Had a flip over at 2.5m altitude above the dam, about 3m from the houseboat and it disappeared in 4m of green, but fresh, water. Battery was at 57% so I knew it was something else. Grabbed my fishing rod and put on my biggest tiger hook. Luckily I snagged it first time and after recovering it and quickly removing the battery, I took the top off and discovered one of the wires to one of motors had broken off it's ESC PCB at the solder point. It is a P2V+ (V3) with the 2312 motors and solid wires. From reading some related posts and general experience, I'm guessing it was a stress fracture of the wire from vibration, as there is no stress relief on the wires and they must vibrate quite a bit. (I also have a P-1.1.1 and it has the motors with multi-core wires - much more reliable design I think). I stripped it completely (incl the camera and gimbal) and left the parts on deck for a day in the hot sun and wind. After I'd put it all back together again it appears only one ESC is toast (strangely NOT the one with broken wire - that one's fine), everything else seems to be ok! Can't believe the camera and video transmitter survived. Going to need to do some hot glue mods on all the ESC motor wires to prevent it happening again! Guess I was lucky it hadn't happened at altitude over land and, if it had to be over water, so close to the boat so I could recover it. Now just trying to figure out how to get a new ESC delivered to deepest, darkest Africa .

How many flights did you have on it?
Do you think the greater ambient temps around there had anything to do with it (is it hot there?)

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-5-28 09:16
How many flights did you have on it?
Do you think the greater ambient temps around there had anythin ...

Thanks for your interest. I have 3 batteries with about 12 flights per battery, 36 flights. No, I don't think the ambient temperature had much to do with it. I've flown most of the time at about 1450m on the watershed where the average ambient temp is only 18C , but max can be as much as 38C, and this flight, although at 800m ASL, was very early morning and cool. I'm pretty convinced it was a stress break due to vibration. It was the yellow wire which seemed to have been fully suspened in the air from the PCB to the motor. The other two were running on top of and touching the PCB and sort of pressed down against the case near the motor, so may have had some damping. If you think about how much vibration could be introduced into the wires by the motor as it twists and flexes and vibrates in it's mounting at high frequency, I reckon it is inevitable a wire is going to break at some stage and the weak point is going to be at the solder point on the PCB. All theory, I know, but I think it's just going to be safer to try damp the vibration in the wires if I can.

mackjam Posted at 2015-5-28 12:07
Thanks for your interest. I have 3 batteries with about 12 flights per battery, 36 flights. No, I  ...

http://forum.dji.com/thread-9560-1-1.html

Well, I guess I'll pull mine apart at 30 flights or so and inspect and also add some glue, etc. to dampen vibrations.

It's probably a combination of vibration and poor assembly/soldering because only a very small percentage have reported it. But I'd rather be safe than sorry so I'll keep my Trackimo on the P2 and take it apart soon.

I "hot glued" my wires after about 15 flights. Just gives me a comfortable feeling.  Could not find any electrically safe silicone in my area and am not a fan of ordering from Amazon or E-Bay.
So far, so good.  I did buy 2 ESC's and a CW and CCW motor for spares because it is hard to say how long these will be available since the Phantom 3 is out.