endotherm Posted at 2016-6-7 22:32
A lot of places like that have a dirt or grass airstrip for private aircraft, but they strangely c ...

Hmm I did not even know that was there and I don't think anybody ever uses that. I am still in a fly zone and just verified with the "B4UFLY" app and the DJI no fly map. I have looked at many no fly maps in the past and I am safe to fly here.

Your drone could have crashed because of strong interference, that can easily take down a drone. Or it could have been a faulty controller board/software error. Were you still connected to the drone when it was out of control? If DJI gives you a costly repair bill, try some of the people others here have mentioned. Your drone is not toast, just some broken props, gimbal mount, and body shell. Should easily be repairable for ~100. Hope this helps
Robi

amelia.bolli01 Posted at 2016-6-7 23:08
Your drone could have crashed because of strong interference, that can easily take down a drone. Or  ...

As for interference I was in a forest preserve and there are no large antennas near and no Wifi interference.

As soon as the drone banked right I had no control at all and no longer connected to the drone from what I can tell from watching the flight play back on my flight list from my iPad. The thing is once I walked up to the drone after the crash it looked like it reconnected.

I really think it's a faulty controller board/software as it stopped recording to the SD just before this occurred. Plus on the previous flight I have a few random video records stopping and one "weak transmission" error. Before the crash flight I did land reboot everything and put a fresh battery in and everything was good up until the crash at 11 min.

As for repair suggestion, thanks I will look around. So far it only looks like the camera mount and perhaps connector and body. The props look in perfect condition just dirty from the crash which surprised me.

The flight log shows a major deviation in one of the battery cells.  Additionally, compass errors.  My guess would be compass or bird strike.

rreindl Posted at 2016-6-7 04:32
Yes I am going to send it in. I talked to the help desk and they are going to send me a shipping l ...

The data analysis team in the repair center you send it to will do it.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-6-8 02:08
The data analysis team in the repair center you send it to will do it.

Thanks Ken.

And the wind can be one of the causes, a gust of wind can disrupt compass in flight

tytlyf Posted at 2016-6-7 18:55
The flight log shows a major deviation in one of the battery cells.  Additionally, compass errors.   ...

I also think it would have been a compass error. It too happened to me near trees over a frozen lake in Finland. As soon as I took off, off it went out of control and followed the slight wind into trees, happened so quick before I knew what happened crashed into a small tree's brunches. Luckily, It was under two meters in height and fell onto a snow ground. One prop broke during impact. But I cannot help it if happens again far above some place I guess.

Does the compass error happen to Inspire 1 or other professional models? I am hugely concerned. I have yet to try ATTI mode.  Haven't had a calm flight day yet.

flydodom Posted at 2016-6-8 06:00
I also think it would have been a compass error. It too happened to me near trees over a frozen la ...

Can a compass error occur 11 minutes into a flight?

The two things that concern me most is the sudden video stooping then the GPS error then the sudden bank to the right with no control. Could this be an RC and or DJI Go app issue?  I sure hope DJI can tell me what this when they get my drone.  And most important I hope I get flying soon with all these nice days. I expect the shipping label by Wednesday but it has to ship from Chicago all the way to California. Does anybody know the type of shipping speed I will get? I know she said it will be UPS.

Just looked over the photos of the damage, the cable that came apart you can either buy a new cable set that comes with an assortment of cables or you can carefully put them back into the plug. You can buy a new top plate direct from DJI or from other sites. All in all I suspect all you need to repair/replace is a new set of props, shells, and top plate and youll be back in action.

rreindl Posted at 2016-6-8 09:43
Can a compass error occur 11 minutes into a flight?

The two things that concern me most is the s ...

Video randomly stopping can be attributed to a slow microSD card in the aircraft; it can't keep up with the datarate for the current recording so it appears to randomly stop.  In the case of it "failing" prior to a crash, what is happening is the recording is being made in bite-sized chunks in the camera buffer, then flushed out to the mass-storage (microSD card) and added to the partial file written there.  If the recording is stopped properly, the last piece is flushed from memory and written to the card and the file is closed off.  If you crash, the last chunk might not get flushed out and written to the disk.  The file will not be closed properly as well.  When you try to retrieve it, the whole recording may appear missing or corrupt.  By inserting it back into the aircraft and powering up again, the last chunk will be flushed and written to the card and the file will be closed off, making the file valid for reading etc.

