Phantom 3 Professional Fly Away

[TYCORP]

Curious if you will be able to dry it out and extract the .DAT file from the P3. Is that area fresh or salt water? Looks like fresh water according to the map.

Yeah its fresh water
I don't expect it to power on but the DAT file may be ok on a SD card.
Sounds like there is also an internal card, but Ill let DJI open it up and look if I get it back in the event they ignore the data as it wouldn't "have been retrieved by them"
@blade strike whats your thought?

 

[Kman]

Yeah its fresh water
I don't expect it to power on but the DAT file may be ok on a SD card.
Sounds like there is also an internal card, but Ill let DJI open it up and look if I get it back in the event they ignore the data as it wouldn't "have been retrieved by them"
@blade strike whats your thought?

If they find it (I hope so), you have to dry it out and try to power it on.

 

[TYCORP]

On my way to the dive shop to reverse fathom my Phantom

 

[Kman]

On my way to the dive shop to reverse fathom my Phantom

Post pics if someone agrees to do it.

Curious if there is any strong underwater currents that could have moved the drone?

 

[ianwood]

Could you please share the name of the app, sounds like something that could come in useful.

I use an app called Sensor Kinetics. On Android, you can graph the total field. On iOS, I think it's a pro option. There are other apps out there too.

Just make sure you're looking at the total magnetic field e.g. √ (x^2 + y^2 + z^2).

I asked Blade yesterday, if DJI would share the cause of this crash once they have of the Data analyzed and it was a complete ignore.. Exactly what i expected..

Blade and Ed both have to field a lot of PMs and online requests. I am sure he'll get back to you.

I am now really curious why this particular fly away has so much attention, is it the first major one for a P3 owner here or what?

Everybody gets their day in the sun. Or in this case, the lake.

 

[Adam Kontras]

Not sure if it helps, but I took my phantom to Van Nuys airport with a pilot friend of mine to see how the motors reacted to the light red/dark red no-fly zones (no, not to fly it into planes ). I took some video while holding it and because of the metal hangars? The compass was as expected, completely wonky. However, what happened was pretty cool: The Gimbal would VIOLENTLY throw itself UP and then back down just like Tyler's initial sudden "hit" in his video. So where many of us initially thought there was a motor failure at :39 seconds, it was most likely electromagnetic gobbledy-gook (techincal term) making the GIMBAL crash to one side like it was hit... which means the motors were always fine, it was just 100% compass interference. I'll post the video if anyone wants to see it, but it was the first time I saw how the gimbal reacted with electromagnetic interference...

 

[blade strike]

@ViperNuke

Sorry I missed your post.. But with that type of attitude, I guess I should just ignore your post to began with, since this is what you expect anyways?! We are here to help, we are not required to answer EVERY question. I'm actually not even required to support Phantom pilots. We do the best as we can, sometimes we miss things and if it was truly that important to you there is a PM function

 

[CloudsNeverDie]

Yeah its fresh water
I don't expect it to power on but the DAT file may be ok on a SD card.
Sounds like there is also an internal card, but Ill let DJI open it up and look if I get it back in the event they ignore the data as it wouldn't "have been retrieved by them"
@blade strike whats your thought?

If you do find it, please do try to retrieve the SD card and post its contents before you send it to DJI - once your quad gets to DJI, there's zero chance we'll ever get hold of the .DAT files which hold so much information about what went wrong. The SD card is easy to locate, it's inside the battery compartment right above the battery. It looks like it might be quite difficult to pull it out without taking the cover off... I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Hopefully, if you dry it out with rice for a few days, you'll be able to power it up and put it into Flight Data mode so you can attach it to your computer by USB and retrieve the .DAT files that way, without having to open it up. Given that it landed "gently" in water there probably isn't any physical damage - just wet electronics.

 

[Jstic]

I asked Blade yesterday, if DJI would share the cause of this crash once they have of the Data analyzed and it was a complete ignore.. Exactly what i expected..

You mean Blade and every employee at DJI didn't stop EVERYTHING they were doing to respond to your post IMMEDIATELY?

OMG!!! Don't they see a real emergency for what it is? Don't they understand that you are "entitled" to an IMMEDIATE response?

Excuse my sarcasm. Today's "entitlement" kids don't sit too well with me.

 

[Jstic]

Lol perfect! thanks,
I offered $250 to try and find it, $500 if they do.

