Beginning to hate phantoms ...

[aPpYe]

This is the THIRD time this has happened to me with a Phantom 4 pro. Twice with my original obsidian, and now once again with the white one a repair place sent to me as a replacement. Basically, I have the drone flying around somewhere, the connection with the controller is suddenly lost and the stupid thing never returns. It seems it lost power spontaneously and fell out of the sky. My Mavic 2 Zoom has never done anything like this to me in the hundreds of hours I have had it in the air, yet here I am for a THIRD time with a P4P that suddenly blinked out never to return. I think I would be lucky to say I have logged more than 20 hours on a P4P's due to this issue, though I have had them broken and useless in my closet for well over a year now. It wasn't even that far out this time, and it did not crash into anything. It just blinked out and I found it broken and useless on the ground, the battery popped out and the gimbal ripped off.

I am hoping someone can take a look at the logs and can provide some insight? I am wanting to see if this issue was due to a spontaneous power loss (perhaps the battery popped out in mid air), or if it was an overloaded ESC or something. In the link below, you should be able to see both the log from the controller, and the exported log from the drone itself.

Drone Logs - Google Drive

drive.google.com

So frustrating.

 

[Fly Dawg]

I am wanting to see if this issue was due to a spontaneous power loss (perhaps the battery popped out in mid air), or if it was an overloaded ESC or something.

There is nothing that indicates a problem in the .txt log, other than signal loss. The Dat file is not extracted correctly. You need FLY090.dat.

 

[aPpYe]

Should I try to extract it again? Or should I just share the file straight from the drone? Or is the file going to be irreparably damaged if the drone did just lose power?

 

[Fly Dawg]

Should I try to extract it again?

I don't use DJI Assistant, but usually I can extract them. Let me ask @BudWalker if he can provide more information for you. It is possible the file could be corrupted, if the power loss did not close it correctly.

 

[BudWalker]

This is the THIRD time this has happened to me with a Phantom 4 pro. Twice with my original obsidian, and now once again with the white one a repair place sent to me as a replacement. Basically, I have the drone flying around somewhere, the connection with the controller is suddenly lost and the stupid thing never returns. It seems it lost power spontaneously and fell out of the sky. My Mavic 2 Zoom has never done anything like this to me in the hundreds of hours I have had it in the air, yet here I am for a THIRD time with a P4P that suddenly blinked out never to return. I think I would be lucky to say I have logged more than 20 hours on a P4P's due to this issue, though I have had them broken and useless in my closet for well over a year now. It wasn't even that far out this time, and it did not crash into anything. It just blinked out and I found it broken and useless on the ground, the battery popped out and the gimbal ripped off.

I am hoping someone can take a look at the logs and can provide some insight? I am wanting to see if this issue was due to a spontaneous power loss (perhaps the battery popped out in mid air), or if it was an overloaded ESC or something. In the link below, you should be able to see both the log from the controller, and the exported log from the drone itself.

Drone Logs - Google Drive

drive.google.com

So frustrating.

EDIT: OOps, below is from your flight on 2018-04-14. I keep all the .DATs that I've looked at and managed to be looking your previous incident. See post #7 below for the incident in this thread.
It does appear that there was an abrupt power loss. This can be seen by looking at the motor volts data which is faster than the battery data. At the very end the voltage was about 14.3 volts and then collapsed to about 7 volts.

In addition the .DAT file itself was corrupted. This is indicative of an abrupt power loss most likely caused by the battery being dislodged.

The recording terminates at 421 secs but the file isn't closed properly due to the power loss. There is a bit of data left over from the previous file that occupied this portion of the disk. The above graph shows that previous data on the far right. If CsvView weren't so lame it would show a gap between the actual data on the left and the left over data on the right.

 

[BudWalker]

There is nothing that indicates a problem in the .txt log, other than signal loss. The Dat file is not extracted correctly. You need FLY090.dat.

The extracted .DAT - the one posted by @aPpYe - isn't corrupted. Are you using version 1.4.2 of ExtractDJI?

 

[BudWalker]

This is the THIRD time this has happened to me with a Phantom 4 pro. Twice with my original obsidian, and now once again with the white one a repair place sent to me as a replacement. Basically, I have the drone flying around somewhere, the connection with the controller is suddenly lost and the stupid thing never returns. It seems it lost power spontaneously and fell out of the sky. My Mavic 2 Zoom has never done anything like this to me in the hundreds of hours I have had it in the air, yet here I am for a THIRD time with a P4P that suddenly blinked out never to return. I think I would be lucky to say I have logged more than 20 hours on a P4P's due to this issue, though I have had them broken and useless in my closet for well over a year now. It wasn't even that far out this time, and it did not crash into anything. It just blinked out and I found it broken and useless on the ground, the battery popped out and the gimbal ripped off.

