My vision + just fell out of thesky, after it went hard right on its on.  When it went hard right, I switch S1 down to get out of GPS mode.  Unit stopped going right instantly, then became quite. It started falling, I applied full power, then heard it start trying to stabilize. It did get back upright from the free fall, but I was not high enough to regain lift. It slammed into the ground, broke both arms of the landing gear, and probably ruined my camera and gimble. I was recording when this happened, but the video was corrupt. I located finlayson's post on repairing the videos, and repaired it.

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=107&highlight=recover%2Bvideo&lang=en
That’s the link if anyone needs it, I forget to stop recording every now and thenand lose my videos.

I viewed the video, it stops right before it went right. Battery was approx 60 percent, height was 100-125 feet, distance about 50 or so feet. Temp approx 40F degrees. Wind under 5mph with gust up to 9mph. 8 satellites. No comm towers or high voltage power lines within 5 miles. My battery is a tight fit, which I find a plus, no chance of battery being loose. I was spinning around looking at our land right before this happened, was not using J1 so I ruled out shuttingit down by accident. Has anyone else had this happened? I shipped the unit back to DJI today, they said 3-4 week turnaround time.

My questions
        How do they determine how the unit lost power/lift, and prevent it from happening again in the future? I never rush to fly, I will have my 6 sats and GPS lock or I do not fly. I do not fly in NAZA mode.
        Has anyone else sent their unit back to DJI for determination if it is a warranted item, how is it determined and what time frame did you get on getting your unit back? From the forums, 3-4 weeks is not gonna happen.
        

Thanks in advance.

Interesting how you describe the behaviour and the operation of the S1 switch.

What you had was the flyaway that is being reported in other threads.

I just re read the latest version of the Manual to confirm the operation of the S1 switch in Phantom mode.

The S1 switch when in Phantom mode under normally operation does not do anything other then start the compass calibration.

The S1 switch becomes active only, after after a Return To Home has been triggered to allow you to manually gain control again.

So your phantom dived off to the right in a return to home procedure with the wrong home GPS coordinates.

This is consistent with other reported fly aways.

You stopped the RTH by using the S1 switch.

You said the Phantom went quiet? Was this the motors stopping?

You then said you applied full throttle and the Phantom started to recover?

Throttle up in flight within a few seconds of a CSC is the motor restart procedure.

This is all very consistent with my theory that a "bug" "event" causes a controller error with a reboot of the GPS.

I suspect that when the GPS reboots it delivers a negative number like FF or FFFF hex back to the control unit, which gets interpreted as an infinite number of satellites connected. And a Home position that's miles away from current.

Thanks for your post it was most informative.

If you can, can you connect your transmitter via the RC assistant and check the operation of the switches and the sticks. I would be interested to know if one of the switches failed. Cycle the switches a few times. I have had a failed switch that flickered between 2 positions.

Also could you advise your firmware versions?

DJI need to recognise that these fly aways are becoming quite prevalent.

There is a bug / issue that urgently needs correction.

Cheers




  

What version of the Phantom do you have?

bjr981s: I sent the unit back to DJI yesterday, so I cannot check anything. Below 200 feet, I can always hear it running, I do not know if it was off or just idling. I did not start it up, so I think it was idling, all I did was push the J2 joystick up to full power to ascend. I have only used the S1 to regain control of it in return home mode, But I did think it took it out of GPS mode. On the firmware versions, I hooked everything up about 2-3 weeks ago, I was current on everything then. I did check/test later that evening, it flew and responded to all controls. It was not hovering as tight as it normally did, it was getting dark, and I didn't feel comfortable with it hovering in that manner. But I had GPS lock and home position set. I had no video because of crash, so no other info other than lights.

ChristoHD: Phantom 2 Vision + V2

Do you have a P2V+ (version 3) ? if so did you ever pop the top and inspect your ESC's?  Was there any visible sign of damage to the ESC's and were they the no version ESC's?

rdc44444@hotmai Posted at 2015-2-26 04:00
Do you have a P2V+ (version 3) ? if so did you ever pop the top and inspect your ESC's?  Was there a ...

