So, my Phantom 3 was flying just now perfectly fine, until I was near a tree about 50 feet away- my orientation was all thrown off-  and the unit crashed into a tree, in my opinion, it was not a very hard hit, but it fell about 10 feet onto grass. Now it is saying "MC Data Error" and "accelerometor failed" and "Gimbal cannot recieve MC data" it recomends I plug in the 8 pin cable, but it is plugged in. I am still getting video feed from the camera, however i can not get the gimbal to move from the remote, and it will not ballance correctly. It suggests that I restart the aircraft- I have turned off, battery out, remote off, back up, and nothing changes. I am 15 and just spend $1400 on this, I really really really don't want it to be broken. Any tips appriciated, also, any places that can fix this in Dallas feel free to let me know.
Thanks. Jack

Did you do the advanced IMU calibration from the app?
That is the first order of business and may fix everything...hopefully!
http://droneflyers.com/talk/thre ... ixes.969/#post-3011

A crash as light as that should not have hurt anything.

Good luck, Jack.

I hope you'll be able to get it working. But - without knowing anything about the potential damage - it might need to be sent in for repair. Which sucks bigtime.

I'm sure it is too late to remind you to not to take risks when flying and staying well away from trees... At least until you have perhaps 20+ hours of flying experience. And even then it is worth not to take too many risks, especially regarding flying close to things when you are too far away to judge distances. It is really really difficult to judge how close you are of things if you are just a little bit away from the quadcopter.

Best of luck.

It says "An unknown error occurred during calibration, please try again.", and I've tried 3 more times. Very upset

I know full well that it was my problem, I should have just hit return to home when it got near the tree.  I just think its ridiculous that a 10 foot fall onto grass can make a 1 day old $1400 quadcopter completely unusable

jackmayo Posted at 2015-5-8 10:03
I know full well that it was my problem, I should have just hit return to home when it got near the  ...

No, you should not have hit "return to home". At least not in my opinion. I don't think you should rely on such a safety feature. It is not a crutch, it is there to perhaps safe you from extreme situations of loss of connection.

It really sucks what happened. Can't change that now. But others reading might be reminded to really really take their time to learn - baby steps. And learn to fly a CHEAP quadcopter like the Hubsan X4 or similar first. That will help immensely to understand the basics. And the Phantom will feel easier to fly in many ways after you've trained on a small cheap quadcopter. (The Phantom will also feel like a Rolls-Royce).

Did you call DJI support, or try the chat-support? It might have to go in for repair, and they should be able to help with that - or give you things to try.

Really hope you get it flying again, hopefully without needing to send it for repair. It is concerning that what sounds like a fairly small crash can have such detrimental consequences. What we should remember is that it is a fairly fragile flying computer and camera. Throwing your computer, camera or similar high up in the air and there is a risk it breaks when it hits the ground.

Best of luck.

very good advice Fantom. I'm a new flyer and reading these advices really helps. I see your replys on other posts and read them. I haven't gotten my Phantom yet but I printed out the manual and I'm going to read it front to back and make sure I know all of the messages and things to do incase of an emergency.

I agree.. unfortunately any drone/fly machine like helicopters can get problems if fall down or hit something and let me say that it's not a product problem.  FULL read the manual and try the first fly with cheaper drones or (I hope) play with the next incoming training DJI software :-)

Since you have the video feed but no control at all, I guess a Rx failure...It can not fixed by your own.

Hi  Jack!
I have exactly the same problem, crashed from about 5 feet, down to a wooden floor outside my house.
Now i have the same errors as you.
How has everything turned out for you?

nurzia Posted at 2015-5-8 15:23
I agree.. unfortunately any drone/fly machine like helicopters can get problems if fall down or hit  ...

In the newly released DJU Tutorials for the Phantom 3 (and lots of other places!) the advice is "...get well away from people, buildings, trees..." while you're learning to fly your new Phantom.

I have a friend who builds his own quads. He can build something with pretty decent FPV and a video camera for less than $500. He can dart through the woods like an angry alien robot. But he'll not get the chance to fly my Phantom 3 like that!

Any updates on this post? I am having the same problems.

I am having the same problem but I didn't crash mine. Just turned it on and couldn't calibrate the IMU and I was getting MC error along with Accelerometer failed. Sent it in about a week and a half ago to be repaired and will be waiting 5-6 weeks. Suggest all with the problem do the same. I don't know if the people who crashed theirs will be covered under warranty though.

I had the same problem and error and was able to fix it so I created a separate thread showing the fix please follow the link.http://forum.dji.com/thread-19612-1-1.html

-Dog

SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also some more info, which I made sense of.

