I was really enjoying my phantom 2 viison plus 3.0.  Had done about 2 hours on it, completed flight training, calibrated every time before take off, even if i had left from same spot on prior battery.  I was having some problems with the soft ware crashing on my phone. I had trien deleting app and reinstalling several times.  I changed out phone battery, reinstalled app and it seemed to be doing good in home so took out to fly.

Now i am very anal...i shopped for a drone for months...if there is a video on or how to avoid a fly away or drop from the sky, i could probalbly recite it verbatim.  That said....everythign was done on preflight...i even take step further and check find my drone in app to assure that all sattelites are correct on drone position.

I took it up 60 feet and started looking at groundstation,,,just hovering.. all of sudden i get a lost phantom connection on app...i did not really panic because i had seen that come up during maiden flite so not too concerned...and my phone app had been crashing...so again...thot it was just turing my phone app off again...but then something different happened.

I looked up and drone was going beserk...meaning...it was like it was trying to compensate or gain control of itself...i sill had green lites in the front....it was going nuts!! but basically started desending rapidly.....it hit my driveway and exploded and i thot i was going to die....after all the prep time spent to avoid this and it just happened.  Why if it lost radio connnection did it not just go to fail safe and fly to home??

more back story, i am starting a business, i have already filed the FAA exception documents, all with the Phantom!

I Had read about this happening and about the bad DJI  poor customer service but had decided most  flyaways and fall from sky must have been pilot error and since DJI now has office in CA would give this company a try.  

Well, since I only had a few hours on it I have packaged up and am sending back to DJI.  I have asked for a free repair or replacement, I have an RMA numnber and have put in this explanation along with my FAA filing.

I guess we will see what happens.  Just had to get this out there for comments.

Sometimes being anal can work against you...

Some may disagree with me, but the idea of calibrating the compass on each flight and on each battery is overkill - way overkill IMHO. My reasoning is simple - if it's not broken, don't fix it. The compass is an important part of the flight control system.

Other comments...
You claim you are anal - how many hours of flight time with drones other than the Phantom did you have prior to buying and flying the Phantom?

Have you set the Phantom into IOC (Naza) mode as well as tested the RTH using the switch (can only be done once programmed).?

Losing the app has nothing to do with losing radio control connection to the Phantom.

It's hard to diagnose from afar, but it certainly seems like it could be either a compass error, dirty battery contacts or both.

Oh, also, the green lights are on the back...not the front!

I hope you can get it repaired.

Well,
Not the least convinced you were over analyzing with the compass calibration, no where in the manual does it state you can over calibrate it but it does stat you do need to calibrate it, that said, I take off from the same spot 80% of the time and I occasionally do the compass cal as a routine and definitely do it if I am changing locations..

What interests me is the ground station...as a fairly new pilot, there are some serious nuances with that bit of software!...any chance you may have engaged something by setting a waypoint or two that may have engaged that it may have reacted to?
Any differences in height etc. that are set and when engaged it will try to reach (higher or lower) en route to its first waypoint!

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-4-25 11:38
Sometimes being anal can work against you...

Some may disagree with me, but the idea of calibrating ...

i have had helicopter filying time not quad.  From again, everything i read the need for quad trainging when flying in gps mode is not needed and sometimes hurts you as you learn a manual quad, if you buy say 100 drone for practice.....i feel i was correct in not worrying because the phantom could be flown by a drunk 7 year old .....when it was flying that is.

yes i lost the video feed, phone completely shut down several times...that is what i was doing was just testing the video feed when that happened.

not sure how battery contact would get dirty, i hand catched every landing, that battery had prob only been used 3 or 4 times.   see other reply on other questions.  thanks!

Northofthe49th Posted at 2015-4-25 12:04
Well,
Not the least convinced you were over analyzing with the compass calibration, no where in the  ...

believe me...i have tried to replay in my head everything that happended....since it was only up for about 1 minute before the crash i did not have to much time to do anything, i had no waypoints set...half the time i was really looking at drone... the firslt thirty seconds i was just looking at app, not really doing anything as i was just testing the connection making sure feed stayed on and it did not crash my phon....the next fifteen seconds at drone, looked back at app and saw disconnetion......crash....when you see phantom lost signal, what all can that mean? the controller lost signal?  the gps is only picking up less than 6 sattleites?  the software lost signal to the camera?   Cannot find a whole lot about this anywhere. what happens when you are flying and go down to 5 sattelites??  from what i read it goed into non gps mode?  means more unstable as far as positioning but would that cause it to do what described?  thanks for reply

In theory the loss of GPS should not cause the problem you describe. But a flight control system is a very complex piece of hardware and software which takes inputs from MANY different sources (GPS, Compass, IMU, Barometer) and uses that to make decisions about where it is and what to do.