Your GPS error is during the "death spiral" not prior to it.  It appears to be working and recording numbers correctly.

There is nothing sinister in your case, this is all expected behaviour in a crash.

tytlyf Posted at 2016-6-8 03:55
The flight log shows a major deviation in one of the battery cells.  Additionally, compass errors.   ...

It was only 74 millivolts lower than its closest cell, and only qualified as a Major Deviation by 4 millivolts, otherwise it would have been ignored.  It happened only once, during the crash cycle where the motors were going berserk trying to correct the fall.

According to Healthy Drones, this isn't a cause for concern, it isn't a failure as such, rather something to keep an eye on with respect to the life/health of the battery in future.

Major Deviations ™
Major deviation is when a cell differs more than 0.07v from the other cells.
Please note that normal batteries can have a few of these.
An abnormal battery will:
    A) Have most of the major deviations in one cell
    B) There will be multiple major deviations per minute, and more than 10 total
    C) The deviations continue longer than 1 minute
If your battery shows all symptoms (example, another) then this is considered a more severe case of an inefficient battery and may impact the battery life.
If your battery has only 1-4 instances on the same cell, don't worry too much about it. If it has 5-10 instances - then continue to track and make sure it does not degrade:

endotherm Posted at 2016-6-8 21:49
It was only 74 millivolts lower than its closest cell, and only qualified as a Major Deviation by 4 ...

Just pointing out issues.  The rest of my comment didn't mention battery as the culprit.

I have my drone back! I updated the firmware to the latest and did all the calibrations. I then took it for two test flights in my front yard, flying very close to me and so far so good! I plan on doing normal flying tomorrow testing it to the fullest.

The repairs look very good and I have to thank DJI for doing a great job! Lets hope the tests over the next few days goes well. I missed my drone too much when it was gone for repairs. ;-)

I still do not know why my drone crashed and DJI support desk said they would contact me after analysis but they have not yet and that was over a week ago.  

Hi rreindl,

Nice you got your P3 back. Did you got an invoice or was it covered by DJI?
Thanks for sharing your experience so far.

Enjoy

Dr_Sassi Posted at 2016-6-26 01:24
Hi rreindl,

Nice you got your P3 back. Did you got an invoice or was it covered by DJI?

I got an invoice and at first disputed it but I also wanted my drone back right away so I went ahead and paid it. I did ask for an analysis to figure out why it crashed and he said he would pass along the request. As I said above he did say the would contact me with the results but no news yet.  

The update from today's testing with two additional flights looks good! I only flew about 140 feet up and 470 feet out as I am still doing some testing. I am still a bit nervous but each flight continues to show that the fixes are good.  

I hope DJI contacts me soon with the analysis and hope it is conclusive. I keep thinking of an analogy in my head about a car. If your car did a sudden right turn and crash damaging the bumper you don't just fix the bumper you still need to figure out why the car did the sudden right turn.

rreindl Posted at 2016-6-25 13:25
I got an invoice and at first disputed it but I also wanted my drone back right away so I went ahe ...

Thanks a lot for your reply, rreindl!

I have a similar case, and paid also to get things accelerated. My wish to clear this behavior of the Phantom was more related to the fact to feel safe, than to see some money back. Safety is key, as you wrote as well with your car analogy. We don't want to have that on our mind while focusing to fly.

My best wishes to get a positive reply soon.

ENJOY!

rreindl Posted at 2016-6-26 06:35
The update from today's testing with two additional flights looks good! I only flew about 140 feet u ...

'If your car did a sudden right turn and crash damaging the bumper you don't just fix the bumper you still need to figure out why the car did the sudden right turn.'

You are indeed correct, however DJI do not supply explanations for anything they analyse in the flight data. Never have, and probably never will.