Hey DIY Drones,
This is my first post here, but I felt I would share my story and log with the community. Today I was out for a rather routine flight of my Iris+ from 3DRobotics that included an Auto Flight followed by some manual flight in Loiter mode directly after. No heavy wind or outside weather factors to worry about. A nice 70 degree evening here in St. Pete, Florida. Normally I fly the Iris+ with the Tarrot 2D gimbal and a GoPro but thankfully today I did not. I was getting my flight plan ready for a filming I was planning next week and was getting down the flightpath before mapping out the angles of the shots.
After flying in auto mode for the duration of my flight plan, I took over in loiter mode to do a short flight around a fountain I planned to shoot. I had just had the aircraft fly the same path in auto mode and I like to practice my flights manually incase I have to assume control in the middle of a shoot. About halfway through the maneuver the Iris+ started to wobble and descend like it was losing power suddenly. I kicked the throttle to full power and directed the drone away from the water (knowing a crash was almost imminent) but the drone failed to react to the controls and crashed in the lake I was flying over. About 20 feet from shore too. *Insert sad face* The drone now sits at the bottom of the lake in about 10 feet of water. I was unable to recover the aircraft today but and hoping to in the morning.
Attached is a link to the log of the flight. So far looking at the data I cannot see anything to explain the sudden loss of control. The only thing I have really notice was a drop in battery voltage at the end of the flight, but I am unable to tell if this is because of the loss of the aircraft or there really was a sudden loss of battery voltage. The HUD never told me I had less than 70% battery during the flight and even so a loss of battery should have caused a return to launch.
If anyone out there has idea what might have caused this crash, I'll take any input. With all luck I will recover the aircraft in the morning, but with the craft sitting in 10 feet of water for around 18 hours I am assuming a total loss. Sad. This craft seemed so stable in all other flights I've done with it (30+) and it was becoming a workhorse for me.
Thanks to any who help!
Justin
Replies
Switching the topic a little here since I am now in the market for a new drone cause quite frankly I am bored with my phantom and it's too expensive in my opinion to add all the options to make it a "fun" flyer (aka easier to film with such as FPV & groundstation). 3DR Solo or DJI Vision 3?
I'd like to not hold this crash against 3DR as they really do seem to be on the cutting edge of drones and very open with their software. Plus the solo seems to solve some problems the Iris+ had with better internal computing and more FPV options out of the box for filming with my Hero 4 Black.
The DJI integrated camera is nice except I don't like an integrated camera that much. The ability to customize my gimbal and the camera on it is a nice upgrade and even though you may not be able to do that with so much with the Solo, you can customize the settings as you fly which is nice!
Any thoughts?
Hello!
The Exact same thing happened to me today!!
2 Quesitons:
1. How did you get the logs if the iris was in the water?
2. Were you able to get it back?If so what could you recover from it?
Thanks
Daniel
I've had the same thing now 3 times with my Iris+
The first time it suddenly starting dropping altitude and ended up with a hard crash that destroyed a Powershot S100. 3DR claimed the S100 was too heavy for the Iris+...which is untrue - it's lighter than Gimbal + GoPro.
3DR then suggested replacing the ESC - they sent me a replacement board. I swapped it out - and have flown it a dozen times or so since then with no problems at all.
Then, this weekend, twice - within the same flight - I had the same thing happen - the Iris+ just started descending slowly - no matter what controls I put in, it would not gain altitude. In these two instances, for reasons unknown, control authority came back gradually and neither case was a hard crash - but it was very close.
In every case this is on a flight that starts with a fully charged battery, verified with a battery voltage reader before flight, and never more than 2500 mAh into the battery. I have lost all faith in my Iris+ - I simply don't trust it to not crash and take out a $500 GoPro.
I believe there is a systematic problem here - I have read too many reports of this happening to too many Iris+'s.
Did you send 3DR your log? Did they ask for that? I'm just surprised because I've had really good experience with 3DR customer service and warranty.
I sent logs, and they told me to never flight that configuration again ( carrying a payload LIGHTER than the one they'll sell you themselves ) - and then sent a replacement ESC anyway. A contradictory stance. I've not bothered this time yet. I simply don't trust their QC on electronics, or the analysis conducted by their support team.
See pic. It doesn't seem like 3DR did a very good job at looking at the log.
BattFS.jpg
I looked at the log and it simply looks like your battery went dead. Have a look. It dropped from 10v quickly which is what a 3S battery does. It dropped rapidly from there at the same time the altitude dropped. It probably went into fail safe which is why you had no control. Had it not done this you probably would not have know and it would have dropped like a rock from a much higher altitude. I could eb wrong on all of this I'm not an expert but when I see it's in the air and the voltage is under 10 well.... that aint good. Maybe you have a defective battery or put in one not as charged as you thought? I've done that myself on more than one occasion!!
lowbat.jpg
sorry that wasn't a very good pic but the top / brown is your voltage the pink is your altitude.
If you're interested in selling your unreliable IRIS+, PM me. You could recover some of your investment and I could use it for parts etc, even if I can't make it stable.
You're right, my bad.
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