Phantom 2 Vision + V2

This was similar to what happened to me,  very interested to know what response you get from DJI, please share

Were you using your phone as a mobile home location? if so what type of phone?

jasonisdn Posted at 2015-2-27 09:09
Were you using your phone as a mobile home location? if so what type of phone?

I normally use my AT&T iPhone 6, but I was letting my wife view our land, so I was using a iPad 3 at the time. I always use it when I am showing someone something, such a bigger screen. It is a plain iPad with no cell capabilities

benedict.middle Posted at 2015-2-27 04:02
This was similar to what happened to me,  very interested to know what response you get from DJI, pl ...

I will, I wish someone would reply to this thread that has been thru this process before, I am very anxious to find out how the process works. I have basically sold 6 of these to my friends that have seen mine and went and ordered them. And I think they are just as anxious as I am, they are really holding back on flying theirs, they know how careful I was about flying mine and doing all my checks before it went into the air.  

I tried to get people to get a form setup and post it on all the forum sites, then link it back to a central location. Then process the data and figure this crap out. There has to be a common thread, a similar issue that links all of these together. By only going off of what I have seen and read, which is limited. Most have the name "Apple" in common. Does the GPS on your Apple Ipad normally function correctly?  The majority of fly away reports come from Vision + owners or so it seems.

Thats a great ideal, but there are just too many forums out there.
I cannot use the ground station when I am using the iPad, but I seldom use it anyways. I do get the green lights with 6+sats and the rapid flashing green lights when it sets home, if that is what you are wondering.

jasonisdn Posted at 2015-2-27 13:57
I tried to get people to get a form setup and post it on all the forum sites, then link it back to a ...

1. The vast majority of Phantoms currently sold ARE Visions+'s, so that data does not compute. Also, those who use GoPro and Gimbals tend to be more technical as that is required even to set it up.

2. There is no common thread. The so-called data from online postings is useless.

We do know that the old model had some shortcomings - most have been addressed in the newest version.

IMHO, DJI knows about most shortcomings well before we do.

If you really wanted to get some kind of handle on it, you'd have to limit to data from newer P2V+ flown by very experienced pilots. That would take out the majority of so-called flyaways which are pilot error or lack of training.

    So you have the data from DJI for their sales? Care to share that data?
1. So the data does compute? If this is a Vision + issue only, seems that data would matter. That would rule out hardware and software that are shared in both models would it not? or at least show a conflict between a piece of hardware or software.
2. I said a common thread needs to be created to gather the data, log it and process it. Otherwise, you have a bunch of scattered data that will never yield any results.
  So make a form, put questions on it for the data you and others think would be needed. Have a central location listed on the form to send or post the completed form. Process the data and narrow down the data to find the issue. Get it down to a smaller list to look at.
If that data does not compute something is wrong with your logic and reasoning ability.

jasonisdn Posted at 2015-2-28 09:04
So you have the data from DJI for their sales? Care to share that data?
1. So the data does com ...

The problem is that your "data" is not data, it's anecdote...unless you 100% believe all the memories of newbie pilots who want DJI to give them something.

If it was data, I'd agree with you. But if you cannot get accurate data - and you cannot without doing a full and expensive investigation like the NTSB does after an aircraft crash - then  it means nothing.

I have enough data from selling hundreds of DJI models via my affiliates to state that the P2V+  is the vast majority of sales. It would be strange if you thought "data" from newbie pilot reports was somehow akin to that.

Heck, they can't even find that Airbus..and those Rolls Royce engines were sending data out every few seconds. Asking a kid who got a P2V+ for Christmas for their flyaway data seems sorta silly.

I guess I'm jaded because I've seen dozens of these same threads and claims over the years and not a single one has resulted in any hard facts. We do know there is/was problems with the earlier model - mostly related to GPS signal losses. We also know that DJI has tuned their firmware to try and make the birds behave better when things do wrong. Those are facts.

But stories of what happened out on the field are not factual. It's like explaining how big the fish you caught was.