What happened
I got the drone delivered before work. i was so eager to fly it. I did not charge the battery which is low.. I flew it. I did not mind the low battery thinking that it has the safe return feature. I was in the road in front of my house and I found that a car is leaving the parking and my drone is in automatic descent. I did some manoeuvres to avoid the car and crashed the drone in the building some 30 feet above. It came down scratching the building all the way. I rushed to it and turned it off. I found some scratches. Propellers are ruined. I thought I got lucky and went to work.
After coming back and tried to fly and I got this error. I tried pushing in the gimbal cable, power cycling it many times, etc. I tried to calibrate IMU and It was giving the error "Unknown error" at 35% the first time and at 2% after that.
I called DJI US though I live in Sweden.. It's already evening. After waiting for 42 minutes, I talked to the technical support people and they said I have to send the drone in and it will take 4 to 6 weeks for them to fix it as they have queue. I have trips planned and I decided to open it tomorrow as I do not have the tools to open it today.

How I fixed
Since, I decided to open it tomorrow, I looked for some help and I landed in this thread. I decided to try smacking the aircraft. It's not some random decision. I will explain why in the "What I learned" part. Since the error is caused by the aircraft hitting the front, I smacked thrice on the back of the aircraft. I turned the aircraft on, went to the sensors page and sensed (explained how in the next section) that the IMU calibration will go through and it did. Then I took the craft and flew it.

What I learned
I also do mobile development and I know how the digital accelerometers work (A metal on a diaphram moves in a magnetic field to generate current) and have seen raw values of gyroscope, accelerometer reading of mobile devices. when I went to the sensors menu in the advanced settings, I saw this.

Had -16 before

I did this, when I could not calibrate(the screenshot was taken later). I saw the value -16 in the accelerometer's X. Initially I didn't care much. After smacking (with the device off), it was showing the normal values (around negative 1 to positive 1), as shown in the screenshot. Then the calibration went through.
I know that the gravity affects these values. So, rotating the craft in different direction changes these values in different axis. The X though was not changed. It's stuck. This made me think that the metal on the diaphram of the acclerometer is stuck and I need to smack it in the opposite direction to release it (and not make it get stuck in the opposite direction). So there is a chance it's stuck in either of the six directions and based on that you have to decide where to smack.
Solution: This is where you need to smack, (might be a combination of smacks, if it's stuck in more than one axis) based on the acceleromater values.
low negative X - back (as the metal is lodged on the back of the craft by got hit on the front)
high positive X - front
low negative Y - left (nose pointing away from u)
high positive Y - right (nose pointing away from u)
low negative Z - bottom
high positive Z - top

I hope this will help. Good Luck.

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 19:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

Thank you for your post.

I'm certain there will be people all over the world hitting their $$$$ (very expensive) toy up against things.

NICE, QUALITY EQUIPMENT


Cheers!!

                                                                                                        BBB

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 19:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

Hey! Worked for me! Thanks a bunch.

I can't believe that with this technological marvel, the thing I needed to was pull a "Fonzie" with a rubber mallet.

I crashed full speed forward into a telephone pole. I thought I was behind it, but you know how good depth perception is at 40 yards away. My camera was busted off into two pieces and the ribbon cable was ripped apart.

I ordered a new ribbon. Took hours of time to replace it carefully. Upon restart, I got an IMU error, but my error said I should check the 8-wire connector to the gimbal. Naturally, since I (a) fixed the camera back into one piece using super glue, (b) just removed and fixed the gimbal, and (c) replaced the ribbon wire, I accepted what the DJI app error message was telling me, and that the problem was certainly gimbal and wiring related.

After redoing my work twice, I realized I could not do it any better, and was almost at the point of sending it in for the 5-6 weeks of slow customer service and mucho $$ DJI wants to repair. Then I found your post Zandergran.

At first, I have to admit I thought you were a troll and full of it. But enough people said it worked for them. And you pointed me at the sensor readouts, which confirmed that my accelerometer was faulty. So, I followed your advice and hit the Phantom 3 on the battery pack. It wasn't until the 3rd hit that I hit it hard enough. It worked, and then I could re-calibrate the IMU without errors.

My gimbal was still a little bent out of shape, but after recalibrating it too, it all works great.

Unbelievable. A rubber hammer?! That's what it takes to fix this $1,200 technology marvel?

Thanks!

