I say at last, I've only had the thing a couple of weeks.  But on Friday night, having had one set of successful flights, my third flight from the same take-off spot resulted in a catastrophic fly-away.  Total loss of control, the bird flew about 2 km away and swung around erractically.  Activeated return to home, and it seemed to be responding and coming back, but then nosedived into the ground about 400m from where I was standing.  I can't help thinking that if I had enabled full manual mode in Naza-m, I might have been able to save it.

Landing leg is broken, gimbal is bent and the left hand connector is adrift from the camera, and I am unable to put it back in.  Also lost the SD card (and thus the footage I had actually gone to take...).  Can I retrieve the telemetry in any way?  I'd like to know what went on, and presumably will have to prove it was a fly-away to the vendor to get a warranty repair.

The bird is a Phantom 2 Vision+ V3, fully updated, fewer than 10 charges on the battery.

That sucks man, sorry to hear...

There must be some way to make DJI accountable for this?

The more I read about the dreaded (and now expected) fly away, the more likely I am to sell my Phantom that I've only flown 3 times and buy a 3DR Solo, at least with 3DR they guarantee a total replacement for free if it should fly away, (with proof), all I see DJI doing is being money grubbing dogs, lower than a snakes belly that offer nothing!

Sorry to hear that.

What is/was the battery charge when you saved the thing?
You didn't give the whole story - did you lose control right when it was near you or were you a distance away?

Does your map show the correct home point and also where it crashed (Find my Phantom)?

Unfortunately, there have never been any warranties against crashing or losing a quad. I've lost quite a few...non-existent warranties on non-existent quadcopters don't count.

This is why no companies will sell you aftermarket insurance....the risk is too high.

On the positive end, at least you got your quad back. It's possible that repairs can be made. I fly my P2V+ with a separate trackimo GPS on it - just in case! However, it's never left me.

I don't think the P2 has logs like the P3. But it does show the basic flight path(s) on the map, right? Or at least the home point and the end point.

BazzaVMC Posted at 2015-6-1 15:12
That sucks man, sorry to hear...

There must be some way to make DJI accountable for this?

for what its worth keep your phantom and have fun flying...

The solo isn't in customers' hands yet so how can reliability be known????

a bird in the hand is worth how many in the factory!

as droneflyers  said, much more info is needed to know what happened here on this CRASH.  How long was quad in air. how charged was battery when found, was it a GS flight or FPV or LOS etc. The more info and specifics the better help.

good luck and have fun flying



I have owned 3 phantoms and sold one. all three are still flying after hundreds of flights and several crashes(MY FAULT ALL).

a 2k flight can run the battery pretty low and nothing good happens when these batteries get under 40-30 %.  

As I read more and more about these fly a ways. I am starting to see a pattern. I am beginning to believe that the battery disconnects for a split second somehow and causes the onboard computer(Naza) to reboot just like a regular computer does. It's during this reboot process that's when the bird flys a way due to the rebooting and at that time it's memory is cleared of all info. I'm trying to find out if their is a EPROMs stored with a default GPS location onboard which would account for the birds heading to a specific direction. If not then they just randomly go off due to no memory of direction causing any erratic action flying or crashing. I am looking at the spring tensioner at the battery leads. So far the only plausible explanation for a fly a way would be rebooting and loss of all telementry data. No home lock no GPS and none of the sensors having information. In Other words it goes crazy and runs amok !! Because it now doesn't know what to do.

If we could get some data from a fly away and see what the power did we could tell more.

The power was not 100% due to earlier flights, but well over 50%.  Home point was set, both switches were in the up position.  Compass calibration had been done half an hour earlier.  As soon as the aircraft lifted off it flew away, I had no control at all.  Toggling S1 to "Return to Home" seemed to allow the aircraft to regain some control, and it began to return, but about 400m away it flew straight into the ground.  The iOS App section "find My Phantom" is still showing that the aircraft is where it crashed.

Interesting.  You were 2km away (1.2 miles).  How far back did it come before the crash, or did you recover it that far away?

It got to about  400m from me. As I said, Return to Home sort of worked, but it just flew straight into the ground at that point.

Anatomy of a DJI flyaway.........theory is the NAZA flight controller has intermittent freezing and locks up. Loss of power you will have no motors and you are going down.

roy@mcscomputer Posted at 2015-6-1 21:14
As I read more and more about these fly a ways. I am starting to see a pattern. I am beginning to be ...

Roy,
Quote"I am looking at the spring tensioner at the battery leads."
I have been wondering if putting a capacitor across these leads would resolve this problem. What are your thoughts, the capacitor would store enough charge for an intermittent disconnect. I don't believe it would have any detrimental effects but I'm not an Electrical Engineer.

Don't think that would help, the problem may be the spring tensioner not sure but sure would like to have more data. Your info indicates the Naza going nuts but I don't see why. Wil have to keep searching. With yours hitting 1.7 million MPH no wonder we lost it. It time warped. Oh well I hope someone can get a handle on this. It gets expensive for al us pilots.

roy@mcscomputer Posted at 2015-6-1 21:14
As I read more and more about these fly a ways. I am starting to see a pattern. I am beginning to be ...

heres a test you could do,
fly the bird up then make it hover. Carefully grab onto it and pull the battery and re insert it as fast as you can then observe and see what happens. Then dont forget to report back!

srtgray Posted at 2015-6-1 22:16
The power was not 100% due to earlier flights, but well over 50%.  Home point was set, both switches ...

Man, sorry to hear you had the fly away.  Glad to hear that you recovered the Phantom 2, I hope you’re able to make repairs quickly.