Data has to be used as a loose term without something logging all of the telemetry  and controller input, so anything that we have access to will not be actual digital data. So you have to take into account the "data" you have access to. Otherwise ignore all input and never complain about DJI again.With the base information, you can weed out inexperienced owners. You are jaded somewhat but step back and ask yourself,  "Is there any other way to compare these flyaways?" I will be selling both of my phantoms and moving to another brand. When it takes a week to get an email response, the code written to run the registration process will store an improper serial number, ESC boards having issues, firmware written incorrectly and quite a few other small issues, leads me to believe the company is either having growing pains or are dying. I hope they improve and grow, improve being the key word of those 2.  Yet if people don't try to figure it out and narrow it down using what they have access to, they have no right to complain.

When you move to that other brand and there are tens of thousands of owners of the same out there, let us know what the data says.

That is what you should do - vote with your feet and your $$.  

I can assure you DJI is not dying - what they are doing is growing quicker than we can even imagine..and in a field which is largely experimental. Up until 2012 and even later, R/C hobbyists expected crashes and flyaways regularly...that's why it was called a hobby and why it was only for a subset of the populace. Now that the products have become simpler to operate, many consumers think they should be just like their smart phone or TV...or even their automobiles. But they are not. That's the reality no matter which brand you buy.

The reason DJI is 30X the size of it's closest competition - IMHO - is that they deliver a more reliable product. That's in a comparative sense - we are all still pioneers in this. However, IMHO, these quadcopters will almost never (at least not within a decade) be either failsafe nor have a reliability which can be insured or warranted. You are buying something which should and does fly out of the box....after that, there are almost unlimited forces acting upon it.

DJI has stepped up their customer service game from perhaps a 1 out of 10 to maybe a 4 out of 10. Americans tend to expect a 12 out of 10 - that is, they expect to be able to buy it and run it into a brick wall and have DJI say thank you and send them a new one. Amazon largely operates that way...and I love it!

But it's economically impossible to do this with aerial robotics. I suspect they will continue to improve and perhaps eventually offer extra-cost services to those who need 3 day service on their hobby toys (or, obviously, on the fancier prosumer Inspires, etc.). But this is going to take time because Quadcopter repair specialists are not easy to find and setting up worldwide organizations is difficult.

Just a quick update, sent my unit in last week, no update, hoping to hear something next week.

Most recent update.



J. S.
March 11, 2015 15:36

Dear Ricky,

We have checked your unit into Zendesk, our customer support database.

Congratulations! This is the first step in the repair process once we received your product. Next, your unit will be documented in our Repair Software, which the repair technicians use to track their work. This process typically happens the same day your unit is checked in Zendesk. Once that process is done, your product will be placed in line with other repairs, and continually move up until a repair technician services it at a work bench.

Our estimated time of repair is 3-4 weeks from the date of check-in. If you do not receive an email update from the repair team by the 4th week, please call our support team at 818-235-0789, Monday - Friday, 9-5 PST.

We appreciate your patience and thank you for your support of the DJI Product Line.

DJI Service Center North America

DJI North America

rickyc31@gmail. Posted at 2015-3-20 12:18
Most recent update.

Not to be a smart ass...again!...but my analysis a little earlier tonight may have been spot on with regard to time to repair...
http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... amp;extra=#pid76008
DJI are either short staffed in the repair department or have way too many faulty products...
I would like to think they are short staffed and are in a hiring frenzy because they have the highest regard for customer satisfaction and want to turn around the repair units within one week of receipt!

It would be nice if you could just buy parts.

jasonisdn Posted at 2015-2-27 13:57
I tried to get people to get a form setup and post it on all the forum sites, then link it back to a ...

I also noticed that the "I thing"  seemed to prevail in many threads with issues of control etc. In fact I have a few times asked if others saw similar trends.

