Hi guys,
I was thinking it could be the battery. But learning more about Lipo battery, I think it could not battery issue...But still, don't know what cause this behavior
Issue Cause:
What I did: I did store the battery at 80% for around 10 days, and seems like the battery discharge itself a little bit. Then today, I decided to fly again...As DJI advised "make sure the battery is full before the flight", I plug in and recharge. Then go fly
What issue:
1. The drone keep loosing signal, it showed no signal even the Spark just few meters away. It does not cut the connection between the remote and Spark, screen goes grey with red notification "no signal", but can still control the drone with the remote controller. Strange enough that my firend with another Spark with his own battery was fine, then I swapped the battery with him, his Spark also behaved the same with grey screen very often, showing "no signal" even few meters away. That is why I thought there is something wrong with the battery.
2. Second issue, my Spark lifted up by itself from 6m to 22m... no warning, no error, GPS is plenty. See the attached video belo from 2:03 to 2:27, then I had to manual try bringing it down with the joystick input:
After that, when I turn off drone, remote, and trying to fly again, the link between remote and drone lost...No matter how I try, it won't link again (I know all the combos and the 9sec trick to reset everthing). I had to do the trick that go out and connect with phone by wifi, take off with GPS, then land, and relink, then it works (This trick has been suggest long time ago by the Spark users whenever you cannot link remote with Spark)
Looking at the video I do see it rising with no stick movements, it looks like it was going into RTH mode it could be because you lost radio signal for more than 3 seconds which would cause it to go RTH but I'm not sure PH logs might show more.
hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-20 00:50
It may well be battery firmware , I can't remember if I let batteries reduce in power as per app, and then recharge but who knows.
Link for PH below, just click and follow instructions come back and post link here.
Hi Mr. Hallmark,
Thanks for the quick reply. I believe it was not a RTH trigger because when it rised up everything on my screen is clean and need, still had connection, no error, no warning, satellites are plenty with full bar. And if return to home trigger, it should show the word "returning to home" on the top left corner of the screen.
You can see the log here, pretty clean and neat, still don't know what trigger that. The only reason I could think of is the battery recharge over the old energy as mentioned above. And my friend had the same "no signal" issue with my battery. I told him to land immediately in case his Spark rise up by itself like mine. http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/V9SGR201QKM5QRLSBH9K/
I will try to discharge all the energy by letting it hover at low altitude. Recharge to full again and check tomorrow. It is raining and getting dark now.
Phuong Do Posted at 2017-8-20 01:21
Hi Mr. Hallmark,
Thanks for the quick reply. I believe it was not a RTH trigger because when it rised up everything on my screen is clean and need, still had connection, no error, no warning, satellites are plenty with full bar. And if return to home trigger, it should show the word "returning to home" on the top left corner of the screen.
You can see the log here, pretty clean and neat, still don't know what trigger that. The only reason I could think of is the battery recharge over the old energy as mentioned above. And my friend had the same "no signal" issue with my battery. I told him to land immediately in case his Spark rise up by itself like mine.
I looked at your PH log it doesn't show anything strange except your AC climbing freely i.e. No pushing throttle forward. I don't think it has anything to do with those who dropped out of the sky, if it had it's going the wrong way, lol . Maybe you should sync your flight to dji cloud and get a moderator here to get an engineer to look your flight for any anomalies. From your log everything looks fine.
hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-20 01:46
I looked at your PH log it doesn't show anything strange except your AC climbing freely i.e. No pushing throttle forward. I don't think it has anything to do with those who dropped out of the sky, if it had it's going the wrong way, lol . Maybe you should sync your flight to dji cloud and get a moderator here to get an engineer to look your flight for any anomalies. From your log everything looks fine.
I see,thank you for your help.I will try discharging and recharging again to see if the problem persist
The only reason i can think that can make Spark goes up without pilot tell him to do is a BAROMETER PROBLEM
I faced this problem with Parrot Rolling Spider and Parrot Bebop, the drone gets wrong reads from de barometer and try to keep height OK with wrong data and climb up without user telling to do because barometer thinks 20M height its 3M height. The cause on Bebop is a engineering error that allows the sun reach the barometer and the heat change the data (barometer are very very sensitive) , and the cause on rolling spider is bad quality barometer.
If you look on your flightlog, when you land and your drone are in the ground, the imu altitude of drone on floor is -4.3 FT, this is a negative altitude of 1.3 Meter below the floor, for sure your barometer reads incorrect data on this flight, unless you hand landed the drone or land on a not ground level place.
There are some things that can make barometer give erratic data ( low pressure, temperature) , maybe a IMU calibration can help you.
I faced this problem with Parrot Rolling Spider and Parrot Bebop, the drone gets wrong reads from de barometer and try to keep height OK with wrong data and climb up without user telling to do because barometer thinks 20M height its 3M height. The cause on Bebop is a engineering error that allows the sun reach the barometer and the heat change the data (barometer are very very sensitive) , and the cause on rolling spider is bad quality barometer.
