charging the batts.
That said sorry for you loss m8
There is one thing I dont understand though... When I am shooting its usually based on a script so I test the shot like two times and then I shoot a final one. Which means like 3 times for one shot and then change the location and shoot again.
It happens to me all the time that the first shot only took like 10 or 20% battery and I need to shoot another within next few mins so I cant afford to do this with one battery? Sounds a bit impractical to me... I have two batteries and this way I would have to buy like 3 more...
There is nothing, anywhere, that says you cant fly multiple flights on one charge. This is absolute nonsense! ZERO logic. Zero support... just paranoid hysteria!
I can assure you this is possible! Probable? No but possible yes.
It doesnt have to be something dedicated for bringing down a drone either. I remember taxi drivers getting free fuel because their CB high power amps would crash the controllers in the pumps. RF interference can cause all sorts of mischief. I have seen chips actually have holes blown in them by being swamped with a high RF signal.
Very much doubt it was the case here.
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It's just common sense really. Say you flew for 5 minutes or so, then landed with say 80% battery or so, then took off again for another 5 minutes leaving you with c55% battery, then another shortish flight down to 30%. I do this all the time with absolutely no problem whatsoever. The trick is to look after your batteries like they're your babies- monitor each cell voltage regularly, rotate them properly and deep discharge every 20 or so charges and you will be fine. But that's just my opinion based purely on my experience so far. I've only got 2 batteries too and manage perfectly well.
I tried deep discharging taking props off and letting it spin. Don't want to to that again. It took forever to get to 8%. Is there any dgi discharger out there?
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I would take a guess that the answer to the cause of your crash lies here.....
Professional - Crashed my two week old p3 | DJI Phantom Forum
(unless this is a totally different P3)
Professional - Crashed my two week old p3 | DJI Phantom Forum
(unless this is a totally different P3)
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Hahah, it's a totally different P3 haha, that one i sold for parts on ebay and replaced it with a brand new one. That one i crashed into an american flag was 100% my fault
This one was 0% my fault!Taking off with 55% battery hardly seems like it'd be a problem. It's been exactly two weeks since the battery was used, which doesn't seem too long to me.
Just fly with a fully charged battery and it will be a non issue.Hahah, it's a totally different P3 haha, that one i sold for parts on ebay and replaced it with a brand new one. That one i crashed into an american flag was 100% my fault
Taking off with 55% battery hardly seems like it'd be a problem. It's been exactly two weeks since the battery was used, which doesn't seem too long to me.
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I mean i'm certainly going to be paranoid about that from now on and do that
But if it's already fully charged but sits two weeks...do i charge it again? I also don't really understand how the autodischarge thing works -- that seems like it could be bad timing if it start discharging itself in the days leading up to your flight day.
Yes, because it will automatically discharge to fifty percent-- after ten days if that default setting is used. That auto discharge is used to protect the battery. Storing lipos batteries at full charge will ruin them. In the battery telementry screen that 10 day discharge setting can be changed down to 1 day. I have mine set at 3 days-- so if I don't fly in 3 days after charging, the battery will start to discharge slowly until it reaches about 50%.I mean i'm certainly going to be paranoid about that from now on and do that
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Interesting! How can i check the log file to see a loss of power (beyond the healthydrones links i provided?)
Re: over current, i dont remember which battery/batteries that message popped up on. Gonna load some old flight logs and see if that error shows up in any and which battery i was using...
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AHA THE PLOT THICKENS. So i loaded a buch of old logs onto healthy drones and searched for the flights with the same battery that took down my drone on sunday. THIS flight is particularly interesting...
HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters (go to Power > Battery Cells)
HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters (go to Power > Battery Cells)
ianwood
Taco Wrangler
RF and flying on half batteries are both red herrings. Especially when the OP has been getting overcurrent errors prior to this. If I had to guess either the battery is bad or there is a defective ESC / motor that caused too much current draw.
As chance would have it, I have not flown my P3P for a month. Today, I took it out and all four of my batteries had 50% charge. We put one on the charger for a few minutes and it suddenly said it was 100% charged.
We took the P3P up with a 50% battery, but I only hovered about six feet off the ground. In less than a minute I got a message saying something to the effect of "battery failure." However, the drone did not crash, it landed itself safely. We put two more 50% batteries in and the same thing happened.
