Have flown my Phantom V2+ with no issues around 50 times now....until today!!!

Just got back from the crash site, no footage to show as SD card was corrupt on it's very hard landing (from 100 feet onto tarmac)


This is what happened.

Already had one flight in the bag, battery was fully charged, as was the extender and controller, took off, flew for around 6 minutes, landed with no probs. Battery was showing 68% when I was on the ground and shut off the rotors.

Took it to my next location around 20 mins away, fired everything up, battery showing 67%, extender 88% and full lights on the controller.

Got GPS lock on 8 sats, did compass calibration (I do this before every flight just for peace of mind) got flashing greens and off I went.
Climbed to around 600 feet, took some birds eye pics, then descended to around 120 feet to get one more shot, battery was showing 35%, but Phantom was only 150 feet away from me and I had line of sight clearly.

My phone that was connected to Phantom suddenly bleeped and a warning came on the screen saying 'Battery connection lost' and also something along the lines of 'ensure to fly carefully' or something similar.  
Where the battery life indicator should be I had a symbol like this.. _

The view from the camera gave me a quick glimpse of the white underside of the Phantom and then nothing.

Luckily because I was so close I was able to find it failry quick, even though I had'nt actually seen it drop out of the sky as I was looking at my phone by then.

I was flying GPS mode, always have and CL or HL was not active.

From what I can see it landed on the front first as that's where most of the scuffs are under the motors, also when I took the battery out it is all smashed up at the far end. I've put a few pics of the damage with this thread.

Wondering
A, what the f**k happened?
B, how much will it cost to fix?
C, is it time to buy an Inspire?

When I plugged it in to the pc battery levels were showing 22 times discharged, all 3 cells were reading around 3000mv and percentage of life was 93%

My settings have always been when I've got low battery go home kicks in and this has always done just that in the past.

Anyone else had this problem?

No point contacting DJI as I bought it used.

How the hell did the inner end of the battery get that smashed up without the bird being in 300 pieces? Did the pack explode?

agree with trail, sounds like maybe the battery dislodged midflight and broke on the ground and just looked like it fell out 'on impact'.  that, while i cant prove it, would explain the behavior you experienced.  midflight vibrations dislodging batteries is something i think is going unnoticed.  that is why part of my preflight checklist is to make sure the '1mm' gap doesnt exist on one side of the battery.  i explained this in another thread but the search functions are so piss poor around here i cant find it to share....

If you buy and crash an Inspire it's going to cost you a LOT more!

It's almost impossible to deconstruct these events....but, yes, I suspect the battery connection or the pins where it sends it's data. These parts need checked and cleaned regularly.

As far as searching here, cut and paste the basics and use google:
https://support.google.com/news/answer/40246?hl=en

Example: site:forum.dji.com  1 mm gap
finds this
http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=7809

Sorry to hear about your crash.

Out of interest when you do your compass calibration is the battery compartment face up or face down? If face down is it possible the battery may have become loose when you recalibrated?

I've read numerous times now that it is not necessary to recalibrate each time you fly and agree with those who think that it can create more problems than it solves.

Swerve Posted at 2015-2-21 02:43
Sorry to hear about your crash.

Out of interest when you do your compass calibration is the battery ...

Really?

I cannot figure out why recalibrating would be anything other than a good thing?

Also if battery disconnection isn't unheard of then why aren't there mechanical fixings (or additional mechanical fixings) in place to eliminate such a thing?

moto, it exposes the compass to accidental 'other factors' more often than necessary.  examples are EMFs, power lines, large metal objects like bldgs and such, etc.  bottom line is that once you have it right, if you dont travel far then why expose it to a possible miscalibration.  the likelihood is VERY LOW and you can certainly 'MAKE SURE' to account for these things too, so not a big deal.  but that is the rationale.

trailtec.dodo Posted at 2015-2-21 01:01
How the hell did the inner end of the battery get that smashed up without the bird being in 300 piec ...

No idea! The rest of the Phantom is fine apart from a few scrapes to the underside of the front motors.

Battery hasn't exploded as such but why that came apart so badly when the rest of it is ok is a bit strange to say the least.

Moto70 Posted at 2015-2-21 03:22
Also if battery disconnection isn't unheard of then why aren't there mechanical fixings (or addition ...

A good tug on the battery is on my pre-flight check list.

i think the battery came out in the air, otherwise there is no way it would have gotten that mangled on the 'inside end' without much more damage to your drone than you are describing.

Swerve Posted at 2015-2-21 02:43
Sorry to hear about your crash.

Out of interest when you do your compass calibration is the battery ...

I always calibrate with the battery facing down when doing horizontal 360 degree turn, then face the front of the Phantom pointing to the floor and then do the 360 degree vertical calibration.

gnixon2015 Posted at 2015-2-21 03:26
i think the battery came out in the air, otherwise there is no way it would have gotten that mangled ...

It fell just out of my sight, so it took me approx 3 mins to find it, when I was walking around the general area 2 workmen saw me and shouted over to ask if I was looking for a quadcopter, I told them yeah, and they then pointed over to where it was.

