PV2+ Still looses altitude and crashes.

Realtour Pro · Feb 13, 2015

My PV2+ must be a lemon. Sent it in August 20th, returned November first week of November due to it's instability and dropping like a rock for no reason. I haven't been able to fly it much due to safety concerns with it crashing down on something or somebody. It has a crash rate of specifically of losing altitude of about 1 out of 3 flights. It flies great until it decides to drop. Today I was at about 250' and was slowly descending using a somewhat gentle see saw lowering technique to avoid Vortex Ring State when it suddenly started the familiar wobble at about 150' until it crashed on the side of a bridge, hit and bent the gimbal which was generously replaced under warranty on the mentioned repair by DJI. Also they replaced the main controller and two motors. The crashes occurred on the current rollback firmware but not with the shortlived 3.?.

Does anyone have an idea of what could be causing this problem? One thing I've noticed is that all crashes have been when the battery is less the 60% Today it had 12 satellites It's never crashed on it's own above the 60% battery level. So I'm wondering since this was one of the first to come out, (pre ordered) is it possible that I have 2 bad batteries? Something else? I give, I want to upgrade to the new Inspire 1 but if they are as bad as this one I can't commit to one especially since it's around $3,000 with extra batteries etc.

kirk2579 · Feb 14, 2015

Seems like lots of issues with oem batteries, kind of pot luck many work great some f*up around 60% mark. I have one with under 20 cycles that I have gotton alerts around 60 %.
Bought a Limefuel 6000 to see how that goes , so far all good with it.

Try a different battery,

Realtour Pro · Feb 14, 2015

Yes, I saw a post on a Limefuel that caught my interest. I had the 6000 added to my cart on amazon and went to check out the next day and the 6000 isn't available, only the 5400. Seems you must have bought all of em

Seriously, do you know if there has been any consensus on bad oem batteries and the infamous "falling from sky" syndrome?

Realtour Pro · Feb 17, 2015

kirk2579 said:
Seems like lots of issues with oem batteries, kind of pot luck many work great some f*up around 60% mark. I have one with under 20 cycles that I have gotton alerts around 60 %.
Bought a Limefuel 6000 to see how that goes , so far all good with it.

Try a different battery,

Ordered the Limefuel 6000 tonight. I'll be glad if it turns out just to be bad batteries.
I have 2 DJI batteries.
1 shows Full capacity = 4241 mAh and current capacity = 4138 mAh and charged 13 times the other shows Full capacity of 5200 mAh and Current capacity of 5164 mAh and charged 9 times. Both are 5200 mAh

flyNfrank · Feb 17, 2015

Sounds a lot like what I use to experience prior to figuring out the problem. Here ya go: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=30912

Hope that helps. This is something everyone needs to do. Btw, several has done this mod and it cured their problem.

Realtour Pro · Feb 17, 2015

flyNfrank said:
Sounds a lot like what I use to experience prior to figuring out the problem. Here ya go: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=30912

Hope that helps. This is something everyone needs to do. Btw, several has done this mod and it cured their problem.

Here's the crazy thing. The most common way I describe the sound and actions of the PV2+ while this has been going on is like it's got "a bad connection"
I'll take a look under the hood and see if my connection is loose. I did move the cable under the shield trick and picked up a satellite or 2. I also suspect that the battery may be involved or the connections to them.
Thanks for your post. In your photo it looks like you did a little soldering to some wires on the right of the photo. Is that what I'm seeing?

flyNfrank · Feb 17, 2015

That's an old pic which may show where I got the power for the Flytrex Live device. That mod needs to be done regardless if you are currently having problems or not.

rbhamilton · Feb 17, 2015

Realtour Pro said:
Yes, I saw a post on a Limefuel that caught my interest. I had the 6000 added to my cart on amazon and went to check out the next day and the 6000 isn't available, only the 5400. Seems you must have bought all of em Seriously, do you know if there has been any consensus on bad oem batteries and the infamous "falling from sky" syndrome?

I'd go with the Limefuel 5400's. The 6000's give you only an extra minute or two over the OEM's. I bet there's not much difference between the 5400's and the DJI 5200's. But the 5400's are quite a bit cheaper.