Dropped out of sky, at 300 feet. Should I repair?

[Jmlcolorado]

worse intro thread ever.
I hadn't flown the drone for about 3 weeks. I checked the battery and it showed 67%. Figured I had enough for a few minutes of flight.
It warmed up as normal, auto took off like normal. Everything seemed good, so I gained altitude.
Got to about 300' when I got critical battery alert. At that point, the thing went quite. I looked up to see where it was just in time to see the white blur hit the asphalt.

It didn't fair well. Camera broke completely off, lots of other loose parts hanging around.
Inside the battery compartment, I can see a board broke loose from the main board, als lots of loose white plastic frame work.

It this even worth a rebuild? My concern is I don't trust the solder joints on the boards anymore with that hard of an impact.
If a rebuild is conceivabe, where would I begin finding parts?

 

[msinger]

You can find all of the available replacement parts here. DJI does not offer certain parts (e.g. the battery compartment), so you might have to pick up parts from other wrecked Phantoms on eBay.

While it's possible to rebuild anything, your money will be better spent on a brand new Phantom if there really is as much carnage as you're describing. The camera/gimbal alone will cost about half the price of a new Phantom.

 

[kirk2579]

sorry for your loss that sucks.

check B&H used , bunch of good stuff today


ANOTHER flight on less than full battery that ends up in a crash! DO NOT TRUST THE %

FOLKS DO NOT TAKE OFF with less than full or darn near full battery no matter what some say.

why risk the quad I have read this same line over and over and over,

just for a short flight....... crash

 

[Jmlcolorado]

sorry for your loss that sucks.

check B&H used , bunch of good stuff today


ANOTHER flight on less than full battery that ends up in a crash! DO NOT TRUST THE %

FOLKS DO NOT TAKE OFF with less than full or darn near full battery no matter what some say.

why risk the quad I have read this same line over and over and over,

just for a short flight....... crash

Tough lesson learned. At least I know better now. Only makes for a better pilot later anyways.

 

[Jmlcolorado]

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That's amazing advice! I had no idea the health of my skin would effect flight.
Next time I'll shower before flight. It'll save a lot of money down the road.

 

[jason]

Tough lesson learned. At least I know better now. Only makes for a better pilot later anyways.

You didn't mention which product it was that you were flying. Was it a P2 or P3??

 

[yorlik]

how old is it? consider getting an rma for warranty repair try? if so, tell us, share the last video for ideas what to say in rma report..... we had one of our 2 fall and with proper documentation they repaired it under warranty... worth a try?

 

[Jmlcolorado]

You didn't mention which product it was that you were flying. Was it a P2 or P3??

My apologies.
The unit is a P3.

 

[Jmlcolorado]

how old is it? consider getting an rma for warranty repair try? if so, tell us, share the last video for ideas what to say in rma report..... we had one of our 2 fall and with proper documentation they repaired it under warranty... worth a try?

I am unfamiliar of what an RMA is. It's a fairly new unit, though I bought it second hand.
However, I have logged more flight time than the previous owner did in the months he had it.
Unfortunately, I had not started recording video at the time of flight. I was approximately 1 minute into flight prior to failure.

 

[jason]

I am unfamiliar of what an RMA is. It's a fairly new unit, though I bought it second hand.
However, I have logged more flight time than the previous owner did in the months he had it.
Unfortunately, I had not started recording video at the time of flight. I was approximately 1 minute into flight prior to failure.

RMA means return merchandise authorization

 

[Mark The Droner]

Can you tell us more about the battery? Thanks

 

[kphantom]

sorry for your loss that sucks.

check B&H used , bunch of good stuff today


ANOTHER flight on less than full battery that ends up in a crash! DO NOT TRUST THE %

FOLKS DO NOT TAKE OFF with less than full or darn near full battery no matter what some say.

why risk the quad I have read this same line over and over and over,

just for a short flight....... crash

I've read the same story often too. But I wonder why the obviously false battery readings? This is a bug, and DJI should replace/repair Phantoms that crash like this.

 

[Jmlcolorado]

Can you tell us more about the battery? Thanks

What would you like to know about it?

I did leave the battery on the craft for the few weeks it wasn't in flight. Craft was stored in a garage, with temps no lower than 40* for a couple days. Otherwise in the 50-60* temps.
At initial startup, it showed 67%.
I didn't notice what the battery reading was at takeoff.
I did check the battery level before power up and it showed 3 bars.

 

[Mark The Droner]

It sounds like you have a relatively new Phantom, so maybe most of what I have to say doesn't apply.

I've noticed that one of the common denominators in crashes like this is old batteries. It's rare for a battery to give up like this when it is relatively new or has 90% of life left. From posts I've read, most of the crashes like this are from batteries that have a life of at least in the mid 80s percentagewise.

Also - what about break in? Did you do the 10-10 break-in that I saw posted on youtube by dronecampsrc? That's 10 flights for 10 minutes each for a new battery. This is supposed to add life to your battery.

What about battery health? Did you do the discharge to below 8% every 20 cycles as recommended?

Another point is that you took off with less than a fully charged battery. I can't speak for a P3, but there's a sticker on the bottom of my Vision which specifically states that one should not launch without a fully charged battery.

Is it possible you had a bad battery and didn't know it? Did you notice the individual cell charges when you hooked the P3 up to your assistant software? If one of the cell charges is far apart from the others, that's a clue that there may be trouble ahead.

Sorry for your loss.