I am hoping someone can take a look at the logs and can provide some insight? I am wanting to see if this issue was due to a spontaneous power loss (perhaps the battery popped out in mid air), or if it was an overloaded ESC or something. In the link below, you should be able to see both the log from the controller, and the exported log from the drone itself.

Drone Logs - Google Drive

drive.google.com

So frustrating.

This flight dated 2019-4-20 (the incident in this thread) suffered from an abrupt power loss - either a battery failure or the battery coming loose. At the very end the motor volts collapsed from about 15 volts to about 6 volts.

You're right - you do seem to have bad luck with the P4P abrupt power loss problem.

 

[bhartwell]

Out of curiosity, if the voltage dropped suddenly, but was not zero, would this indicate a battery issue vs a disconnect. If the battery literally fell out or some how disconnected mid-flight, wouldn’t the voltage drop immediately to zero?

 

[BudWalker]

Out of curiosity, if the voltage dropped suddenly, but was not zero, would this indicate a battery issue vs a disconnect. If the battery literally fell out or some how disconnected mid-flight, wouldn’t the voltage drop immediately to zero?

The prevailing view is that the voltage is on it's way to collapsing to 0.0 but the recording stops before it gets to 0.0.

 

[Capt KO]

DJI Batteries or aftermarket? If aftermarket what brand

 

[aPpYe]

DJI battery. Thanks for the help guys. I figured this was what happened. Stupid design I guess. I have officially put more money into repairs than it is worth. Maybe I'll add this guy to today's burn pile ...

 

[Adamborz]

I use all DJI batteries in my P4P+. They all seem to fit with different degree of tightness. 1 is rock solid, doesn’t move. The 1 I have can be moved around even when locked in. I just bought a obsidian DJI battery because DJI is out of stock on the white ones (WTF?) and it fits the tightest. Maybe because it’s new?

I’m going to be paying close attention to this issue... sorry you had so many issues

 

[Fly Dawg]

Are you using version 1.4.2 of ExtractDJI?

No, I am using 1.3....but will update. Thanks for the info...

 

[SeattleDrone]

i have notice that on my P4a that sometimes the battery makes a clicking sound when I put it in but I notice a small gap between the battery and the drone, I remove and reinsert the battery a little harder to get a tight fit, I will keep an eye to this more too

 

[aPpYe]

I use all DJI batteries in my P4P+. They all seem to fit with different degree of tightness. 1 is rock solid, doesn’t move. The 1 I have can be moved around even when locked in. I just bought a obsidian DJI battery because DJI is out of stock on the white ones (WTF?) and it fits the tightest. Maybe because it’s new?

I’m going to be paying close attention to this issue... sorry you had so many issues

This particular battery (an obsidian battery in a white drone) fits really tight, much tighter than it did in my obsidian. Oh well. The drone probably still flies... Perhaps I will ram it into a tree or something.

 

[Deleted member 62848]

This particular battery (an obsidian battery in a white drone) fits really tight, much tighter than it did in my obsidian. Oh well. The drone probably still flies... Perhaps I will ram it into a tree or something.

Please record if you do that,,I hope you dont but very easy for these phantoms to push our angry button and lose patience,,I give my old p3s a boot across driveway at me old house cause I got mad ,,there was nothing wrong with it ,still flys to this day ,was good kick too,,I don't think it the batteries at fault moving,,some phantoms (p4 range) have that stupid curve in rear shell which batt no sit flush with,,that where design flaw lies,the shape even when clipped in is not secure,,my p4 had some play here too,,,,don't get mad with it it don't help nothing,,me and my attitude I know I have broken heaps of stuff in anger and just gets you down,,,don't let it beat you,,we to good for that,
As I been told take deep breath and have coffee and smoke ,,
Best of luck

 

[aPpYe]

I'll record it! As for attitude, I am just done with the **** thing. I don't know for sure if it will fly but it probably will. I am just done with the P4P and no way will I trust it anymore. I was able to put in the battery and connect to it with the r/c ... I will see if it flies and if it does ... SMASH!

 

[Uncle Stumpy]

What are the odds that a battery will literally just fall out of the drone? There is a latch on the top AND bottom of the battery. I tried to put the battery in as loosely as I could and I still couldn’t yank it out. Defective battery latches? I wonder how many guys have actually experienced this. The number has to be tiny.

 

[Fly Dawg]

I wonder how many guys have actually experienced this. The number has to be tiny.

Actually more than you would think. Consider this point for instance. The P4 v2 has a latch sensor added to the battery compartment. Why else would they add this, if there were not instances where the battery was not inserted and latched correctly. Just food for thought there.

 

[drvrbobob]

Sorry you had so many problems but it does sound like the battery latch could be the issue or at least one of them but in the event that you do crash and burn it and have a p4p controller for sale please post it.