I got a Phantom 2 Vision early in December and have flown it about 25 times so far. Figured out how to update etc and did that. About 2 weeks ago while hovering at about 60 ft it suddenly flipped over and fell inverted into shrubbery. A bit of repair necessary, a check with the software and a quick check flight showed we might be good to go again, or so I thought. Yesterday while hovering at 75 ft the same thing happened with different result, lots of damage to the car it fell onto. In both cases I had descended from a higher altitude to get a picture or two while hovering a bit lower. I am absolutely sure I was hands off the controller joy sticks in each instance. I believe the props were stopped sometime during the fall but not positive. In both cases it flipped over and came down upside down (inverted) all the way to impact. A bit scary, and unlucky to hit the only car in the area! Anybody out there have any input?
Sudden fall from the sky
- Thread starter H-19
- Start date
Sorry to hear that. When you said you were descending, were you just coming straight down? If so, how fast? What position were you holding the throttle stick whilst descending? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to eliminate a few things.
The way I read the OP, he was not trying to descend. On both occasions he was in a hover.Pull_Up said:
Sounds like a power outage.
Good Morning: Yes, I was only hovering after a rather slow decent in both cases. I never want to get close to the 'shut down' position of the 'throttle' (left) joy stick. I could be significant that both times it rolled very quickly (I believe to the left on both occasions) and then remained very flat until hitting. So flat that, there are 4 perfect indentions of the prop spinners and a dent just in the middle of these (where the GPS 'dome" is) in the roof of the unlucky car it 'landed' on. The repair will make cost of ownership/operation of this 'toy' rise by several orders of magnitude. I will go through the vehicle and controller with a pencil soldering iron before trying this again airborne. I have tried to achieve this failure a number of times on the work bench with the props off without 'success'. I have looked at the battery terminals and I believe they have enough surface area and look clean without any signs of hot spots or arcing. I see several P2V's flying in the area now and two especially ambitious guys are flying them over the small commercial center with lots of foot traffic under them. Scary in light of what has happened to mine.
Thanks
Thanks
H-19 said:
Sorry about the crash.
I agree with your view, whilst this has not happened to mine yet each time I fly it now I do so expecting it to drop like a brick. There seems to be nothing I can do at the moment to prevent the power loss but I now take great care to be aware over what is underneath it in the hover or what might be at the end of its moving trajectory should the power fail.
Thanks for your crash report. It shows none of us are 100% safe just yet.
This happened to AR Drone 2.0. After severe repairs and checks it turned out to be the battery.
Hope all turns out well.
Hope all turns out well.
Yes, the 'battery' or in this case a battery and a bit of circuitry. Has anyone taken apart one of these 5.2Ah batteries yet. Impressive bang for the size but is there any way to test for intermittent 'opens'? Thinking back on it falling, I cannot remember if the LEDs were still on or not.
Took the P2V apart and re soldered those connections that were originally done by hand. The boards are are SMD so there is not a practical way to do the devices themselves. Broken and intermittent track? I guess it could be possible but it would be hard to spot visually.
The thought occurred to me that if the joy sticks were so far out of cal that any down throttle made the little beasty think I had come all the way back on the throttle and was giving it a command to stop motors. So I went into splitting the controller case mode to plug in the USB cable and running the software to cal the joysticks. No real joy there as I could not get them to cal. I found a small black button next the the piezo buzzer and pushed it. Now I am in trouble. Controller turns on with normal 2 beeps (FCC) and an initial green LED an then the LED goes yellow. Software refuses to recognize if the cntrlr is even plugged in. Not able to start motors and of course no indication of joy stick or switch movement on the software display on the PC either. Completely in the dark here but I feel that I have achieved real 'failsafe' mode with this, in that it won't fly at all.
Any idea as to function of the black button??
Thanks All.
Took the P2V apart and re soldered those connections that were originally done by hand. The boards are are SMD so there is not a practical way to do the devices themselves. Broken and intermittent track? I guess it could be possible but it would be hard to spot visually.
The thought occurred to me that if the joy sticks were so far out of cal that any down throttle made the little beasty think I had come all the way back on the throttle and was giving it a command to stop motors. So I went into splitting the controller case mode to plug in the USB cable and running the software to cal the joysticks. No real joy there as I could not get them to cal. I found a small black button next the the piezo buzzer and pushed it. Now I am in trouble. Controller turns on with normal 2 beeps (FCC) and an initial green LED an then the LED goes yellow. Software refuses to recognize if the cntrlr is even plugged in. Not able to start motors and of course no indication of joy stick or switch movement on the software display on the PC either. Completely in the dark here but I feel that I have achieved real 'failsafe' mode with this, in that it won't fly at all.
Any idea as to function of the black button??
Thanks All.
Again sorry for your woes.
There is a learning point here for all of us. The best sequence before activating a strange button on your device is to ask on this forum for advice on how it is used before you press it. My fingers are crossed that someone can help you out with what that black button does and how to get things back.
There is a learning point here for all of us. The best sequence before activating a strange button on your device is to ask on this forum for advice on how it is used before you press it. My fingers are crossed that someone can help you out with what that black button does and how to get things back.
If it's a momentary-type button it may well be a rebind switch. There is a similar momentary switch to rebind the receiver on the underside of the Phantom. I've never had to rebind either of them so I'm not familiar with the process, but it could be that you need to rebind the transmitter to the receiver.
Incidentally you can calibrate the sticks via the Assistant software after plugging the Phantom in. The calibration is actually done by the the aircraft firmware rather than the transmitter, I believe. You'll need to get the tx talking to the rx again though.
EDIT: Section 3.6 of the latest Vision manual has the rebind procedure, so try that...