I know I will get hec for this but a little bit of perspective and real world truth.

nothing man made is perfect, things develop and improve with experience in all manufacturing and creative endeavors.
Not making excuses but some seem to hold dji to a much higher standard than even companies hundreds of times larger fail to meet at times.
anyone have a car recalled lately and have to WAIT MONTHS for parts--yes and it doesn't matter the brand , US or foreign.
patience and common sense are in short supply
all software has updates and improvements not documented. this is not a dji thing as I read some suggest.
all products have a learning curve , otherwise we would NEVER see anything new.
for what these are and the cost they are pretty dam nice solid well done products! if they were not we would not be reading this.
have some of you actually read your posts, the hatred and disrespect given the dji folks on here is amazing and I don't get why. yes they don't always jump when some say jump but maybe that aint them!
are there issues and places to get better hec yes... see ATT Verizon , Comcast for CS issues--- come on like it or not these are glorified toys , fun awesome, and capable but at 1k plus or minus they are what they are.

those that keep saying they are going to sell--just freeking do it then!
those that have not flown yet after months of ownership yet worried about the world, fly it and get over it, life is to darn short.
rant over.

the patterns and trends that we the users see and report are the things needed to fix/improve the firmware.
Based upon the recent GPS update it is clear they are responding to the forums and user reports of gps issues. Just what we want and need.

DJI is not the enemy! why do so many of you act as if it is?

Hi,

i have not yet experienced a flyaway or any loss of control but have seen a very strange behaviour around homepoints just yesterday.
I started of in ATTI mode as the area where I started only lets me fix satellites in approx 20m height above the building I started off next to.

So when I started I had no homepoint fixed and no GPS lock. Took off and up in 20m height I got my 7 sats that where visible in the area according to GPSplan APP. The bird found its GPS lock, went into green and set a homepoint. I continued to hover in the area and checked ground station to see whether the homepoint is set at the right spot.
And then it happened: I had to zoom out all the way in Google Maps to see my homepoint because it was set to absolute 0 meaning
0° 0′ 00,000″ N
0° 0′ 00,000″ W
somewhere right in the Atlantic Ocean many miles before the African coast.
Went into camera view again and noticed that the GPS fix is still at 7 sats. Reset the homepoint manually flipping S2 up and down. Checked again, and voila homepoint at the right coordinates.

So i guess that a "flyaway" could be a loss of control by hardware or software bug or just by interference combined with a faulty homepoint. In the US that would mean a flying to the east, in Europe to the south and in Asia to the west.

Maybe one should really follow up on this combined with some factual analysis. And maybe some others might want to join in and check whether this homepoint thing has happened to them as well.

My setup BTW is the following:
Phantom 2 V+ Version 2 Firmware 3.12
New remote control (gimbal wheel) latest firmware

Iphone 5S still with IOS 7.1.1
DJI Vision App 1.0.48 with dynamic homepoint activated
FPV Booster App

With dynamic homepoint activated I suppose the app sends the smartphones coordinates to the Phantom and these coords then act as homepoint.

FrankDevin Posted at 2015-3-20 15:35
Hi,

i have not yet experienced a flyaway or any loss of control but have seen a very strange behavi ...

Ah , but the K index was 8!  just throwing that in the mix) :-)

I replied to the message they sent me around the 11th asking if it was under warranty, what happened to make it do that. No reply. When I called to get the RMA to return unit, tech said it would take 3-4 to complete the process, it has been over a month so far, and all i know so far, they have my unit. Which that is easily determined by tracking my package through USPS.  If I hear anything else, I will post an update.

Again, has anyone else went thru this process, if so, do I have another month to wait?? Like most guys, patience is not one of my strong suits.

Thanks,

Ricky

rickyc31@gmail. Posted at 2015-3-27 03:18
I replied to the message they sent me around the 11th asking if it was under warranty, what happened ...

Yea that would be a very hard wait for me as well.

I guess if they have not contacted you about payment or charges that may be a good sign!

Ricky, mine was checked into the system 17 days ago.  That is on top of the week that it just sat there after Fedex tracking showed it was received.  Still no word on it being repaired.

They got mine back on Feb 27, according to tracking. So it sat there for 10 or 11 days. So its been checked in 20 days, all these days are as of today.
kjkisatsky, I will let you know when I hear something and what I hear. Seems like we are running neck and neck on our units.

Sent back 2-23-15
Received at DJI 2-25-15
Checked in 3-11-15
Pulling my hair out 3-31-15

rdc44444@hotmai Posted at 2015-2-26 04:00
Do you have a P2V+ (version 3) ? if so did you ever pop the top and inspect your ESC's?  Was there a ...

how to check the ESC? what are signs we should look for?

