I heard that only good pilots have crashed, and this week I have crashed twice. In both occasions, goiing for the perfect shot.
Sunday was the last crash, I was flying over a lake with trees on the side trying to make a "miami vice" scene looking down, and the drone started to drift right towards the trees.
Sad story short, I had to climb the tree about 20ft high, and try to catch the mavic. Unfortunately I could not reach it and it fell to the water. Luckly my father was helping me, and rescued the mavic from the water about 10s after it splashed.
After rinsing it with a towel and hair blower, I put it in a cointainer with rice for 2 days. Tuesday I turned it on for assessment. Here are the results:
-The battery turn on, but don't turn the drone on. Scrap, I won't risk my drone on a faulty battery.
-With another battery, it did turned on with no errors and connected to the remote with perfect live video feed. Gimball was working fine with no need for calibration.
-One of the propellers were broken
-All tests passed. Perfect satellite signal, compass and IMU.
I left the motors running with no propellers for a while to see if any error could occur, and everything was perfect. So I took it outside for a flight test with new propellers.
After a few moments off while I walked outside, I turned on again, and it could not connect.
Now it won't connect to the remote, neither to WIFI, and neither to DJI Assistant via USB cable. The LED by the side of the RC-WIFI switch is not lit. And yes, I have tried to bind the remote via DJI GO 4 or the C1+C2+rec, with no success.
Any toughts? I'm sending it to some PRO drone repairman here in my city. Unfortunately I don't have DJI assistance here, only if I ship it to Sao Paulo.
Our apologies for the inconvenience. I would recommend you to contact our support team to start up a case: (https://www.dji.com/support?site=brandsite&from=nav). We have the professional data analysis team who would do their best to find out the reason of the incident and then the corresponding resolution would be provided. You can also provide your case number here in case you need further assistance. Thanks for your support.
Sorry for the crash fella but sports mode is my guess and pilot error. I would also send it back to DJI for repairs and not your local repair service. Good luck and hopefully you'll be back in the air soon.
Thats a bummer, I have almost done the same thing with the camera pointing down. Its an easy mistake when you are over water, because you have no visual reference. Thanks for sharing, this is a learning experience for everyone.
Sorry to hear you had a mishap. Had the same experience flying over water. I got lucky and as I panned up I caught the image of a fast approaching tree and just left hold of the controls and the Drone came to a stop. I thought I was in mid stream and actually without VLOS I was veering to the left. For me it was Pilot error.
Trust me, you are not alone, we all have experienced pilot error at some stage. (And I mean all of us) So Don't feel bad, learn from it. My best advice is fly within vlos and keep sports mode for wide open areas only when you have mastered flying your drone. Hope to see you flying soon.
Well, the main reason for this post is to share my Lessons learned:
-When over water, always use at least a spotter, or keep VLOS
-If you got stuck on a tree, be very careful. I was in panic and tired for climbing 10m on a tree, so if I kept my emotions calm, I could reach the drone by hand.
randy.sauder Posted at 2018-10-11 10:47
Shoot. Q: Still no official DJI repair support for Brazil???? I've heard from others folks in Brazil that you have poor official coverage...
yes, there is one official office, but it is in Sao Paulo, and I live in Porto Alegre, that would be a distance of a 2h flight.
I could ship it by mail, but since it is the only official office in BR, the repair may take too long.
Another bummer is that they don't offer warranty for drones purchased outside BR. This one came from Paraguay, and my phantom came from USA. I know this is not the case, but if it was a defect during warranty, I would not be covered.
I had a small crash a couple of months ago, now my MP worked great after that without any issues, but after an upgrade things went downhill so I sent it in to DJI, it took them less than a week to fix my problem and send it back to me, so when people whine and complain about DJI customer service I feel that they are absolutely wrong. Both times now I had to deal with them and both times I was served in a professional way with the utmost curtesy.
PoaVant Posted at 2018-10-11 10:58
yes, there is one official office, but it is in Sao Paulo, and I live in Porto Alegre, that would be a distance of a 2h flight.
I could ship it by mail, but since it is the only official office in BR, the repair may take too long.
Wow- DJI needs to fix that for you folks...Brazil is a huge population- c'mon DJI!!!