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Dropping Like Flies

Posted by Mike Honcho on December 20, 2015 at 11:43am

Interesting situation today. 2 Quads fell out of the sky by throttle cut. Earlier this morning, a buddy of mine with a Phantom 3 took off, got to about 70 feet, the throttle cut 100% and it fell from the sky doing about $500 worth of damage.  I have a new F450 Flamewheel setup and just had the exact same thing happen to me. I was flying for about 6 mins and going through stabilize, loiter, draft, sport, alt hold. As soon as I hit alt hold, the copter took off towards the sky, I switched to stabilize to regain control, nothing, continued to climb and head in the direction of the highway about .5 mile away. I programmed a throttle cut switch to which cuts to 900 and I have a FS setup for 950 that puts it in RTL. As soon as I did that, no RTL, throttle cut 100 and fell from the sky onto concrete. Lost two arms and the bottom plate. Not very expensive but kind of curious to have the same issue twice in one day. Any ideas?  

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Replies

  • Craig Issod December 20, 2015 at 6:45pm

    Sounds like plain bad luck.

    A number of P3's have had problems relating to battery cutoff - many of those reported were folks who took off with partially charged batteries or those charged many days ago.

    I definitely suggest using DeOxit on the contacts regularly.

    There may be a bug in some of the P3 firmware re this current battery thing but no definitive answer yet. BUT, the good news is that some people have claimed DJI will fix or replace any craft that fails as a result of it. Make sure your friend checks into it.

    Otherwise - just coincidence that two went down the same day.

    • Mike Honcho > Craig Issod December 21, 2015 at 1:58pm

      Thanks! I've passed your message on to my buddy. 

    • Craig Issod > Craig Issod December 20, 2015 at 7:27pm

      Here is some tech stuff and guesses about the Phantom batteries - some of the crashes were batts well over 100 cycles....maybe low voltage combined with the bug, etc ???

      Anyway, just forward to your buddy in case his is under warranty, etc.

      http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/dji-may-replace-your-p2-inspir...

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson December 20, 2015 at 3:17pm

    Altitude climb problems in alt-hold usually mean vibration issues (autopilot not properly mounted on vibration-damping foam)

  • Andre K. December 20, 2015 at 2:48pm
    Post log if you have ArduCopter.
    • Mike Honcho > Andre K. December 21, 2015 at 1:56pm

      Here is the tlog. Thanks!

      2015-12-20 13-50-00.tlog

      https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3702608850?profile=original
      • Andre K. > Mike Honcho December 22, 2015 at 2:00am

        I usually look at AP logs, not telemetry logs - but unless I am missing some scaling, the vibrations are so high I am even surprised it flew at all :)

        • Mike Honcho > Andre K. December 22, 2015 at 2:26am

          Wow. I'm not sure how to grab an AP log. Obviously I need to do some more due diligence in this reporting/log area. Rather than waste your all's time with those questions, I'll dig in online and get my terminology and processes straight and then ask more specific questions if needed. I have some moon gel coming today so basically I need to get the quad fixed and then figure out how to take vibration measurements. If you guys have any "go to" resources on vibration control, I'd appreciate it, otherwise, I'll ask as I need advice. Thanks again!

    • Mike Honcho > Andre K. December 20, 2015 at 3:52pm

      Forgive my ignorance but should I post RLOG or Telemetry LOG?  

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