I'm a little OCD about this. Id like to know what happened before I fly my next one if its more practice I need, hardware error, or software (in which case it could happen to others or my next one).
Hopefully the Data will be useful to DJI and all of us

I admire your determination. Maybe you will have a better chance at RMA with the bird in hand. This really looks like a malfunction.

 

[ianwood]

I would suggest two things to ensure a good copy of the card:

1. only copy files from the SD card using an SD card adapter with the write protection tab down.
2. create an image of the SD card and copy it to another card of the same size.

This is especially important to get as much of the last seconds of data as possible.

 

[flyNfrank]

If you do find it, please do try to retrieve the SD card and post its contents before you send it to DJI - once your quad gets to DJI, there's zero chance we'll ever get hold of the .DAT files which hold so much information about what went wrong. The SD card is easy to locate, it's inside the battery compartment right above the battery. It looks like it might be quite difficult to pull it out without taking the cover off... I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Hopefully, if you dry it out with rice for a few days, you'll be able to power it up and put it into Flight Data mode so you can attach it to your computer by USB and retrieve the .DAT files that way, without having to open it up. Given that it landed "gently" in water there probably isn't any physical damage - just wet electronics.

What makes you think there is more data to obtain from what you can already get from the usb on the front of the quad? Btw, as I mentioned before, both the card holder and micro SDcard are both hot glued to the bottom of the main board. The entire board section will have to come out in order to remove the card itself. Take the battery out and shine a flashlight in the battery bay while looking through the side air vent and you will see for yourself. Btw, as you can see some people do actually look out for others.

 

[Apparition]

I would suggest two things to ensure a good copy of the card:

1. only copy files from the SD card using an SD card adapter with the write protection tab down.
2. create an image of the SD card and copy it to another card of the same size.

This is especially important to get as much of the last seconds of data as possible.

Isn't' the card in the bird glued in? I wouldn't mess with it if I was hoping for warranty. Only way to access the data would be through the USB on the front.

 

[ianwood]

You sure the card itself is hot glued? If so I wouldn't mess with it, but I thought it was just the card reader that was glued.

 

[CloudsNeverDie]

I'm sure the data on the SD card is the same as what you can access by USB. Hopefully the quad will still power on and the radio and USB will still be working - that's a big if though. The SD card on mine doesn't seem to be glued in, though the SD card holder itself is glued on.

 

[TYCORP]

Not sure if it helps, but I took my phantom to Van Nuys airport with a pilot friend of mine to see how the motors reacted to the light red/dark red no-fly zones (no, not to fly it into planes ). I took some video while holding it and because of the metal hangars? The compass was as expected, completely wonky. However, what happened was pretty cool: The Gimbal would VIOLENTLY throw itself UP and then back down just like Tyler's initial sudden "hit" in his video. So where many of us initially thought there was a motor failure at :39 seconds, it was most likely electromagnetic gobbledy-gook (techincal term) making the GIMBAL crash to one side like it was hit... which means the motors were always fine, it was just 100% compass interference. I'll post the video if anyone wants to see it, but it was the first time I saw how the gimbal reacted with electromagnetic interference...

Yes a vid would be good please

 

[Apparition]

You sure the card itself is hot glued? If so I wouldn't mess with it, but I thought it was just the card reader that was glued.

I'm not sure at all. Just thought somebody tried to remove it and found out it wasn't that easy. I think it was @mohan

 

[Aramis]

Not sure if it helps, but I took my phantom to Van Nuys airport with a pilot friend of mine to see how the motors reacted to the light red/dark red no-fly zones (no, not to fly it into planes ). I took some video while holding it and because of the metal hangars? The compass was as expected, completely wonky. However, what happened was pretty cool: The Gimbal would VIOLENTLY throw itself UP and then back down just like Tyler's initial sudden "hit" in his video. So where many of us initially thought there was a motor failure at :39 seconds, it was most likely electromagnetic gobbledy-gook (techincal term) making the GIMBAL crash to one side like it was hit... which means the motors were always fine, it was just 100% compass interference. I'll post the video if anyone wants to see it, but it was the first time I saw how the gimbal reacted with electromagnetic interference...

How was the pilot able to fly and record for "Carrie Furnaces" which is a place full of metal ??

 

[Buzzy]

OP: Did you recently bin the root?
If so was the root binned prior to this or did you do a circumstantial flash of the root then bin it.
Please say you did this as binning without flashing then binning would probably be a bad thing

 

[Kman]

How was the pilot able to fly and record for "Carrie Furnaces" which is a place full of metal ??

The compass only freaks out if you take off close to or on top of metal.