Almost lost my spark today.  I will attach log files.  I was flying over a Christmas tree light display and it was working just fine, had full satellites and took several pics and video, as well as panos.  Then I had about 55% battery, started taking a sphere pano, and I got a message that said "Motor Overload" at about picture 40, Spark kept taking pictures.  After about 43, it started to crash land!  I watched it happen on my iPhone, it went down quick from about 150+ feet and hit into a tree.  Luckily as there were people about 20 feet away it didn't hit anyone and I ran frantically over to assess the damage, and nobody had picked up my pride and joy and went off with it.  I had a broken prop but no other obvious damage.  However, now I am scared to fly as I go over rivers a lot and don't want my baby to get lost forever.  Can someone look at the log files?  Also, should I send my spark in to DJI?  I don't think this was my fault as I have flown 131 flights with my spark, and almost 12 hours.  Never had any issues before.  What to do?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/73cikjjqqgcpt2d/DJI_ASSISTANT_EXPORT_FILE_2017-12-04_20-37-27.DAT?dl=0

Hi, Javey. I feel pity about the accident. Did you get the "Motor Overload" message again? If you continue to get the message, please check your motor carefully. I would recommend you send it back for further check. And you can contact the Support to start a case, provide the data to them: http://www.dji.com/support. Thanks for your support.

I will open a case, but I still want to know what went wrong with my drone.

Javey Posted at 2017-12-5 18:59
I will open a case, but I still want to know what went wrong with my drone.

Then please share your flightrecord with us. After upload to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
simply post the link here.

Motor overload is usually caused by obstruction to a motor, you say you had one prop broken, might you have been hit by a bird or clipped a tree, you would probably have some evidence in the pictures you were taking.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-12-6 15:50
Motor overload is usually caused by obstruction to a motor, you say you had one prop broken, might you have been hit by a bird or clipped a tree, you would probably have some evidence in the pictures you were taking.

Hmm, no I checked it took 42 pictures in this pano set and I saw nothing out of the ordinary.  It was night time too taking pictures of the Christmas lights so not as many birds out.  I got 42 pics in the set so it had almost finished.  Battery was 22% when it crashed and I checked the battery, all cells are within .01V of each other.  I'll upload the log as suggested.

Here's the link.  As you can see, battery was low at about 22% and was just finishing a pano, was not hit by a bird or a tree as I was well over 20 ft above a tree and hovering so it's not possible.  Battery was fine, 16 satellites, within LOS and no connection errors, and it crashed less than a second after the error so no chance to retrieve it or land it as I was 100+ ft away.  There's no rhyme or reason for the crash.  I do see "Speed Error" however I was hovering and not even moving!  I saw on my screen a Motor Overloaded error but how?  I just don't understand.......

Flight Log

Javey Posted at 2017-12-6 17:43
Here's the link.  As you can see, battery was low at about 22% and was just finishing a pano, was not hit by a bird or a tree as I was well over 20 ft above a tree and hovering so it's not possible.  Battery was fine, 16 satellites, within LOS and no connection errors, and it crashed less than a second after the error so no chance to retrieve it or land it as I was 100+ ft away.  There's no rhyme or reason for the crash.  I do see "Speed Error" however I was hovering and not even moving!  I saw on my screen a Motor Overloaded error but how?  I just don't understand.......

Flight Log

Looks like motor overload was the cause of your problem, whether it was a cracked prop or something else causing aircraft motor overload I wouldn’t like to say, but when this happened your aircraft motors slowed right down causing it to slowly descend this is most likely a reaction from IMU to try to maintain attitude ,it was still in pano mode starting at 95ft and finished pano at 22ft, I presume it would just have landed but hit a tree, this is where you see speed error, you can see in your log last couple of seconds you were pushing forward on the throttle trying to gain altitude but no reaction from Aircraft.
I’m not 100% sure what happens when you have motor overload at altitude but it looks like from your log that all motors slow down causing Aircraft to lose altitude this was happening at slow enough speed that if nothing was under the aircraft it would have reached the ground reasonably safe.
So I think this one will be up to dji, it doesn’t look like any fault with the pilot, I hope they find in your favour and replace your Aircraft.
Good luck.

I looked at your .DAT and wasn't able to find any more details about why there was a motor obstruction warning. But, I did notice a problem with the ultrasonic height sensor. For most of the flight it was showing that the Spark was within a meter of the ground while the relative height was 29 metwers and above.


Maybe the sensor is blocked.

Hmm that's odd there was nothing on the spark to block it.  I'm going to send it back, I'll reference my case number here once I have one so the helpful DJI staff on the forum here can take care of it.  Thanks guys for looking into my logs.

CAS-1292993-L1B5T1

Hi Javery, was your environment too cloudy? because once I was flying in a very cloudy situation and I got "Ultrasound Exception land immediately" something of that kind.. and like this case, my barometer reading was fluctuating. so I landed quickly.

Rafi_m Posted at 2017-12-10 22:27
Hi Javery, was your environment too cloudy? because once I was flying in a very cloudy situation and I got "Ultrasound Exception land immediately" something of that kind.. and like this case, my barometer reading was fluctuating. so I landed quickly.

Not really, there was some fog but it was a lot higher up than my craft.  And I could not control it on the way down, which is why I pulled up on the stick.  It ignored my command.  I think it had something to do with the motor failure I experienced, which I can't explain or understand.

Could ba a tiny piece of thread wrapped around between the motor gap.
I've had it on electric rc planes before.
Worth checking with a torch light.
Regards Rich

Rich777 Posted at 2017-12-11 11:14
Could ba a tiny piece of thread wrapped around between the motor gap.
I've had it on electric rc planes before.
Worth checking with a torch light.

I’ve had similar it was a blade of grass.

Hmm I’m not sure what the exact failure is, however dji is repairing under warranty free of charge! No complaints here I am just happy to get my bird back and for the fast fair service.