Crashed P3A now the aircraft only beeps loudly. Any ideas?

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I am new to drones and bought a used P3A as my first drone. On my first flight after about 12 minutes the drone went into auto-landing mode after a critical battery warning. It then crashed before completing the auto-landing as the battery apparently gave out. It took a nose dive from about 15 - 20 ft and did a hard face plant hit on the front 2 arms.

Post crash analysis shows that even though the battery reported that at the moment of impact the batteries were supposedly 23% charged, but cells 3 & 4 are bad with voltages of 2.79 and 2.81 while cells 1 & 2 were 3.4 and 3,2 respectively. The visible damage from the crash was one broken propeller, the camera broke free from the drone at the yaw arm and the top shell had damage from a screw being pulled out. I'm waiting for the repair kit for the gimbal and was able make temporary repairs with BJ weld for the screws that were pulled out of the top. A new top is on order.

I had seen videos of P3s flying without the gimbal attached so I tried to see if it would power up and hover. It won't.

Here are the observations when I tried to power on the drone (with a different battery):
  1. Power on - immediatly I can hear a fan running.
  2. A few seconds later the drone starts beeping loudly and constantly at a rate of two beeps per second.
  3. The link indicator is green indicating it links to the RC device.
  4. The led on the gimbal plate is blinking green even though the rest of the gimbal and the camera are not attached.
  5. The "aircraft status indicator lights" - led lights on the bottom side of the arms never light up at all.
I disconnected the two cables to the gimbal body and removed it from the drone and tried again with the same results. Next, I removed the top cover again and inspected the main board for damage and could not find anything with my untrained eyes. Google searches suggested a re-flash so I reconnected the gimbal body, formatted the micro USB and copied the V01.11.0020.bin file to the card and powered on again just to get the same results. This is the same version that was previously on the aircraft.

Now I am at a loss at what else to look for and any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave
 
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KachemakDiver - Thank you.

Yes. Here are the reported errors:
Screenshot_20200625-230534_DJI GO.jpg
 
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Your FC probably isn't working. ESCs are beeping because of no "hello" message received from FC.

Connect your front USB to PC; that will give you virtual UART port. Check whether there are binary packets transferred through that UART (the packets will also contain text messages). You may do that with PuTTY.

If ESCs have no "hello" from MC, each of them is beeping independently; if you leave it on for long enough, they should desynchronize their beeping - they don't have quartz stabilization.

Also, inspect your ESC Center Board for damage.
EDIT: Oh, I see you already did. Good. Make sure you inspected the connections around FC daughterboard.
 
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I am new to drones and bought a used P3A as my first drone. On my first flight after about 12 minutes the drone went into auto-landing mode after a critical battery warning. It then crashed before completing the auto-landing as the battery apparently gave out. It took a nose dive from about 15 - 20 ft and did a hard face plant hit on the front 2 arms.

Post crash analysis shows that even though the battery reported that it was 23% charged, cells 3 & 4 are bad with voltages of 2.79 and 2.81 while cells 1 & 2 were 3.4 and 3,2 respectively. The visible damage from the crash was one broken propeller, the camera broke free from the drone at the yaw arm and the top shell had damage from a screw being pulled out. I'm waiting for the repair kit for the gimbal and was able make temporary repairs with BJ weld for the screws that were pulled out of the top. A new top is on order.

I had seen videos of P3s flying without the gimbal attached so I tried to see if it would power up and hover. It won't.

Here are the observations when I tried to power on the drone (with a different battery):
  1. Power on - immediatly I can hear a fan running.
  2. A few seconds later the drone starts beeping loudly and constantly at a rate of two beeps per second.
  3. The link indicator is green indicating it links to the RC device.
  4. The led on the gimbal plate is blinking green even though the rest of the gimbal and the camera are not attached.
  5. The "aircraft status indicator lights" - led lights on the bottom side of the arms never light up at all.
I disconnected the two cables to the gimbal body and removed it from the drone and tried again with the same results. Next, I removed the top cover again and inspected the main board for damage and could not find anything with my untrained eyes. Google searches suggested a re-flash so I reconnected the gimbal body, formatted the micro USB and copied the V01.11.0020.bin file to the card and powered on again just to get the same results. This is the same version that was previously on the aircraft.

Now I am at a loss at what else to look for and any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave
beeping loudly hmmmm must be in pain lol sorry had to
 
Sorry to hear of your troubles. Once again here's an example of why you should NEVER take off without a fully charged battery.
 
Here are pictures of the front motors, the top and broken propeller. The metal nuts pressed into the top had been partially pulled out. They were gently pressed in except for the one that was too damaged and it was fixed with a dab of JB weld.

Fore port motor.JPG
Fore starbord motor.JPG
Top w GPS.JPG
 

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    Port motor.jpg
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  • Starbord motor.JPG
    Starbord motor.JPG
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  • Fore starboard propeller.JPG
    Fore starboard propeller.JPG
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Sorry to hear of your troubles. Once again here's an example of why you should NEVER take off without a fully charged battery.
The logs from airdata.com show that I started with the battery at 94%. The second paragraph of the original post shows what the actual cell values were at the moment the drone fell from the sky.
 
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Your FC probably isn't working. ESCs are beeping because of no "hello" message received from FC.

Connect your front USB to PC; that will give you virtual UART port. Check whether there are binary packets transferred through that UART (the packets will also contain text messages). You may do that with PuTTY.

If ESCs have no "hello" from MC, each of them is beeping independently; if you leave it on for long enough, they should desynchronize their beeping - they don't have quartz stabilization.

Also, inspect your ESC Center Board for damage.
EDIT: Oh, I see you already did. Good. Make sure you inspected the connections around FC daughterboard.

I downloaded and installed PuTTy but don't know how to use it. I was going to try to be more specific but when I started clicking on the options I knew that I am under water. The documentation didn't help either as I have zero knowledge of Linux.

Do you know of a guide that can show a beginner like me how to look for what you are talking about?

I observed what you stated about the beeping. After leaving it on for several minutes the single beep diverges into four distinct beeps.

How can I get to the FC daughter board to check it?

Thank you for your help.
 
I downloaded and installed PuTTy but don't know how to use it. I was going to try to be more specific but when I started clicking on the options I knew that I am under water. The documentation didn't help either as I have zero knowledge of Linux.

How is Linux related to this? You might've turned in a wrong direction somewhere on the way.

Do you know of a guide that can show a beginner like me how to look for what you are talking about?

I'm sure there are many tutorials for that.
For transmission parameters see:
FC Debug serial interface

How can I get to the FC daughter board to check it?

Torn solder blobs are even visible on the photos you've shared.
P3 Flight Controller aka MC
 
@ quaddamage

Thank you for all of your advice. I borrowed some jewelers magnifying lenses and can see how the 'FC was pushed down breaking several, if not most, solder connections. I also see an indent in the GPS shielding in the top cover.

Looks like it is time to get my vision checked, brush up on disassembly and soldering techniques.
 
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