Hi,

I was flying my brand new Phantom 3 Advanced the other day (i had only had it for 4 days). As I started to arm the motors, getting ready for take off I slowly increased the throttle and my Phantom fell backwards causing the back 2 motors to jam. I noticed that one of the Motors started to smoke (caught on fire) and heard a loud beeping noise coming from the drone, I turned the aircraft off and inspected the Motor and it was burnt on the inside completely and underneath the aircraft body the plastic had melted causing the motor to move out of place. My Phantom 3 is now no longer able to fly, what do I do? am I entitled to a refund? or a replacement aircraft? I was extremely disappointed that such an expensive piece of equipment would just break on me like that. Correct me if I am wrong but i believe the Phantom has a precautionary measure so that if this does happen the motors shut down preventing this too happen. I added photos of the motor and underside (notice how the motor is resting on the plastic)

Cheers

  

Sorry for your loss but sadly these things can happen, its nature of the tech, a motor is not designed to be jammed with power, something has to give, Motor or esc, the only was to protect against it is to shut down as quickly as possible.

I would suggest calling DJI however is not really a warranty issues as the motor was blocked.

So you went to take off and instead of taking off, you pulled back on the wrong controller which caused your bird to fall backward and cause your issue?   If that is the case, you just toasted your bird at your expense.  

Yes.......definitely contact DJI by phone/email.

They will have you send them your flight logs/data.  If it was a hardware or software glitch issue they should repair the damaged P3.

DrACE Posted at 2016-3-7 01:38
So you went to take off and instead of taking off, you pulled back on the wrong controller which cau ...

No i definitely pushed the left stick upwards

Your flight log and data should reveal what happened then.

I am Sorry, actually very sorry, to read about this catastrophe. Things like this should never happen, in today's tech world.
Yes, the motors should have all shut down, if one or two props were blocked, from having free movement.
Perhaps by providing @DJI with your flight record, something will be discovered that puts you in the clear.
Wishing you good luck, and a speedy recovery. Hopefully you can continue to enjoy your drone, very soon.
I would like to see a picture of the destruction, and singed shell. Please post a photo. Thanks.

RedHotPoker

samuelcullen Posted at 2016-3-7 05:01
No i definitely pushed the left stick upwards

Unfortunately, pushing up on the left stick once it was tipped was essentially like trying to raise it from the dead and the motors were fighting to the death to resolve the imbalance...and it died...., if you had pulled down on the left stick or done a CSC the motors would have shut off...

Northofthe49th Posted at 2016-3-6 18:18
Unfortunately, pushing up on the left stick once it was tipped was essentially like trying to rais ...

That's not what the OP wrote he did.  He wrote he increased the throttle (which he later clarified meant he pushed up on the left stick) THEN it fell backwards instead of ascending (perhaps it was on the edge of an uneven surface and dropped before it was hovering).  The OP can clarify but he probably released the throttle as soon as he saw it fall.

It doesn't sound like he did a CSC after that to manually cut the motor but his question is with the sticks in neutral if the props are blocked from rotating does the motor have a failsafe?  For example, instead of falling it could have gotten stuck in a tree impeding the motors.  In that event, does the user need to immediately CSC to prevent a motor burn-out?   Some other drones cut power to individual props when they are impeded.

citivas Posted at 2016-3-6 18:52
That's not what the OP wrote he did.  He wrote he increased the throttle (which he later clarified ...

CSC or burn-out.  They will not shut off automatically.

Lol tons of new UAV owners who don't read the manual.  Learn the CSC command, this is pilot error and won't be covered under warranty.

I wonder if samuelcullen had taken off then landed prior to the take off where it tipped over. And if he had not shut down the motors in between the two ascents? This can cause the aircraft to tip over when taking off the second time.

When the aircraft tips over, you have to be pretty quick with the CSC, as the aircraft knows it is upside down and is trying to right itself. There does not appear to be any routine in the software that determines the motors are drawing too much current and therefore shuts them down.

The OP must of left his motor running while tipped over for atleast 30secs to a minute, if he didn't know the CSC command which he should of before ever putting props on, then he should of yanked the battery.
Also putting the props  on wrong in the wrong color motor will cause an instant flip, that would explain the flip, h3dt know the csc so did he know about putting the right props on the right motor. Whatever happend the flight log will tell all.

Sounds like a similar thing happened in this other topic:

http://forum.dji.com/thread-44485-1-1.html

Further down there's a link to a video intentionally turning the phantom upside down or sideways to show how it tries to self-level by spinning up the props on the bottom to full power to try and compensate.  Sounds like that happened here.

"As I started to arm the motors, getting ready for take off I slowly increased the throttle and my Phantom"

Where are people getting CSC from after reading OP's post?

I am sorry that you had an accident. Email the support center center and you can have them analyze the flight records. Here are instructions how to get the DAT file from the aircraft.        

To get the DAT files you power up the aircraft, controller, app. Go into MC settings, then Advanced settings, then enter flight data mode, connect the Phantom to your home computer via USB post (on the aircraft, not the gimbal)

You'll hear the Phantom beeping and it won't stop until all the flight records are copied onto your computer.

Upload the DAT to Dropbox and give the link to the support center.

http://www.dji.com/support

Username Here Posted at 2016-3-7 12:26
"As I started to arm the motors, getting ready for take off I slowly increased the throttle and my P ...

They are not, at least as far as I have read this post. They are saying a CSC might have saved the motors if it had been done quickly enough.

RedHotPoker Posted at 2016-3-7 10:17
I am Sorry, actually very sorry, to read about this catastrophe. Things like this should never happe ...

I edited my post and attached two photos of the motor and underside. Cheers

RedHotPoker Posted at 2016-3-7 10:17
I am Sorry, actually very sorry, to read about this catastrophe. Things like this should never happe ...

I edited my post and attached two photos of the motor and underside. Cheers

mrGREEK360 Posted at 2016-3-7 11:51
The OP must of left his motor running while tipped over for atleast 30secs to a minute, if he didn't ...

"Also putting the props  on wrong in the wrong color motor will cause an instant flip,"

That is not possible to do, the two different colour props and motors have different threads, one is right-handed and the other is left-handed.

I'm surprised on why no one is questioning on why the drone flipped backward... Sounds to me like the faulty motor was already playing up and this is what made the aircraft to flip.

Why else would it flip backward when all the OP did was to make it take off ?

A tad quick to blame a user error really.

jyavenard Posted at 2016-3-7 07:00
I'm surprised on why no one is questioning on why the drone flipped backward... Sounds to me like th ...

Kinda' my guess, motor or esc.

The OP mentioned that he "slowly increased the throttle" to take off.  I much prefer the method of quickly increasing throttle to get off the ground.  My experience with various quads has been the tendency for flips upon takeoff when the throttle is increased too gradually.