I did not think the 100% charge reading could be correct because it was only on for a couple minutes. But we put it in and it flew like a normal 100% charge.
The batteries do need to be recharged after sitting a while. I don't think this case is caused by a malicious attack, but rather the battery was sitting too long and the operator did not let it return in time.
We took the P3P up with a 50% battery, but I only hovered about six feet off the ground. In less than a minute I got a message saying something to the effect of "battery failure." However, the drone did not crash, it landed itself safely. We put two more 50% batteries in and the same thing happened.
I did not think the 100% charge reading could be correct because it was only on for a couple minutes. But we put it in and it flew like a normal 100% charge.
The batteries do need to be recharged after sitting a while. I don't think this case is caused by a malicious attack, but rather the battery was sitting too long and the operator did not let it return in time.
Someone has developed a device which causes the DJI Phantoms to land where they are. The high power radio signal device swamps out the controller's signal, and the drone takes it's command to land from the device. The maker is trying to market it to the police and park rangers.
It looks like a sci-fi movie laser rifle. It has a long hi-gain yagi on the front, and is simply pointed at the drone and transmits the command to auto land. It would be possible for a similar device to give the command to cut the motors completely. Hopefully no-one else has figured out the command structure to trash DJI's drones. Anti-drone rifle shoots down UAVs with radio waves
The device also overpowers the incoming GPS signal... it probably makes the drone think it's at it's home point.
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OMG JKDSensei -- you were actually spot on. Sensei indeed. Alright folks, we've solved the mystery!
So...i uploaded all my old flight logs to healthydrones and looked at previous flights with that same battery. There was this one flight that was super sketchy -- dozens of battery errors. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary on that flight, except maybe a current overdrawn error or two (but that's not listed in any of the logs.)
Anyway, then i went and looked at the crash logs for my crash earlier this summer (i crashed my first P3 into an american flag as summarized here Professional - Crashed my two week old p3 | DJI Phantom Forum ) and...drumroll...it was the SAME F***ING BATTERY.
That right folks, I was flying my drone on sunday with a battery that had been damaged in a crash a few months earlier (and largely destroyed that first drone). If you're curious here's the flightlog for that crash: (you can see the compass data showing it spinning like crazy as it free falls for a few seconds before hitting the ground)
What's crazy is that I had done my best to "test" this battery or so i thought -- i flew the drone hovering a foot or two over the floor in my apt for 20 min aka the full life of the battery just to make sure it didn't fail midflight or fall. And it didn't. But i guess that wasn't a good enough test because four months later that battery caused the death of my third drone.
Third time is the charm I guess...replacement P3 arrives tomorrow.
TL;DR TO HOPEFULLY SAVE ALL OF YOU ALL $$$: DON'T EVER FLY WITH A BATTERY THAT"S BEEN IN A CRASH -- EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU'VE "TESTED" IT.
So...i uploaded all my old flight logs to healthydrones and looked at previous flights with that same battery. There was this one flight that was super sketchy -- dozens of battery errors. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary on that flight, except maybe a current overdrawn error or two (but that's not listed in any of the logs.)
Anyway, then i went and looked at the crash logs for my crash earlier this summer (i crashed my first P3 into an american flag as summarized here Professional - Crashed my two week old p3 | DJI Phantom Forum ) and...drumroll...it was the SAME F***ING BATTERY.
That right folks, I was flying my drone on sunday with a battery that had been damaged in a crash a few months earlier (and largely destroyed that first drone). If you're curious here's the flightlog for that crash: (you can see the compass data showing it spinning like crazy as it free falls for a few seconds before hitting the ground)
What's crazy is that I had done my best to "test" this battery or so i thought -- i flew the drone hovering a foot or two over the floor in my apt for 20 min aka the full life of the battery just to make sure it didn't fail midflight or fall. And it didn't. But i guess that wasn't a good enough test because four months later that battery caused the death of my third drone.
Third time is the charm I guess...replacement P3 arrives tomorrow.
TL;DR TO HOPEFULLY SAVE ALL OF YOU ALL $$$: DON'T EVER FLY WITH A BATTERY THAT"S BEEN IN A CRASH -- EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU'VE "TESTED" IT.
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