PS: I did not take it apart as the OP in this thread suggests. I suppose that would be safer for the other components that also took the brunt of the rubber hammer. But I had lost patience, and just hitting the quad on the battery pack worked for me.

jackmayo Posted at 2015-5-8 10:03
I know full well that it was my problem, I should have just hit return to home when it got near the  ...

exact same situation here...

derek@kerton.co Posted at 2015-7-15 07:37
Hey! Worked for me! Thanks a bunch.

I can't believe that with this technological marvel, the thin ...

Great Derek. Ha ha, you have all reasons to think it's a troll. Thanks for sharing

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 19:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

That's exactly how we fixed the Phantom 2. We would take the module out of the Phantom and give it sharp rap to unstick the little gyros inside. No, not the sandwiches!

clkilljoy1 Posted at 2015-7-30 09:12
That's exactly how we fixed the Phantom 2. We would take the module out of the Phantom and give it ...

It's hard to believe that smacking the crap out of my Phantom 3 would fix the problem, but I was miserable, then I tried it, calibrated and now I am flying.

Thanks!!!!!!!

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 05:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

Thanks, this really help me, it works exactly as you indicated.

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 05:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

Thanks, this really help me, it works exactly as indicat

Thanks, for me to it works exactly as you indicated

I have some problem Please help

system1ka Posted at 2016-2-9 06:10
I have some problem  Please help

If you read, you will find out your quad needs a good, firm smack to unstick the gyro. Are you asking for help as in someone coming over and smack it or what? Only other option is send it to dji for repair.

nix240z Posted at 2016-2-9 21:59
If you read, you will find out your quad needs a good, firm smack to unstick the gyro. Are you ask ...

I can not Send, the transportation cost is are expensive If I can to do it?

system1ka Posted at 2016-2-9 13:40
I can not Send, the transportation cost is are expensive  If I can to do it?

Calibrations will not fix your quad.....
So try this at your own risk, as it has fixed many of the same problems you are having.
(1) put the gimble/camera lock on,
(2) take out battery and give it a firm smack on the back(where your battery goes)
(3) if still not fixed after first smack then give it a harder smack, or let friend smack it for you.
(4) if acceleration number goes off the  X -16.08 , then you can re-calibrate.
good luck

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 07:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

Same thing happened to my p3. smacked it three times on the rear....now it works fine. Calibration normal.
Thanks Zandegran. This should be an official method of fixing.

system1ka Posted at 2016-2-9 14:40
I can not Send, the transportation cost is are expensive  If I can to do it?

System1ka , I just tried Zandegran's method, it works try it.

Me to. What a relief!

zandegran Posted at 2015-6-11 04:22
SOLVED  DivenDog's comment make's sense and here is How I solved after reading his comment. Also som ...

Love it.  Worked like a charm.  

In short, I saw -16 on the X axis.  I took out the battery, got a rubber mallet and smacked the drone a good one (not a full swing but a sharp smack) right at the right side of the drone body with the battery facing forward... so from that perspective.

After restarting the drone, the X value had returned to 0.  I was then able to recalibrate.

I love this solution!  +100 for that.  

This reminds me of a solution for the iPad 2.  Once in a blue moon, the video would go bad on my daughters ipad.  I reckoned that maybe something was 'loose'. After years of dealing with home built PCs (mac user now for good) I decided to drop the iPad from about 3 feet up onto the floor (carpet).  After a restart, the video was fine.  

Anyways, it happens.  And I'm 100% comfortable with this solution.   Folks like zandegran and DivenDog, who post this kind of solution, Rock.  Folling this ineligant process will save many hours of wasted time and lots of $ and frustration.

thx zandegran and DivenDog!

Now for why my battery, fully charged, shows 0% and the wiring looks "good"...

nix240z Posted at 2016-2-10 03:28
Calibrations will not fix your quad.....
So try this at your own risk, as it has fixed many of the ...

I can vouch for this fix by nix240z (no #28 reply). It worked perfectly. I had tried previously taping at the ends of each arm as other threads had posted, but a few sharp taps to the battery insert position did the trick.

I have this other fix which may help others if this doesn't work from my local DJI service agent
"There is a fix for this if you want to do it. We have found that a simple fix which requires abit of pulling apart is to get a new SD card and open up the craft, underneath the main board is SD that is glued in that must have been damaged in the crash, they are fragile, format a new SD card try and find a 4gb sandisk which is same one the is in the drone, remove the broken one in it and put the new one is.

If you do not feel comfortable doing this we can do it if you send it in to us, if this doesn't fix the issue we can fit a new main board"

Yo, my phantom 3 had the same IMU calibration problem, and I didn't believe it at first, but I literally beat the living daylights out of my drone and it works perfectly now!!