Erratic P3A - What might be wrong here?

[sharper4]

I had 50 pre-upgrade flights without any issues. Then my iOS version upgraded just before I went on vacation so I also updated the firmware. I took a few test flights before leaving and everything seemed fine. In fact, I took the P3 up on 3 20-min flights on the same day it started acting up. But on the below shown flight below, I took it up to catch us jumping off the top of the boat and it sorta just started to 'twitch'. It fell about 5-10' on two occasions before I brought it in for the day. Scary considering it was only about 20' up, and over the ocean, when it happened.

A couple days later, I took it out again to follow a pod of dolphins and about 12 mins into that flight, I noticed that it would suddenly jerk the yaw extraordinarily fast to the side. In the below video, I never yawed to the right (3 times in a row, it did it on its own).

Lastly, I've also noticed that only recently, when I tilt left or right, the gimbal doesn't always react and catch up. Sometimes the view is perfectly level and nothing is wrong but other times it tilts with the bird and looks silly on video. Never had either of these issues pre-firmware upgrade (although I'm not really blaming the upgrade, just the timing of it).

Can anyone make heads or tails of any of this? I'm sorry for the quality on these videos ... they were taken from the DJI app and not the SD card.

 

[Alex_]

In the first video did you see the phantom twitch? Or is it possible that it was just the gimbal acting crazy? The second two videos seems like they could be gimbal glitches.

 

[J0ck0]

the third one looks like the Gimbal Mode in settings was set to FPV rather than Follow. i had it happen to me during one flight even though i had never set it that way.

 

[sharper4]

I watched it twitch. In fact, it falls almost completely sideways before amazingly recovering. I don't have a video watching it, but it *looks* sort of like a rock hit the corner and caused it to fall or one of the motors stops spinning for a split second - neither of which occurred but might give you an idea to what it looked like to watch.

Someone else mentioned perhaps I accidentally hit the C2 button on the last video, so I'm hopeful that maybe it's just user-error for it. But the first two certainly have something wrong that is causing the bird to change direction so suddenly (without input that type of input) or to fall for a split second before recovering.

 

[bbfpv]

did you disable VPS?

 

[adrian.ahonk]

Try IMU callibration

 

[J0ck0]

you should upload your flight records for those flights to www.healthydrones.com and view the results.

 

[tgarcia]

Maybe a bad motor if it falls to one side. Is it falling to the same side every time?

 

[sharper4]

I will see how to pull the logs from my iPad to put on the HeathyDrones site, that's a good idea (esp if I can do it directly from the iPad). It doesn't do it every time and I'm not sure that it's doing it the same direction. I will also do another IMU calibration. VPS isn't disabled - I never have disabled it though.

 

[Altanore]

I will see how to pull the logs from my iPad to put on the HeathyDrones site, that's a good idea (esp if I can do it directly from the iPad). It doesn't do it every time and I'm not sure that it's doing it the same direction. I will also do another IMU calibration. VPS isn't disabled - I never have disabled it though.

It has always been recommended to turn off VPS over water as it is likely to not work correctly.

 

[tgarcia]

I will see how to pull the logs from my iPad to put on the HeathyDrones site, that's a good idea (esp if I can do it directly from the iPad). It doesn't do it every time and I'm not sure that it's doing it the same direction. I will also do another IMU calibration. VPS isn't disabled - I never have disabled it though.

Wasn't one of your videos shot in your backyard. I dout its your VPS if it does it over land. In my opinion I think you would have to be pretty close to the water to confuse the VPS. I still think it may be a motor quitting on you. Be careful about flying high or into unknown territory.