Phantom 3 Standard - Was flying perfectly now nothing

[sunbird]

I am a bit new to drones but posting this here in hopes of getting some experienced help on fixing my drone rather than continuing to throw parts at it. Here is the sequence of events, this is a real challenge, please advise.
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1. Bought used drone that had minor crash, cam not working. Battery it came with the LED lights are all DIM compared to another battery i have there are super bright. Dead cell not sure but used in my test flight and it seemed to work.
2. Cam yaw arm was messed up so i replaced Cam and gimbal
3. Also although it did not affect flight, I replaced 1 gray motor (not spinning as fast as others).
4. Re calibrate everything, Test flight was perfect. > ALL OK
5. Only thing is the pic on the cam was a bit DARK. I opened her up to check everything connection on ribbon all seem good. I did see where someone attempted to solder the connection to the gray patch antenna. I thought maybe video communication so i replaced it with a known good one. (just gray not black one)
6. . Put all together flies great but same result. Cam image still just a bit dark that’s it, otherwise everything was all ok flies perfectly no errors at all.
7. Next day did another test flight after rechecking all connections. Perfect flight again...was doing one last test to check RTH which it did then.....
8. As it was landing I noticed all 4 lights RED on bird as it was landing. Got BATTERY COMMUNICATION error (or something like that....not low battery) in app but landed fine I figured that battery was just bad since LED were all dim.
9. I changed battery with one I know works…never connected back to controller after that.
10. Did battery mess something up?
11. Still would never link to controller again…just constant beeping never stops, i pushed the red button. Tried the manual way with left wheel and S2 toggle, and in the app same result. Just constant beeping and never links.
12. Tried different controller i know is good...NO same result no link.
13. Also just noticed the gimbal is now limp…cam does not spin around any more when i turn on the drone just hangs there.
14. What the hell it was flying perfectly just a dark image on cam. Change battery and lost everything.

Dont get it any help would be appreciated i am going nuts .
Thanks

 

[WV. Rootman]

Was it crashed in water? Are you sure you're using DJI Factory batteries and not a third Market battery? If it was crashed in water it would be a continual decline of the Drone because of corrosion.

 

[sunbird]

Was it crashed in water? Are you sure you're using DJI Factory batteries and not a third Market battery? If it was crashed in water it would be a continual decline of the Drone because of corrosion.

No it never went into the water it was crashed into a light pole and fell about 20 feet I looked on the inside there's no evidence of any corrosion or water damage at all perfectly dry.

The mainboard looks good no bad capacitors nothing broken everything looks good and it flew perfectly and and then everything just stopped working and went downhill I don't get it.

 

[sunbird]

WV---
PS...yes DJI OEM batteries only.

 

[sunbird]

HEY WV- just remembered something after yesterday flight before shutting down i was prompted to do a NO FLY ZONE database update (not firmware) or something like that. Would that do it? It was a notice on my app to do it but nothing to do with firmware.

 

[WV. Rootman]

Close your app. and log back in. If that doesn't work, uninstall the app and reinstall it. That may fix it or at least take the app. out of the equation. If you have anything on your app. you want to save, upload it or else you will lose it. Once reinstalled, you can load it back on the app. It is a long shot. Nothing to lose. Problems have been cleared that way. Sort of like rebooting your phone and find out the problem is going.

 

[sunbird]

WV will try that have nothing saved really. Also i can try that LITCHI app have that too. This would not change the fact that the cam does not dance up when i start the drone though right?

 

[WV. Rootman]

I don't know. We are just taking away a veritable. There could be a problem in firmware matching.
I'm hoping someone smarter than me will log on and help. Will try to keep this post open so others might pop in.
Dim battery lights are a sign of aftermarket batteries.
Dark camera, may be camera going bad. Something is not right there.
May be the main board on top. Might be worth checking again?
Bk and grey wires are WI-Fi that send information and pictures to rc/ phone/tablet. Ribbon cable Is power to the gimbal. 4 of the wires in a row should read 12 v. The other 4 are ground. Do all motors spin free? Is ribbon cable down the gimbal OK? All connections good? One step at a time.

 

[sunbird]

WV i appreciate you taking the time. All motors are free, the gimbal does not move at all. Yes all motors spin free. Ribbon cable i looked at all the way and it is not broken or anything. Connections on teh 3 ends are in solid.

That first DIM battery WAS an aftermarket did no notice. I tried a real DJI OEM one afterward and still got the same result. Is it possible for a battery to scramble settings? I cannot update firmware on anything until my controller connects which is does not. Any other thoughts?

