BAD NEWS !!!

[wildcatter]

Well today I went for a flight, was about 400 feet high and about 100 feet away when I lost battery , went to 0. then lost signal. phantom climbed higher and flew away. I switched to return mode and waited, no phantom. I hit find my phantom, it gave me the location, no where to be found. I was in a open field, no tall trees or grass. Never found it, scratch 1 phantom.... :roll:

 

[coloradosky]

Well today I went for a flight, was about 400 feet high and about 100 feet away when I lost battery , went to 0. then lost signal. phantom climbed higher and flew away. I switched to return mode and waited, no phantom. I hit find my phantom, it gave me the location, no where to be found. I was in a open field, no tall trees or grass. Never found it, scratch 1 phantom.... :roll:

That does suck a LOT. All of this talk honestly makes me more than hesitant about flying any distance away- although I guess it doesn't matter :?:

1- I would imagine there's someone working on the issue that keeps coming up on the DJI team; I would call/contact persistently until you have first name relationships to establish what the plan is for this recurring issue, and your lost soul.

2- We may all consider the tip I read somewhere earlier today about a hundred dollar GPS tracker being added. You may be able to make more headway with parts of a crash than nothing at all.

Anyone have recommendations on small trackers that have worked for you?

That SUCKS. Sorry to hear.

:evil:

 

[wildcatter]

It was 20 degrees and I do use a garmin but I got complacent and did not put it on today. Dam the luck.

 

[wildcatter]

thats the plan but we have about 3 inchs of snow, it will be hard to see.

 

[BenDronePilot]

Well today I went for a flight, was about 400 feet high and about 100 feet away when I lost battery , went to 0. then lost signal. phantom climbed higher and flew away. I switched to return mode and waited, no phantom. I hit find my phantom, it gave me the location, no where to be found. I was in a open field, no tall trees or grass. Never found it, scratch 1 phantom.... :roll:

It's rather shocking and sad to see these "fly aways" still happening despite recent firmware updates. The "find my phantom" button only gives you the last known location while you had an active wifi connection going to your Phantom.

It may be good practice in the event anyone else has this happen is to try to point your wifi antenna right at your Phantom 2 Vision as long as possible to maintain wifi / gps positional location within the app.

If you have any idea how much battery life was left you can also guesstimate the possible distance it could have traveled. If you had half charge left the travel radius isn't likely more than 4 miles. Though most likely not more than a mile considering other fail-safes. For example if some other form of interference took over your Phantom it would have realized somewhere within 10 seconds time and automatically brought it to home position should GPS have been locked. On the other hand if battery was too low it may have simply Auto landed after flying not more than a mile or so around where you were flying.

I hope you had your name / number attached to the Phantom so if someone else were to have found it you have some chance they may contact you.

I wish you best of luck in finding your P2V, though worst case scenario you don't find it, do you plan to purchase another? or will you pass and move on to something else or just wait for additional firmware updates before reconsidering? Just curious, and again best of luck in your recovery efforts.

 

[Gizmo3000]

Well today I went for a flight, was about 400 feet high and about 100 feet away when I lost battery , went to 0. then lost signal. phantom climbed higher and flew away. I switched to return mode and waited, no phantom. I hit find my phantom, it gave me the location, no where to be found. I was in a open field, no tall trees or grass. Never found it, scratch 1 phantom.... :roll:

I don't quite follow, how was battery "lost"?

hopefully someone will find it and return it to you.

 

[James Cole]

Yes.. want to know as well... don't understand what happened

 

[race3]

Did you have the latest firmware installed?

 

[drone4me]

wow. sorry to hear that. seriously, what causes these flyaways? does another signal intercept the control signal? Is there a way you can do a authentication handshake to make sure foreign signals cannot just cut right in?

 

[garygid]

Did you have an all green GPS lock before you took off?

If it did actually lose the control signal, and was attempting
to fly home, perhaps it thought home was far away and higher?

Or, somebody with a junior-jammer kit told it to climb
and fly in a single direction, like both sticks jammed up?

Good question, can another control signal from a ringing
wireless phone in somebody's house "jam" the P2V's control
receiver signal or softwwre?

 

[IAP]

Sorry to hear this.

RE Jamming, DJI installed a 'discriminator' in the flight firmware update to detect a jamming signal. If the signal stays for more than 10 seconds the Phantom Vision will go in to fly home mode.

When I entered into this realm I allocated funds for two Phantom's, so if or when goes down for good, I have a backup plan.
Call it a 'one for one' insurance policy and it allows me to fly with much more enjoyment.

I hope there is a happy outcome in the search and rescue mission.

 

[gpauk]

Yes, there are known ways of preventing fly-aways... What we need is dji to implement them. To be fair, some of that technology is patented, so there will be licensing issues and therefore a cost to us!

 

[Sidewinder]

I don't quite follow, how was battery "lost"?

hopefully someone will find it and return it to you.

I think the term "lost" is just a figure of speech. Like I lost oil pressure and the engine failed. He is talking about battery power as in "it went to zero".

I'm thinking about putting an AR8000 in my new P2 when it arrives and binding it to my DX8. I understand those who have changed over the the Futaba setup have experienced no flyaways. Couldn't do that with a Vision as it is using 5.8Ghz for control. Lots of goofy stuff with this Vision, that's why I returned mine in favor of a P2. (Now I get to be a guinea pig all over again)

 

[iDrone]

Wildcatter this is exactly what I'm worried about, see posts here:
http://phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4710

Geert, I'm with you... I don't feel confident flying this thing right now. Makes me wanna tie a fishing line on it every time I fly it!

iDrone

 

[UAVInsurance]

These reports are now just starting to make me angry. The first PV I had, crashed due to a battery error even after installing all updates. I loaded every firmware update including the transmitter and all were the most current.

The second PV 2 that I bought from a different dealer, was completely updated from the factory, and I was assured would be problem free, flew fine the first flight and then each flight after that started to have problems that became progressively worse. Those problems removed all confidence in this product.

The problems started with an "Invalid Battery" error and expanded into a loud Klaxon battery alert and flashing battery lights and app screen warning at 51% battery and then went into a VERY FAST descent even under full power input from the transmitter. The motors still had power but were basically at idle. Fortunately I was so wary of these things crashing and flying away, that I kept it close by and fairly low (about 20 feet) and was able to get beneath it and catch it before it hit the ground.

I'm fed up.

 

[wildcatter]

SUCCESS ! ! ! , I found my babe..... lost 3 props but all else looks good. Letting her warm up and dry on the heat register. even the battery is taking a charge. I should have bought a lottery ticket, I am one lucky dog.

 

[Bigvern]

Well done

 

[amrflyingdude]

SUCCESS ! ! ! , I found my babe..... lost 3 props but all else looks good. Letting her warm up and dry on the heat register. even the battery is taking a charge. I should have bought a lottery ticket, I am one lucky dog.

Im glad for you my friend!

 

[wildcatter]

Thanks fellas

 

[iDrone]

What a relief, it's good to hear some good news for a change.

iDrone