Hi, I am a new user. After a few flights my mini was crashed. I am trying to figure out what has happened.

The drone lost signal a few minutes into the flight. At this point it is @ 43m height and 313m away from where it took off based on the flight recording. Used find my drone and found it crash in a cemetery with the broken gimbal and the battery door was opened and battery fell out and found near by. It crashed on a tombstone. Based on the damage it probably stopped working mid air. The area next to the tombstone is grassy. Battery was above 80%. It was a little windy it did show on the app that it was windy and not able to return home before losing signal. I lowered altitute some then the signal was lost. So why it didn't attempt to return home? Or at least land probably?

Hello, sorry to hear about your crash. If you could follow the instructions Phantom Help (It works with the mavic mini) and post back with the link, it will help us analyze your flight information.

You kind of answered the question already. If you fly in strong wind you are asking for trouble. If the wind is stronger than the drone's max flight speed the drone isn't able to win that battle. I would assume it crashed into the tombstone trying to fight the wind and return to you and the battery fell out as a result of the impact. You can share your flight logs here if you like but it seems pretty straight forward from what you described.

It's only going to be possible to diagnose when there is some recorded flight data to look at.
But here are a few comments to start off.

I lowered altitute some then the signal was lost.
If signal was lost, your joystick input wouldn't have even got to the drone.

So why it didn't attempt to return home?
Why do you think it didn't?
On losing signal the drone would have initiated RTH and climbed to the set RTH height (unless you've changed the default Loss of Signal option).

Or at least land probably?
Why would it land?

Now where's that data so we can see what actually happened (at least before signal was lost).

Labroides Posted at 6-9 14:04
It's only going to be possible to diagnose when there is some recorded flight data to look at.
But here are a few comments to start off.

@Labroids, Not sure if it's intentional but you come across as abrupt and a bit rude, cut the new user some slack.

OP, search the forum to find how to upload your log files, someone will be able to take a  look and diagnose.

My guess is your return to home height was too low and drone hit something, however it could have been a bird attack or lots of other things.

itchyeyeballs Posted at 6-9 15:16
@Labroids, Not sure if it's intentional but you come across as abrupt and a bit rude, cut the new user some slack.

OP, search the forum to find how to upload your log files, someone will be able to take a  look and diagnose.

@Labroids, Not sure if it's intentional but you come across as abrupt and a bit rude, cut the new user some slack.
Thankyou for the ettiquette lesson.
I just cut to the chase and say what's necessary without padding it with unnecessary fluff to confuse the issue.
I think that's being helpful and relevant.
I don't need to cut the new user some slack, I do more to help new users than most and all I've done in this post is tell him what he needs to know in a factual manner..

OP, search the forum to find how to upload your log files, someone will be able to take a  look and diagnose.
Instructions are there in post #2 already or you could cut the new user some slack and tell him directly rather than tell him to search for it.

My guess is your return to home height was too low and drone hit something, however it could have been a bird attack or lots of other things.
Guessing is fun but it's usually not helpful.
Identifying what happened and addressing that is always preferable.

Labroides Posted at 6-9 15:25
@Labroids, Not sure if it's intentional but you come across as abrupt and a bit rude, cut the new user some slack.
Thankyou for the ettiquette lesson.
I just cut to the chase and say what's necessary without padding it with unnecessary fluff to confuse the issue.

hmm, I could return the favour and pick apart your post(s) but it won't help the OP, however if he/she happens to be using an Android device like me then any link to instructions in post #2 won't show up.

edit, I will say however its usual in forums to encourage new users to search for the answer to common questions

In addition to the log file. post the recovered video also. It might tell you/us exactly what happened in bringing it down. The data alone will not tell you if it was a bird strike.

ABeardedItalian Posted at 6-9 13:17
Hello, sorry to hear about your crash. If you could follow the instructions Phantom Help (It works with the mavic mini) and post back with the link, it will help us analyze your flight information.

Thanks. I will try to get this uploaded.

Labroides Posted at 6-9 14:04
It's only going to be possible to diagnose when there is some recorded flight data to look at.
But here are a few comments to start off.

I lower the altitude as soon I got the warning.
I didn't think it tried to return home because I found it in the exact spot where "find my drone" led me to. That spot must be the spot where it was disconnected.
So my question is if the drone knew it's overpowered by wind and lost connection to the control would it still attempt to return home?
My second question is why it has crash landed. The propeller is not damaged much. Only the body so it seems to have hit the tombstone really hard.

omgnotagain Posted at 6-9 18:02
I lower the altitude as soon I got the warning.
I didn't think it tried to return home because I found it in the exact spot where "find my drone" led me to. That spot must be the spot where it was disconnected.
So my question is if the drone knew it's overpowered by wind and lost connection to the control would it still attempt to return home?

Without posting a log we have no idea what happened. It's all just guess work without the data.

When you lose connection to the drone the drone enters RTH mode (if you have that option selected in the fly app). It should just return to home but if there is strong wind like you say, that can be an issue in trying to return to home. Post the log if you really want us to help.

Here is the log:

https://www.phantomhelp.com/logviewer/BZBW8SJH6A4L7H38S7S0/

I don't see any obvious problems. You were high enough to clear everthing I can see, maybe twice the height of the power lines and trees. And you should have had direct LOS as far as I can tell. At the end of the log, something suddenly stopped forward progress of the drone at 131 foot altitude within one third of a second. It appears that was just you releasing the control. Any video available?

