I bought the Phantom2 a few months ago and have made maybe about 15 or so full flights with it. I have 3 batteries for it and when I first got it, I ran all 3 down to nothing charged and used again without problem.
3 flights ago I went to a local canyon and took it out as usual. The batteries were charged weeks ago. I checked them both via the battery button which showed 4 bars and via the FPV, which showed 96% when the GPS lights went 'green'. I went for a flight (can post the video if you want). I took it up to about 150m altitude to get a good look around. Suddenly and without my telling it to do so, the drone dropped about 50m. I checked the batt status on the FPV and it said 85% so I thought it was just a down-draft. I then flew it around a bit more, not understanding that something was wrong, but it kept just dropping altitude once in a while. It was completely out of my sight and I was flying FPV all the time. When I became alarmed, I brought it above me to have a look and that's when I noticed that the green lights started to flash red. It continued to drop altitude and due to nearby trees and a power line, it was lucky that I didnt lose the damned thing. By the time it force-landed itself, the battery was still at 72% and when I got my hands on it, the battery itself showed 3 bars.
I have now taken it out 2 more times since with same results. Battery is fully charged. It will fly as usual for 3-4 minutes then start flashing red lights and will drop altitude even if I am pressing UP on the controls. Pressing UP does reduce the rate of decent, but does not stop it. When this happens, the red lights eventually stop flashing at which point it flies just fine, but within seconds, red lights come on again and it drops.
I have never updated anything on it. Never even hooked up the USB cord. It worked fine out of the box and I never had a reason to mess with it. Now it's doing this crap for no apparent reason. I am going to mark my batteries 1, 2 and 3 and test with another battery on as it is possible that I just have a bad one that I used the last 3 times.
In any case, I assume that there is some self-diagnosis software, or something that I can do to figure out why it feels like landing itself for no reason...
3 flights ago I went to a local canyon and took it out as usual. The batteries were charged weeks ago. I checked them both via the battery button which showed 4 bars and via the FPV, which showed 96% when the GPS lights went 'green'. I went for a flight (can post the video if you want). I took it up to about 150m altitude to get a good look around. Suddenly and without my telling it to do so, the drone dropped about 50m. I checked the batt status on the FPV and it said 85% so I thought it was just a down-draft. I then flew it around a bit more, not understanding that something was wrong, but it kept just dropping altitude once in a while. It was completely out of my sight and I was flying FPV all the time. When I became alarmed, I brought it above me to have a look and that's when I noticed that the green lights started to flash red. It continued to drop altitude and due to nearby trees and a power line, it was lucky that I didnt lose the damned thing. By the time it force-landed itself, the battery was still at 72% and when I got my hands on it, the battery itself showed 3 bars.
I have now taken it out 2 more times since with same results. Battery is fully charged. It will fly as usual for 3-4 minutes then start flashing red lights and will drop altitude even if I am pressing UP on the controls. Pressing UP does reduce the rate of decent, but does not stop it. When this happens, the red lights eventually stop flashing at which point it flies just fine, but within seconds, red lights come on again and it drops.
I have never updated anything on it. Never even hooked up the USB cord. It worked fine out of the box and I never had a reason to mess with it. Now it's doing this crap for no apparent reason. I am going to mark my batteries 1, 2 and 3 and test with another battery on as it is possible that I just have a bad one that I used the last 3 times.
In any case, I assume that there is some self-diagnosis software, or something that I can do to figure out why it feels like landing itself for no reason...