Three phantom 2+ Vision dive-aways

Don't know what to tell you on that one. I know I stumped the expert I'm closest with and he told me they've sold hundreds of phantoms without similar problems, but when I asked more closely, they don't sell many Visions - mostly just built GoPro gimbaled P2s.

The result for me after I had the exact same thing happen to me either two or three times with a P2 Vision+, was to change course and go the P2/Zenmuse/GoPro route.

JL
 
This is horse crap. I've bumped into this theme on this board before. "The Phantom suddenly veered off at full speed on a dive and crashed".

While flying on Wednesday, it did happen to me. All was good for the 12-14 min flight. As I switched from ATTI to GPS to bring it in, it veered left into a dive. Instinctively, I through both S1 and S2 down, then up. It recovered. I landed it and went back to my house. Checked everything on the assistant program, with no sign of an issue. It road in the front seat of my car, so no magnetic interference.

I have no idea what caused this. Full GPS (10+ satellites). I can't figure it out. Back to being nervous.
 
Useful information on the magnetic storms and solar weather, but it seems Wednesday at the time of my flight was calm. Not a factor.

I'll just chalk all this up to the fact that flying machines are complex, there are no redundant systems on the Phantom, and SH&t happens. But if this happened three times and resulted in a total loss each time, as it did to the OP, I'd be done too.

This isn't a bad motor or ESC. I flew the Phantom in a hover for a full battery to make sure. This happened exactly when switching from ATTI to GPS. I have to think flight controller had a stack overflow error or something, flipping both switches full down, then full up got rid of the error. No proof, but that's the way it was.
.
I'd love a sUAS with redundant GPS and flight control computer, even two smaller batteries in parallel providing redundant power. And six motors so it remains flight capable in the event of an ESC or motor failure. If I don't build one myself, I can buy one for about $15,000. Maybe I'll stick to Phantoms.
 
This full speed into the ground happened to me twice. The second time my son was video taping my flight when it did it again. The tape was send to DJI and they repaired the aircraft and replaced the camera. I am still thinking it may have been attributed to a bad motor. The did replace a motor, esc, and main board.

RB
 
I'm extremely doubtful solar activity has any practical effect.
Despite all the alarmist suggestions, I'm yet to see any noticeable effect on GPS or flying and note that no-one's been able to quantify potential impacts on GPS.

I also can't see compass issues creating the symptoms being discussed here. Compass is all about 2D variations and a compass problem might send your Phantom off course but would not make it dive or climb.

I have seen rare spurious GPS readings that briefly cause a handheld GPS unit to think it's somewhere remote from where it really is but this is quickly corrected and again should not have any impact on altitude.

That leaves to the motors/ESC or flight controller as likely sources of error.
 
This is probably redundant, but I am putting it here for others as well.
The Phantom is a mid-level hobbyist/consumer quadcopter. Many users would not fly it 100 times in a year - therefore they run into fewer problems.

Depending on your particular level of paranoia, a Phantom should be taken apart (like ANY aircraft) at certain intervals. I have found small problems with mine (cracked wire insulation, etc.) which would have probably caused short circuits and flyaways if I didn't fix them.

It wouldn't hurt to do this in the first month if one has a 30 day warranty or return policy...check for bad solder joints, loose screws...anything that looks funny. Another idea for the really serious pilots would be to send your new (or used) drone into one of the expert repair guys here...even if nothing is wrong with it...and spend $200 or so having them take it apart and check and fix anything they think could cause trouble in the future.

Another interesting take would be this. A phantom+ and two batteries would cost about $1300. Let's say you got 100 flights out of it. For those here who do actual work with them, was it worth $13 a flight? (actually, much less because the crashed unit has a lot of value still). I try to look at things this way...that is, would I pay $30 an hour to rent a flying camera? (sure, heck, I definitely would...even as a completely hobbyist).

Compared to earlier and other existing small mass-produced sub-$1K (w/o cam) quadcopters, the Phantom seems ultra-reliable. But, it's a complex piece of kit and no amount of software smarts can make up for all the possibilities in terms of what could happen.

DJI could make the unit even more reliable - but it's all a matter of price/performance. Most people who buy them don't follow dirt bikes in the desert.
 
adventure said:
Wiebe, thanks for the comment. Sounds exactly the same as what I experienced. As I said in my initial post, I migrated to a non-vision. Haven't flown it too much yet, but so far so good.

I read the reports above with interest (about the GPS connection issue). But in my case after two of the crashes the heli picked up satellites and and flew again, without ever taking off the cover. Seems that rules out a broken connection issue.

Best regards,
JL

When the GPS connection becomes broken, it's going to confuse a number of parts on the quad. The quad is heavily dependent on a clean GPS signal at all times. Once my quad would go through a GPS connection loss, it would corrupt the system. At this point my quad would drop from the sky and do so until I switched the S1 switch from GPS Mode to ATTI Mode and back to GPS Mode. It was like I was clearing some sort of cache, and then the quad would continue on in GPS Mode flying normally as I would then put the S1 switch in FailSafe and watch it come to Home Point.

Could this have been the problem you were having? I actually feel your issue was/is more around something you are not doing properly. And that is most likely a process centered around the IMU and calibrating the compass.

Btw, I wish you would have came here for help, I'm sure we could have helped you from loosing the 3 you did.
 

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