Hi there omgnotagain. I am sorry to read and to know what happened to your DJI Mavic Mini. Since there was a crash that happened. It would be best to contact our DJI support team at https://www.dji.com/support . We have a professional team that will do there best check what really happened on that flight and give out the best resolution for this issue. Again, I am sorry for this trouble and please stay safe always.

omgnotagain Posted at 6-9 18:02
I lower the altitude as soon I got the warning.
I didn't think it tried to return home because I found it in the exact spot where "find my drone" led me to. That spot must be the spot where it was disconnected.
So my question is if the drone knew it's overpowered by wind and lost connection to the control would it still attempt to return home?

Hi omgnotagain,

Had a look at your flightlog, nothing in the log indicates what happend.

At the end, flying forward with speed of 3.7 m/s you released the fwd stick, MM stopped pitching up 17 degrees from minus 20. Normal values i think.
Last record in the log speed of 0.2 m/s.
If you found your MM at the find-my drone position that it just dropped vertically from 40 meters to the ground.

Only reason i can think of is loss of battery power?  (batt volts values are oke) Was the battery full inserted in your MM when you found it ??

Answer to your question ; yes, MM will always enter RTH mode even if the wind is too much to fly back home in that mode. It will than just heading home and with max available power tries to come closer, if the wind wins ....it will drift backwards.

Hope that DJI will help you out,trying to find out what happend.
PS if you like upload the DAT file from this flight, it is FLY013.DAT on your mobile device. More and other data in this file.

cheers
JJB

So you've got there in situ before the battery could eventually be depleted right ?

It seems weird.... because it should have been returning (or hover, or land whatever option was selected). I think you should contact DJI support, they should ask you to extract the AC (aircraft) log from within the Mavic Mini itself (SC card equipped) w/ the DJI Assistant 2 For Mavic, that unlike the RC logs continues as long as the drone is active, and will provide a better explanation of what happened.

I don't advise you to send in the AC immediately unless you secure this important log before anyone else deletes it or comes with a different arbitrary conclusion (which is likely not to be in your favor) if you really wanna know what happened.

I just sent the unit in for fixing so can no longer retrieve the dat file I guess.

The connection was lost and the drone dropped out of the sky. Battery was still almost full after recovery.I recovered the unit about 15 minutes using "find my drone".

Initially I thought the battery was not installed properly but it clicks in, then the battery door has to be closed with a click. The battery is about 2 feet from the drone on the ground it seems to be separate on impact. If it was separate 40m in the air it would have landed  a little farther apart.  So ruled out this possibility.

I have this happened to me before indoor when it suddenly lost connection then dropped from the air. The connection indoor is heavily affected by other WiFi devices so I didn't think too much of it.

This points to bad solder joints... a drone dropping from the sky, possibly in the connectors, and it might not even be on the aircraft, i.e. meaning your Mavic Mini could have been perfectly healthy unit but it could be the battery that you've flown inside the Mavic Mini that has poor solder joints inside the terminals.
You should isolate that battery or send it in for inspection.

omgnotagain Posted at 6-10 08:29
I just sent the unit in for fixing so can no longer retrieve the dat file I guess.

The connection was lost and the drone dropped out of the sky. Battery was still almost full after recovery.I recovered the unit about 15 minutes using "find my drone".

Hiya,

about the DAT file, it is on your mobile device   1 level below flightrecord map, called MCDatFlightRecords.

cheers
JJB

m80116 Posted at 6-10 10:20
This points to bad solder joints... a drone dropping from the sky, possibly in the connectors, and it might not even be on the aircraft, i.e. meaning your Mavic Mini could have been perfectly healthy unit but it could be the battery that you've flown inside the Mavic Mini that has poor solder joints inside the terminals.
You should isolate that battery or send it in for inspection.

This is bad. As I still have the 3 batteries and I do not know which one might be defective. I fully charged all 3 batteries and it shows no sign of defect even after the fall. I will need to contact support for this.

omgnotagain Posted at 6-10 11:15
This is bad. As I still have the 3 batteries and I do not know which one might be defective. I fully charged all 3 batteries and it shows no sign of defect even after the fall. I will need to contact support for this.

batt sn for this flight : 1U5X013EXP0AZX
so if you check the batt sn for the in house incident...if the same > mayby suspect....

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 6-10 11:33
batt sn for this flight : 1U5X013EXP0AZX
so if you check the batt sn for the in house incident...if the same > mayby suspect....

Very cool. Thanks!

omgnotagain Posted at 6-10 11:15
This is bad. As I still have the 3 batteries and I do not know which one might be defective. I fully charged all 3 batteries and it shows no sign of defect even after the fall. I will need to contact support for this.

If it charged fine chances are it wans't the battery... when faulty point to board joints fall out of operation it's usually because they've become charred and don't conduct electricity anymore, the condition is practically irreversible, even by a good whack.

So to summarize we do not know what has happened. It probably just stopped running and dropped out of the sky. It didn't descend on it's own gracefully because the battery is still almost full. If it did it would have avoided the tombstone. I sent it in so hopefully DJI can figure it out.

I am still going through the posts in this forum it seems some people do experience uncommanded descent but it might not be the same as falling out of the sky.

We'll wait for your update. Such an unfortunate event one would never want to see if this is the case.