Checked in 20 days ago.  Still no update.

kjkisatsky Posted at 2015-4-2 00:29
Checked in 20 days ago.  Still no update.

My GOD, it's taking a long time.  I hope there is some movement on it soon, or by the time the slow boat from/to China gets back here, you'll be as old as me.

Gerry1124 Posted at 2015-4-2 00:34
My GOD, it's taking a long time.  I hope there is some movement on it soon, or by the time the slo ...

I could have sent mine back to one of the authorized service centers (like 4 or so) in the U.S., but they DO NOT handle warranty repairs, go figure. Their turn around time was a week or so.  My unit had a fault from DJI that made it crash, it basically fell out of the sky. And for warranty repairs, you only have one choice to send it back to.

And hope they will cover it under warranty.  Still no word on that either.

I got bored and called to check on it today, first time I called since I shipped it back, my wife said that was a miracle in itself.   Here is the reply I got, this would have been REAL good info to send to us at the beginning.  


J.Q. Today at 14:33

Dear Ricky,

Thank you for your inquiry as to the status of your RMA.

Unless you have received an email from DJI about your repair, there is no update available. The estimated time for normal RMAs to be processed at our facility is 5-6 weeks from the date your product was delivered, not the check-in date. You will be emailed at several key points of repair, and we'd like to remind you of when that will happen:

   1. When your RMA is unpacked and checked into our ticket system
   2. If your RMA has been reviewed and will be a charged repair (ie: not under warranty - you will receive an invoice with this update)
   3. When your RMA has been repaired, flight tested, and packaged to be picked up by a carrier with a tracking number provided (you will receive a list of repairs done and parts replaced with this update)

If you do not have a tracking number provided by the end of the 6th week from when your product was delivered, please call our Customer Service line for assistance. You can reach us Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm PST. If you call in or email for a status update before the end of the 6th week, the customer service representative will not be able to provide any further update than the information seen when you log into Zendesk and check the information on the right-hand side of the check-in/repair ticket

We hope to have your product back soon and thank you for your support of DJI.

DJI Customer Service North America

Ugh, this company is REALLY starting to disappoint.  This is from the email I got with my RMA:

Our estimated time of repair is 3-4 weeks from the date of check-in. If you do not receive an email update from the repair team by the 4th week, please call our support team at 818-235-0789, Monday - Friday, 9-5 PST.

So they have had it CHECKED IN for 22 days now, still no update.   Going into fourth week.   Don't even bother to call them?

kjkisatsky Posted at 2015-4-3 20:03
Ugh, this company is REALLY starting to disappoint.  This is from the email I got with my RMA:

Our  ...

Like you and so many of my friends, we are also very disappointed with DJI, to have such a great product, then when there is a problem, slow or unresponsive customer service. A couple of my friends are not flying theirs until we find out what happened to mine, They do not wanna take the chance of the same thing happening to them, they would rather put the sale price into another hobby. How they are not flying in this gorgeous weather, I do not know, I know I could not resist. heh.

Do not bother, I called them, my answer from them is in my previous post. You will get the exact same thing, they will not know more than what you can find out on that page. I was on hold over 30 minutes to hear that. Only real info I got, you will find out when they update the my activities page, if it is under warranty, u will not be charged, if it is not, u will need to pay the bill before any work will be done. I am 1 day ahead of you, I promise, as so as I get an update, I will post here. And I hope u do the same.

        Unit Checked into Queue         23 days ago         10 days ago

10 days ago, no activity in 23 days ago, I dont know what happened 10 days ago.

Nothing new to report.

Unit Checked into Queue         1 month ago         13 days ago         Open

Over a month now for me too.  I did call, and after 30 minutes on hold was told 4-6 weeks now, like you were, because they are swamped.  They are clearly not equipped for the surge in their sales and subsequent servicing of their products.  I usually try to refrain from being an 'early adopter'.  Sensing this was a huge mistake on my part.   I only bought as early as I did because I was scared the government was going to ruin things and I would only be able to buy a dumbed down, low altitude, low speed toy after they intervened.  So far this has been a 1500 dollar mistake (total investment).  If they don't cover my  camera/gimble under warranty (assuming I ever get it back), I'll need to add 700 bucks to original mistake.