 

[captainmilehigh]

Have been watching this post for a while, and the frustration level for this problem must be very high by now.

According to your posts, you’ve replaced the camera, gimbal, one motor, and the gray wire to the bird. The aftermarket battery may have caused a battery error alert, but I don’t think it would have scrambled any settings. You also stated that the camera image was dark, so maybe the new camera is bad, or the camera settings in the app are set incorrectly. Also, you state that someone other than yourself attempted to solder connections inside the bird. ‘Attempted’ is the key word here.

Either way, the r/c should pair with the a/c. Since it doesn’t, and the camera doesn’t initialize (dance) on power up, there is more going on than I would want to mess with.

Rather than throw parts (and money) at it as your first post said, I think maybe you should consider plan B.

PLEASE don’t take this suggestion the wrong way, because it is ONLY a suggestion................

Phantom 3 Standards are inexpensive. New Phantom 3 Standards are only $399 at WallyWorld, complete with battery and R/C.......and have a full year warranty from DJI. Hassle free flying. The problem bird then becomes a parts bird.

Good luck finding the issue if you choose to continue your efforts. I just don’t have the patience you have at this point. Again, good luck.[emoji106]

 

[sunbird]

Captain, you are right this is frustrating and i am close to throwing in the towel but thought there might be something that i am missing that a more experienced drone person might pick up on.

If it had never flown perfectly the 2 days in a row, i would not be so nuts trying to fix it. The last flight although it landed with all 4 lites ont eh bird RED because of that non oem battery, it landed perfectly. After i shut it off, never connected to controller again.

Do you think updating the Fly Safe Zone database could have knocked everything out? (See my other post above). That was the only other thing i did because it was bugging me for days to do it...was just hitting ignore. Not sure if it was coincidence but it is a variable.

I appreciated all input before i give up on it.
Thank you

 

[captainmilehigh]

No idea if updating the No Fly Zone data did anything negative to the bird. I have two P3S’s that are both on very old firmware and don’t have these alerts on NFZ’s. I haven’t updated firmware in about three years.

The camera/gimbal issue you are having makes me think you bought a bad camera/gimbal to replace the damaged one. Any chance you can return it for refund/replacement?

 

[sunbird]

I have an update....i have a buddy with a P3S also, he let me connect this cam in question to his bird. Check it out...It DID spin up, dance around and settle i thought i was on to something...BUT kept twitching around a little bit and humming (inside gimbal or cam) …never completely settled.

Think it could be a bad gimbal circuit board?

 

[captainmilehigh]

Sorry for the delay, was away from the computer.

Possibly a bad gimbal board and camera. I’d see if you could return them for refund/replacement. The camera does twitch and the roll motors hum and buzz even at rest. Nothing to be concerned about.

 

[sunbird]

Captain you are right never paid attention before i guess but it does that before the controller is connected. After it connects that sound etc goes away. I found this out after putting my cam and gimbal on buddys bird but never calibrated the controller to it. I did after that, linked it up and it flew on HIS bird. Still have a dark image on the camera but everything else acted normally.

 

[captainmilehigh]

That image makes me think to recheck the camera settings, and maybe experiment with them in a static location. It almost looks like it has a very strong filter on the lens.

I think I’d play with the camera settings in the GoApp and see if I could lighten it up a bit.

 

[sunbird]

I thought the same thing like a filter setting or white balance. If i turn OFF auto WB it gets too bright. I will look at it again maybe reset cam settings to default.

 

[alypaly]

Hi ... I had the same experience, new bird, flew it indoors 4 times of 15-20 minutes. On last flight I crashed it, since then I cannot connect the RC to bird, tried manual, dont work, the cam does not dance, the go app does not show a picture .... I also have the lights flash fast, yellow, humming noise from cam. Its exactly the same issue as yours, no updates so u can definitely exclude that. I disconnected the gimball/camera, still exhibiting the same problem. At the moment I have a bird that will not connect to RC and I dont know what to do next Grrrrr

 

[captainmilehigh]

Flying indoors? That is a problem right there. The bird will jump into ATTI-mode very quickly due to the inside interference, and become a handful to control.

If the bird is still under warranty get with DJI for repairs.

 

[offroadpyro]

I had same problem with phantom 3 standard..Would not link to any of my controllers.So This is how I fixed it..Check what firmware you are running.Go back one firmware then try to connect controller.It worked for me after that I updated firmware with controller on and all is good.I also deleted app and the entire IPad mini 4 also.Go to settings and do factory reset this will erase any old Dji settings.It doesn't take long but you will have to reset your iPad from scratch.