Don't know if this one has been seen before, but a good heads up on carrying out home repairs.



Enjoy

I had the problem of the battery cover coming off whilst flying.  My grip would undo the cover with the risk of the batteries falling out.  I now tape over the cover in two parts - just to be on the safe side.

{:3_50:}Wow, I must remember to not to be a total idiot and maybe start my petrol lawnmower in the front room, upside down with a toddler nearby!!

would you have started the phantom indoors with the props on....  
??
I must remember not to lick the ESC's when fitting them...........

I've never had my petrol anything inside the house.
and
I wouldn't lick my ESC - even if I knew what it was.

talk2t_c Posted at 2014-11-26 22:40
I've never had my petrol anything inside the house.
and
I wouldn't lick my ESC - even if I knew what ...

It tickles, lol.

This guy was just an idiot....  if you had props fitted for whatever reason you would make sure the machine was anchored and considering the motors stop when on contact with a leaf, let alone a kitchen ceiling or wall, its very..........  not within my scope of operation.

I've used the magic Velcro on my battery compartment.

OH MAN!!!!!!...  FAIL big time

Not commenting on the failure to lock-down the model or other safety precautions but it is curious that the Phantom would try to fly when only in idle.  You would think that it could detect that rotor speed was too slow to lift off and ignore any RTH behaviors.

Note: I performed a simulated test of this (props removed) and it is true, when the motors are in idle and you turn off the controller or trigger fail-safe the motors spin-up as if to take off.

It sounds like something DJI might want to consider for a future update (assuming there can be a satisfactory determination that the motors are only at idle); I'd hate the change to cause Phantoms to fall from the sky.

Good point Kenargo.

And the same applies to the opposite scenario, i.e. auto-disengage when one or more of the props are being blocked from spinning, such as after a crash. I've read a lot of posts about pilots running towards their crashed Phantom and finding it upside-down with motors churning but some props stuck and/or grinding against the ground, branches or what-not. I'm a tech lay-person but I'm guessing it shouldn't be that hard to build in an auto-stop in that situation, hmm?

I wonder what kind of feedback there is from the motors to the control and if the control can tell if the motors are stalled.  If they can tell then it should be somewhat easy to reliably kill the engines in that inverted ground crash (like you suggest).  Likewise I'd think they know, at least before the initial throttle-up for takeoff that the Phantom is idle and sitting.

kenargo Posted at 2014-11-27 13:41
I wonder what kind of feedback there is from the motors to the control and if the control can tell i ...

I think any such facilities would add extra risk, possible component failures and interfere with current failsafe's and operational constraints.

Agree 100%, that was the caveat I was trying to explain; it would have to be reliable.  False detections could be a real problem!

Yup.