Did you have the Vision app running?  Did you notice how many GPS satellites the Phantom 2 had locked on?  Was the number of satellites fluctuating much?

I had a similar situation a few weeks ago, I shared the details on another thread.  I’ve only owned my Phantom a few months, at that time I’d flown 4 or 5 dozen times.  My P2 Vision just took off while hovering 10’ from me.  Fortunately it impacted in the street 30’ or so with the result being a broken prop and a small scar on one arm.

I am not aware of any problems with my Phantom 2.  I haven’t had problems before or since.  The one change I’ve made is to make sure that I have a lock on >6 satellites.  I choose to not fly where I have 6 or fewer satellites locked according to the Vision app.

It’s a crazy when that happens to “you”.  Being relatively new, you wouldn’t think that battery contacts would be bad or worn out.  And you would think if something was broken, it would fail consistently, or at least more often, not just once.

DJI, are you listening?   We need the option of a log file on the Phantom 2.  Let us record telemetry, or raw system inputs/outputs, just something so that anomalies can be investigated.  Data has to be generated during R&D on these things, let us keep that data while flying.  We have plenty of space on the SD chips for a few megabytes for log files.  It would be nice to know if there is an impending problem instead of just being blind until there is a catastrophic failure.  Come on, DJI…

Yes, 6 satellites and a green indicator (I've never had a lock on more than 6)

jonnied2010 Posted at 2015-6-2 03:17
Roy,
Quote"I am looking at the spring tensioner at the battery leads."
I have been wondering if pu ...

Jonnie, there ARE big capacitors across the battery already....   that big black thing at end of each ESC board is a big capacitor, and it is right across the battery leads.  four of them.    if I designed it, I would put a diode in series with the battery power on the controller board, then a big cap on controller board side of it;  that way it isolates the heavy current draw of the ESCs that negate the value of those capacitors anyway. the controller would stay up for maybe a second to ride thru a quick battery disconnect....  this could be an easy mod to add - IF we knew for a fact this is what the issue was.....
btw, no eprom needed to reload default home or other gps position.....  cycle power and until new gps locks established, home is 0,0   -- which is in the  center of the atlantic ocean I hear.....  go east young man.....  for us in the USA....  did this one fly away due east?

yorlik Posted at 2015-6-4 01:00
Jonnie, there ARE big capacitors across the battery already....   that big black thing at end of ea ...

I'm not sure there is something else causing the loss of battery power besides the contacts. I had an experience a few weeks ago during a landing where my Phantom tipped as I placed the throttle in detent. The front spinning props contacted the ground and the Phantom immediately shut off, no power, battery off, no LEDS. The battery had about 47% remaining.  

I believe this too Raybro:  my bug report is STILL active into dji about my idea:  the smart battery shuts off momentarily due to a large current spike then turns back on.... no contact issue...  so I agree with you.

yorlik Posted at 2015-6-4 01:00
Jonnie, there ARE big capacitors across the battery already....   that big black thing at end of ea ...

yorlik,
I was talking about a capacitor across the wires for the spring contacts. What information is provided to the system thru these contacts? I suspect it is battery voltage and current draw. I realize the capacitors on the ESC's are across the main battery connections. Many people suspect the problem derives from the spring loaded contacts. Just thinking out loud here.

I thought/thunk the small contacts gave a constantly changing digital signal made of0 and 5vdc signals changing at rate of like 3000 times per second;  put a cap across that and it no longer changes and so the digital signal is gone and system would prob not even turn on...

another thought on these small spring loaded contact:  hey report BATTERY STATUS to the main controller....  they do not disconnect power.  so if they report wrong info from bad contact, what would happen? I suspect the main controller won't know the battery level at that particular moment.  Will this cause the drone to shut off and fall?  I can't see how....

To make the motors shut off or the cpu to get confused and loose gps info will require loss of the BIG terminals....

Not sure why some folks think the little contacts cause major failure.

yorlik Posted at 2015-6-5 05:47
another thought on these small spring loaded contact:  hey report BATTERY STATUS to the main control ...

The contacts provide feedback to the FC on the battery status.  If the loop is disrupted then there will be control issues.  Make sure that your battery contacts are freely moving and use a contact cleaner on the craft and the battery.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-6-6 00:48
The contacts provide feedback to the FC on the battery status.  If the loop is disrupted then ther ...

I think the question was more:  if the small contacts fail momentarily,  will either:

1)  the battery power turn off and it immediately fall from the sky?
or
2) will the HOME gps position be changed to 0,0 or something else?

OR will the FC simply report a message to wifi saying BATTERY ISSUE of some kind?

yorlik Posted at 2015-6-6 07:44
I think the question was more:  if the small contacts fail momentarily,  will either:

1)  the bat ...

I have never had that happen to me so I don't know the answer to your question.  I can forward it to DJI for a response.  Sorry.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-6-7 00:27
I have never had that happen to me so I don't know the answer to your question.  I can forward it  ...

Ed, that would be GREAT if you do and report back!  THANK YOU!

it happened to me too... it apeear tath all flyaway start with same issue... phantom goes crazy (moving like it was shaking) and then start going oblique in one direction
... there should be a common problem to naza hardware or software...

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... mp;page=1#pid141339

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-6-7 00:27
I have never had that happen to me so I don't know the answer to your question.  I can forward it  ...

please do ed!

this is an important question, as the battery is our quads life.....

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-6-7 00:27
I have never had that happen to me so I don't know the answer to your question.  I can forward it  ...

Ed, that would be GREAT if you do and report back!  THANK YOU!