143km in 6 days and dead. Pushed it too hard?

[EPT160]

I'm on my 3rd P3P.. here's a story.

I got my first P2V+ last year in May. It flew flawlessly for 8 months until I took it on a hike in the hills and it had a complete power loss falling out of the sky high up the side of an inaccessible valley. Could not recover it so I assume it was a complete power loss. Cue an insurance claim.

My replacement P2V+ again flew perfectly all over NZ and came with to Palau and Yap - No problems at all. I sold it to upgrade to the P3P in May (I nabbed the first one in NZ). It flew perfectly until a recent trip to Fiji - trying to bring it down too close to some palm trees which blew into the P3 resulting in a 10m fall to concrete and lots of little pieces - cue travel insurance!

P3 No. 2 lasted 6 days of flying but it was working hard. 8 hours and 143km in 32 flights (and around 7000 photos) doing aerial photos for infrastructure projects in Fiji. It was way out over the jungle when it started spinning and falling. Found it after hours of searching - trashed but still had the props on. I can only assume a motor or ESC failure. DJI have been sitting on the logs for 3 weeks now (apparently they were shut down for a holiday) but I am expecting a warranty replacement. It was only 16 days old when it dropped.

P3 No. 3 now has 50km on it - 18 flights in 10 days. I'm taking it a little slower with this one.

Any reason to suspect that you can work these birds too hard? I hope that I just got a bad one. What kind of life span can we realistically expect from the components?

Cheers

Were you staying in an air conditioned hotel while in Fiji?

Did you let the P3 acclimatise before take off ... at least 1 hour to get to ambient temp?

I guess that the electrical contacts became wet with condensation and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> down she came!

 

[HacKiwi]

Were you staying in an air conditioned hotel while in Fiji?

Did you let the P3 acclimatise before take off ... at least 1 hour to get to ambient temp?

I guess that the electrical contacts became wet with condensation and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> down she came!

No air-con. Just our apartment. Temps in the evening were reasonable 23C ish. Humidity in Suva is very high. Maybe this has something to do with it.

 

[EPT160]

Condensation is a big problem with my camera/video equipment, especially working in a high humidity place like Indonesia. If you have a very early morning start you have to take steps to not let the equipment get to cold. It can take an hour or more for the equipment to reach ambient temp.

If you make the mistake of changing a lens, the interior of cameras, including the mirrors, sensor, view finder can get covered with moisture. The bigger 'L' series Canon lenses, with large elements can take even longer to stabilize (It is why I do use UV/Skylight filers on all my lenses, you can rub them hard to clean and not worry - re: another thread on filters).

I guess that the battery contact points would be most at risk, as the internal soldered joints should all be OK. As the battery warms up it may also influence the outcome - not sure if it would make it better or worse. But any plug in type connector would be at risk.

 

[Simonb3526]

Back to the original post. Dare I say that type of use warrants a bigger better system? It's a bit like driving across Europe in a Citroen CV. You can do it but there are better options for the job. P3 is a hobby drone really, but fair play to DJI. Seems their response and service is improving.

 

[Yeager74]

It's a bit like driving across Europe in a Citroen CV

Did u mean to say 2CV? ;-) That's actually made for pro's (farmer pro's that is!)