It was placed on a narrow wall right way up, still on with lights flashing. There's no way it could have landed in that position as there was only a couple of centimeters either side of the landing legs to the edge of the wall. So it had deffo been picked up from wherever it crashed and put there (it was very close to a busy road)

Didn't think to ask the guys if they'd slotted the battery back in as I was to busy worrying about damage along with relief that it hadn't hurt anyone and that I'd found it.

I have a hunch they wouldn't of bothered messing around with the thing and would have just put the phantom and the battery (if it did fall out in flight) next to each other on the wall. Could be wrong but that's my gut feeling.

It is super strange how the battery got so wasted without major damage to the outside skin.

gnixon2015 Posted at 2015-2-21 03:23
moto, it exposes the compass to accidental 'other factors' more often than necessary.  examples are  ...

What does the compass calibration actually do in laymans terms.

I travel as much as 50 miles away from my home flying it, in all different parts of the south of England.

I thought that by not doing the calibration each time it might affect the fail safe and it start heading for the last place I flew it which could be miles away?

no, 'home' isnt about the compass calibration.  homepoint is GPS driven.  compass just affect how it know which DIRECTION it is facing.  so it might not fly (to homelocation or anywhere for that matter) properly without being calibrated.  but driving a certain distance isnt going to make it think the homepoint is somewhere else due to compass calibration, now it may if the homepoint is still set (GPS wise) to the old location and you take off without proper sat locks.  but it is supposed to ignore homeloc between shutdown/powerup... in other words, homeloc isnt persistent between boots.  make more sense?

as for what it does in lay terms, it helps the compass (internally) figure out which way is north.  that is it.  and if traveling 50mi or less, i wouldnt recalibrate every time.  that is just my opinion.

liamallen1973@y Posted at 2015-2-21 03:37
It fell just out of my sight, so it took me approx 3 mins to find it, when I was walking around th ...

With looking at picture no. 1076,it would indicate that the battery impacted a road or other dark surface, judging by the black markings.  As if it either came out in flight, or was ejected on impact and did so.

Very strange that the battery was in the Phantom, and it was sitting on a ledge.  Perhaps it landed in the road, someone removed it, inserting the battery and placing it on the wall?


Edit:  Looking at the pictures again, it sure looks to me that the battery hit with considerable force.  I'm tending to think it fell from the sky, as opposed to being ejected out of the phantom on impact with the earth.

Guys, I think I found the problem as to what caused the crash.

I'm not being a cryptic arsehole, but I won't post it on here for a very good reason, but if anyone wants to know feel free to pm me and I'll let you know.

Gerry1124 Posted at 2015-2-21 04:20
So you would rather not contribute to the collective knowledge base and might just prevent someone ...

Agreed... and PM does not work here anyhow.  At least on my end it doesn't.

Gerry1124 Posted at 2015-2-21 04:20
So you would rather not contribute to the collective knowledge base and might just prevent someone ...

I do have a very good reason, and I always let people know on forums the out come of anything I've asked. That's why I've told people to PM me if they would like to know.

Big brother is watching us :-)

gnixon2015 Posted at 2015-2-21 03:52
no, 'home' isnt about the compass calibration.  homepoint is GPS driven.  compass just affect how it ...

That makes sense, thanks for explaining it so well for me mate. Appreciated.

Gerry1124 Posted at 2015-2-21 04:31
Big brother has better things to do than to sit here watching us.

You'd be surprised, the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) monitors the DJI Phantom owners site on Facebook.

I'm seriously thinking of the good of drone owners in general not getting a bad name or negative press not to post it on here, I can say I think it was down to my own error and nothing to do with a malfunction with the Phantom. I also now think the guy who said it looks like the battery fell out before impact is probably correct.

Trying to find out how to PM you Gerry.

id love to know what the error was as well.

You're right, PM doesn't' work.

Just to clarify, I'm fairly confident that the crash was due to an error on my part.  My email is the same as my user name with at yahoo dot co dot uk on the end, I'm happy to share details there with anyone that wants to know the ins and outs.

I had exactly the same thing happen to my p2v+ last week I was flying on a waypoint mission and everything you explained that happened to yours was the same for me, when I got to my phantom the battery had detached on impact with the ground but the picture froze on my iPhone screen and it showed the underside of one of the quad arms, I only had my phantom 2 weeks but DJI have said that the firmware update I did to 3.1 was the cause so the people who I purchased from are in the process of sending me another phantom .

There is some problem around this DRONE...
I have DJI PHANTOM 2 VISION PLUS V3.0 and while in the sky i got a error in comunicaction with batery and the drone as come down to the ground... As anything that we buy has warranty, i asked to dji about the warranty of the produt, it has only 3 or 4 weeks i have it.
Until now no answer back in my email.
IF a produt has a problem, a bug or something warranty is not supost to cover the problem and repair ir in warranty ??
THe drone has cost me 1200euros new !!!