It's impossible to diagnose some of these failures. You didn't mention whether it just shut off.....or struggled the entire way down to earth? You didn't mention the % in the battery after landing...or before takeoff.

I've lost connection even when the Phantom was quite close to me (maybe 300 feet). I suspect that I had the wireless extender pointed in the wrong direction or something similar. But that should not make the quad fall to earth either.

It certainly could be a defect in an ESC, some wiring, etc. - what you describe sounds like a partial loss of power.

It's all a matter of percentages. If you took off with a full battery I'd say the biggest % is a defect or short in some wiring or a ESC, etc.
It's really a rare thing for the quad to just fail like that.....but yours is not the first report either.

Hopefully they will make you whole again because it certainly doesn't seem like something you did.

John, I too am sorry for your trouble.

Why not give us all MORE details as asked above and all?  It MAY help your case for warranty if you share the details asked for.  You can always send in more information on your RMA if something is discovered from your DETAILS.  I will summarize the questions asked above so you can answer them all plus some if you want potential help:

1) P2V+ - which ESCs did it have?  2.1 or older?  cap color? motor type?
2) phantom or nazi-M mode?
3) what phone app?  do you have a log file from it?
4) what does the SD card video look like?  Post it for us to see?
5) did the motors all sound like running on way down?
6) did it sound like a bunch of bees or steady?
7) battery charge before and after?
8) did you plug it into assistance before returning?  did it report compass or IMU calibration required?
9 Did you try to power it back up afterwards to see what happened?
10) did you rotate each motor by hand to feel if it was stuck after?
11)  how many sats did you have before the app crash?

Sounds like ESC or wiring issue. I'll be honest, I have a a p2v version 2 and a p2v version 3. The v2 I fly with confidence cause I trust the wiring in there. The version 3 I mostly fly over water cause if it crashes, no harm done but my wallet.

dji fix my phantom cause of crash before the wiring from motor to esc crack due of vibration they put silicon in the solder point http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... ;page=5&lang=en

Ok sure more details:


P2V+ - which ESCs did it have?  2.1 or older?  cap color? motor type?  It was a stock V.30
2) phantom or nazi-M mode? Phantom mode GPS, had 6 sattelites on take off
3) what phone app?  do you have a log file from it?  the dji phone app on a galaxy note 2, not sure will look
4) what does the SD card video look like?  Post it for us to see?  it was corrupted, could not open but was filming, i read that happens if you dont turn off and you are supposed to fire back up and then you can get the file??  anyway, when i turn on it just continues to beep.
5) did the motors all sound like running on way down? yes but not a steady.,...sounded like bees throttling up and down
6) did it sound like a bunch of bees or steady?
7) battery charge before and after? fresh batter before and checked after and perfect.
8) did you plug it into assistance before returning?  did it report compass or IMU calibration required?  i just got the steady beep so assumed it would not connect to the assistant, i had ran all the updates before launched first time.  I even calibrated the silver new knob on the remote control which by the way helped a lot with the panning up and down.. before i did that when i used that dial the camera was very irratic.  
9 Did you try to power it back up afterwards to see what happened?  yes above,,beep...beeep...beep
10) did you rotate each motor by hand to feel if it was stuck after?  yes...2 motors were locked up, 2 were ok.
11)  how many sats did you have before the app crash?  6, i did have to wait a while at the beginning for it to pick up 6 though...do not trust my skills on non gps...


thanks for interest and all comments!

I sent it off today to DJI, with a copy of my FAA application  for exception, with the phantom 2 all over it!  I hope that helps...i had a page on what happened too. now i am hoping i gave enough detail as you brought up a lot I did not include...Keeping fingers crossed.

Nice details!  did you keep your SD card?  if so, you might post the video anyway - lots of people have ways to fix the issue of no shut off.  might show something useful.

yorlik Posted at 2015-4-26 20:50
Nice details!  did you keep your SD card?  if so, you might post the video anyway - lots of people h ...

yes i have it.... i will try to open again.....on one flight it did that and had put it under a different date. but i think i looked through all to make sure, but will check

yorlik Posted at 2015-4-26 20:50
Nice details!  did you keep your SD card?  if so, you might post the video anyway - lots of people h ...

could not open

as I said, post it and SOMEONE will fix it.  more data to try to understand what happened.

wanted to make sure I replied to all my threads, sent my phantom to vision + in for repair, yes it took 6 weeks, but even though I crashed it they completely fixed it under warranty! I am again a fan of DJ I!

Somewhere on this forum there is someone that posted a step by step tutorial on how to recover your video if it was corrupted by a power shut off before shutting off the record function...

Here we go... I knew I saw it someplace: http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... 1&fromuid=33774