In your flight, when VPS says you are at 9.5FT height, the IMU says its 0 altitude, when your drone goes down, the altitude on IMU starts to become negative altitude (above ground level), when drone reachs the real 0 altitude ( ground level) the drone IMU thinks its -4.5FT NEGATIVE altitude, its very clear the IMU reads are bad by a good margin.
Had you tried another place to fly with? If transmission signal loss in a short distance but you can still control the drone, it might be that the transmission signal had interfered. So we suggest trying another wide place with less wireless interference. Please make sure all your Bluetooth devices have shut down, it would be better if you switch the mobile device to airplane mode. And please make sure the remote controller’s antennas are positioned parallel to and are pointed towards the aircraft. If the drone still lost signal in a short distance, would you please export the flight data and Black Box data from the drone for a better confirmation. Thank you in advance.
DJI Thor Posted at 2017-8-21 18:37
Had you tried another place to fly with? If transmission signal loss in a short distance but you can still control the drone, it might be that the transmission signal had interfered. So we suggest trying another wide place with less wireless interference. Please make sure all your Bluetooth devices have shut down, it would be better if you switch the mobile device to airplane mode. And please make sure the remote controller’s antennas are positioned parallel to and are pointed towards the aircraft. If the drone still lost signal in a short distance, would you please export the flight data and Black Box data from the drone for a better confirmation. Thank you in advance.
Thanks for the advice DJI Thor. Since now the new firmware just released. I will try again and see if the problem persist.
Phuong Do Posted at 2017-8-21 18:42
Thanks for the advice DJI Thor. Since now the new firmware just released. I will try again and see if the problem persist.
Hi DJI Thor,
To update that no more rise up by itself, but the "no signal" is still the same. I am pretty sure it is not the battery, can confirm that, could it be the problem with DJI Go 4 app?
Please see another thread today about my issue after the update. Thanks
the battery could in theory cause certain weird issues, definitely. there is a lot of communication between aircraft and the battery packs and it is possible that the battery may store certain instructions beyond their normal duties. i doubt it. that being said i have seen similar issues with weird height measurements on my mavic pro as well with that latest update. but thats not bad as long as its relatively close.. baro/VPS/ultrasonic/IMU is not absolute.. it is relative... used to know where it is in relation to something else not where it is in absolute 3D space. i think the same will happen on the spark as well if Dji universally has changed something between the two..
you would be surprised how much communications a battery can have with a device, and usually battery is weakest link in security. for example forever ago, someone developed mac OSX malware that ran via a battery update and installed instructions on the batteries. also some devices that used batteries to trigger jailbreaks and rooting..
ImHereToCrash Posted at 2017-8-24 19:02
the battery could in theory cause certain weird issues, definitely. there is a lot of communication between aircraft and the battery packs and it is possible that the battery may store certain instructions beyond their normal duties. i doubt it. that being said i have seen similar issues with weird height measurements on my mavic pro as well with that latest update. but thats not bad as long as its relatively close.. baro/VPS/ultrasonic/IMU is not absolute.. it is relative... used to know where it is in relation to something else not where it is in absolute 3D space. i think the same will happen on the spark as well if Dji universally has changed something between the two..
you would be surprised how much communications a battery can have with a device, and usually battery is weakest link in security. for example forever ago, someone developed mac OSX malware that ran via a battery update and installed instructions on the batteries. also some devices that used batteries to trigger jailbreaks and rooting..
I see, that make sense. For now, after the latest firmware update, I even feel more uncomfortable to fly...
Phuong Do Posted at 2017-8-24 19:06
I see, that make sense. For now, after the latest firmware update, I even feel more uncomfortable to fly...
unfortunately the spark isn't a finished product, yet at least. i can comfortably say this now that i have a mavic pro..
since i gone to mavic pro i actually found the spark as even more unfinished.. and a little ridiculous... i want to love the spark, i really do, but the spark desperately needs more redundancies.. it really does, even when my mavic pro has a compass error, i checked sensor states and my second compass was still solid and it corrected itself.. the spark NEEDS this, specially if they are trying to target the spark at everyone.
ImHereToCrash Posted at 2017-8-24 19:19
unfortunately the spark isn't a finished product, yet at least. i can comfortably say this now that i have a mavic pro..
since i gone to mavic pro i actually found the spark as even more unfinished.. and a little ridiculous... i want to love the spark, i really do, but the spark desperately needs more redundancies.. it really does, even when my mavic pro has a compass error, i checked sensor states and my second compass was still solid and it corrected itself.. the spark NEEDS this, specially if they are trying to target the spark at everyone.
You are right, from the beginning, I have always trying to justify myself for buying Spark over Mavic. I have tried to analyze the issues, proposed the theory on the forum. And I was so eager in this latest firmware because they are doing mandatory so I thought it should be great with that firmware...but now, I kind of want to give up with Spark already, but don't have enough money to upgrade to Mavic...