Incidentally you can calibrate the sticks via the Assistant software after plugging the Phantom in. The calibration is actually done by the the aircraft firmware rather than the transmitter, I believe. You'll need to get the tx talking to the rx again though.
EDIT: Section 3.6 of the latest Vision manual has the rebind procedure, so try that...
H-19 said:
Depending on your settings in the NAZA, holding the throttle below 10% for a couple of seconds can indeed stop the motors. The intelligent cutoff control can prevent that from happening while in flight, but it may have to be manually enabled.
No more progress on the problem today except being on hold being thanked for my patience for about an hour by Helo-World where the beasty came from. But I thought I would say that just before Xmas after having my beasty for about 5 or 6 weeks I did an upgrade as I was having the invalid battery blues. When finished (I think, you know how THAT goes) I did have to hunt out the little red button right in the middle of the red LED that is deep inside the copter. Took a bit of faith to stick a straightened out paper clip into the center and push harder than you think you should. But it did work,I guess as it was flyable again.BTW there is a number of terms being used for this action, bind, link, mate and so forth. All mean the same thing??. If the little mystery black button does that,why do the instruction call for that activity to be performed by the red-lite button on the copter?
All for now..
All for now..
Was flying my P2V a few hours ago and a few minutes after take off at around 84% battery on my phone screen and about 150 feet up, ALL the lights just went off... My eyes couldn't believe it... Just out the blues, all the lights just went off... The phantom started falling from the sky... No battery alerts at all... It fell inverted onto a side road... It hit nothing... The battery was still powered on but no power on the unit... One of the the prop blades tip broke and all four center caps are scraped pretty good, but other than that, you wouldn't know anything happened to it... Except, it will not power up... I tried a different battery, same thing... What ever happened up there, where ever killed the power to the unit is still in place... I just received it on Jan 2nd... Only eight days... What the f???... I've emailed B&H to initiate an RMA... Has anyone experienced a complete loss of power in mid flight without ANY warnings before?
semaj said:
Unfortunately yes. There is a thread on here somewhere detailing that the solder joints on the 2 main leads from the battery terminals inside the phantom battery compartment can fail. That results in the phantoms instant loss of power and fall. The main symptom indicating this would be that the craft (if not totally wrecked) will not power up with any battery as it can't. Resolder the broken joint and it will work again.
If this is the reason for your loss then they should replace the machine, especially as it is so new.
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I just started another thread about a similar incident withy my brand new Phantom (1). After 8-10 uneventful flights, was flying, in simple hover mode (GPS+), and it powered down and fell to the ground from a height of about 30-40 ft. Unfortunately one of the prop arms seems bent up and it can no longer be used.
I have an email waiting at DJI support. But should I go ahead and try to return this to Amazon instead? What's your experience here?
I have an email waiting at DJI support. But should I go ahead and try to return this to Amazon instead? What's your experience here?
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Well. Nevermind that last question. I just went through the online return process for Amazon. That was SO EASY! A replacement is already en route. 2-day shipping. And they paid for return shipping.
No need to wait to hear back from DJI. Still. Curious to hear from them. One question I will have is whether this could've been due to battery. After original purchase, bought a replacement battery (DJI branded, OEM, also from Amazon). The two batteries are identical, and I'm not sure which battery was in the drone at the time of the failure. (Also not sure which to return in the box.)
This means I'll be very nervous when I put the new one up in the air!
No need to wait to hear back from DJI. Still. Curious to hear from them. One question I will have is whether this could've been due to battery. After original purchase, bought a replacement battery (DJI branded, OEM, also from Amazon). The two batteries are identical, and I'm not sure which battery was in the drone at the time of the failure. (Also not sure which to return in the box.)
This means I'll be very nervous when I put the new one up in the air!
i had a phantom 1, I done all checks and had it up in the air about 30ft green light was flashing for about 3 seconds then it flashed red once and dropped out the sky, on inspection the grey battery wire was not connected to the phantom due to bad soldering, got an exchange under warrenty so was lucky
All...
This is happening too frequent... I'm sure there owners out there experiencing this, but not active on this forum... Maybe the Vision isn't ready... DJI needs to address these issues... I have tried calling there support, but it always says there not available and when you try to leave a message, it says the mailbox is full... I'm betting they are aware of there crappy solder work... I think I have no choice but to open my new one and QC all of there work... My solder kit is so old, I may as we'll buy a new set... Any recommendations?
This is happening too frequent... I'm sure there owners out there experiencing this, but not active on this forum... Maybe the Vision isn't ready... DJI needs to address these issues... I have tried calling there support, but it always says there not available and when you try to leave a message, it says the mailbox is full... I'm betting they are aware of there crappy solder work... I think I have no choice but to open my new one and QC all of there work... My solder kit is so old, I may as we'll buy a new set... Any recommendations?
Sad 1st post here. Yesterday I just had the same problem described in this thread. Received my Phantom 2 Vision on Christmas and had the Invalid Battery problem which was some what fixed with the firmware update. I have since flown it approximately 10 times with little issues, until yesterday. I had a fully charged battery and went through my pre-flight inspection. Everything looked good so I turned everything on and made sure I had flashing green lights and was connected to enough satellites. I then turned on the motors and ascended to 30ft, let go of the sticks and let it hover. About 1 minute into the hover I received a warning I had not seen before. It said something like "Abnormal Battery Fly With Care". I did not get a good look at it because it was only on the screen for a second when the Phantom lost all power ( all rotors completely stopped ). Not hard to guess what happened next. It fell out of the sky. Luckily no person or thing was hit during the fall. Except for the Phantom and the ground. The Phantom is now out of commission and I have sent an email to the dealer ( All e RC ) in hopes of getting a replacement. I have not sent an email to DJI yet but plan to do so. I just want this experience to be documented in the hopes that it will help DJI and other Phantom owners become more aware of this serious issue.
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