Well, after 4 years of flying my Phantom 3 Pro,  I finially crashed it.  I'm not really sure what happened.  I had 3 fully charged batteries. I installed one of them and flew out to 7,000 feet and back.  No problem.  We have some missing kids out here on the desert and I was doing a search at 150 feet.  I returned home and installed a second fully charged battery.  I took off and hovered for a ,few second to let things stabilize.  Then I headed out for another search pattern.  I was climbing to altitude on the way.  But at 50 feet all four engines lost power.  Just quit!  I have to admit, it looked pretty cool on the way down.  It hit hard on the landing gear and bent both of them a little.  The camera and battery were knocked completely off the drone.  Surprisingly when I picked it up and reinserted the battery, the darn thing flew normally without a camera.

The Gimbal support is trashed and so is one of the Gimbal motors.  But the camera is undamaged.  It is not worth sending in for repair.  Forutnately I have a perfectly flying Phantom 3 Standard that I never fly.  So I decied to canableize it for Gimbal parts to repair the Pro. I'm working on that now.  But I also decided to upgrade my drone a bit.  So I ordered a new DJI Mini 2 Drone. It should arrive here tomorrow.  I wasnt' really impressed with the Mini 1 when it came out, but they say the Mini 2 is much better.  Does anyone have experience with the 2 and can give me some advice?

Standard pieces to fix a Pro ... i have my Doubdts  , about Mavic Mini 2

Obviously the first thing we need is the flight log for the "motor stop" flight so we can see what happened, or are you not bothered??
Always interesting to see anyway

djordan2,
So sorry to hear about your experience.  Although you seem to be taking it well losing a P3P that you have flown for four years has to be disheartening.

Good luck with your rebuild and Mini 2.

cheddar-man Posted at 2-9 09:18
Obviously the first thing we need is the flight log for the "motor stop" flight so we can see what happened, or are you not bothered??
Always interesting to see anyway

I am interested in what happened, and will download the log when I get some time. But right now I just want to start flying the new Mini 2.  My suspicion is that it was a battery fault.  Maybe I didn't insert the battery all the way, or maybe the power connection was corroded.  It also could have been just an old battery.  I don't know...!

I have all the parts I need to do the repair myself.  As I stated, I'm canalizing a good flying P3S.  That was a good flying drone, but is just would not go out more than about 2,000 feet at best.  I needed more.  I flew it just before I stated taking it apart and it still flew well.

When I'm finished I will be willing to sell what is left if anybody is interested.

T3rdEye Posted at 2-9 10:25
djordan2,
So sorry to hear about your experience.  Although you seem to be taking it well losing a P3P that you have flown for four years has to be disheartening.

Yes, I was a little upset at first.  But I had been wanting to get something newer and this was the perfect reason to do so.  I had the Mini 2 on order within 30 minutes after the crash.

JetSam Posted at 2-9 08:59
Standard pieces to fix a Pro ... i have my Doubdts  , about Mavic Mini 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6QgMFPGv0k

You are correct.  There are some parts that are not interchangeable between the Pro and the standard.  The flat ribbon cable is one of them.  I've ordered that part from another source.  My camera is another, but my Pro camera was not damaged.  I'm hoping to use the servo motors and the mounting arm. When I get the time to finish the repair I'll give it a test and see.

Hello there djordan2. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Since this unfortunate event happened to your DJI Phantom 3 Pro. You may contact our DJI Support Team at https://www.dji.com/support for us to be able to assist you further with regards to this matter. Again, I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you.

Sure hope my faithful P3A doesn't suffer anything like this or I'd be out of flying for good as there's no way as a pensioner in the UK I could afford another one!

cheddar-man Posted at 2-10 00:30
Sure hope my faithful P3A doesn't suffer anything like this or I'd be out of flying for good as there's no way as a pensioner in the UK I could afford another one!

I'm pretty sure I know what happened.  I downloaded the flight log recording.  It showed that the battery was fully charged at 95 percent at takeoff.  But within  about 20 seconds it went down from  about 15 volts down to 11 volts.  The battery was still showing 91 percent charged.  All the battery lights were illuminating at the test.  The last recording in the log says "Critical Battery Warning"  and "Aircraft will land". The problem was that the engines quit 2 seconds after that warning appeared.  There was no time for me to get it down from 50 feet.

The battery was made in 2016.  It showed 86%.  I don't remember if that is life left, or capacity used.  It had also been charged 68 times.  So I'm pretty sure the battery was at fault.  I think it might be a good idea to keep a closer eye on the battery condition from time to time.  It also showed a wide voltage range in all four cells.

After the crash I picked up the battery and pushed the test button.  Only one light came on.  Again, the total flight time on that battery at that time was only 20 seconds from takeoff to crash.

My new DJI Mini 2 will arrived today.   I can't wait...

LiPos have a reasonable life span, depending very much on how they have been treated during that life. I'm still running 2016 packs and are showing plenty of life yet.

My new DJI Mini 2 arrived today.  I'm setting it up now.  This thing is really small.  I've already lost it.  I put it in my coat pocked, and now I can't find it. LOL