Fell Out of Sky - Total Loss

[tcope]

Flew my Vision Plus for about 7 months and bought this P2A on release date. Never had any problems... until tonight. Wanted to get some night shots so I drove out and got permission. Set drone up and waited about 45 seconds for it to warm up. Started the motors and got a home lock. Manually launched about 30' in the air and hovered for about 3 seconds. All of a sudden everything shut down. No motors, no lights. Fell right down onto the parking lot. Battery bounced out, camera was ripped off and landing gear was bent.

I've posted the photos of the damage and here is the link to the flight logs.
HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters
Nothing to see as I read it as it was only in the air for about 5 seconds. No errors.

I'm set to fly down to Florida next week and worked the P3 into those plans. Very bad timing. So I think I'm going to buy another one locally before I leave next week. Kills me that I need to spend another $1250 out of my pocket but this is the price paid for such a hobby. I'll be buying from Drone Etc as they are local. They alos give quotes on repairs so I might drop the old one off to them and see if it might be worth repairing to sell. If nothing else, I'll see about getting one with the new motors. I'm one who does not think there is any real difference but it might make me feel a bit better about the purchase. Also, there is a deal right now for a free DJI case and I can save $50 to offset local tax.

 

[RedHotPoker]

Those pictures are an eye sore. Sad to look at.

The hard shell back pack is Ace, but I wouldn't crash my Phantom 3 Pro' just to acquire one. ;-)

Sorry to hear about your disaster.
Hope you're back up and flying once again, real soon.

RedHotPoker

 

[tcope]

The hard shell back pack is Ace, but I wouldn't crash my Phantom 3 Pro' just to acquire one. ;-)

You act like there is some easier way to get the case.

 

[RedHotPoker]

Yes, no indeed. ;-)
I have one of the trouble free drones. No issues.

RedHotPoker

 

[AsiaFlyer]

Yet another crash when taking off on a partially discharged battery, sorry for your loss
From your flight log:
Take off Battery
61%

Some good advice here:
Phantom’s Falling From The Sky | Phantom Addicts

 

[rotax91]

Sorry for your p3 loss. Same thing happened to mine a few weeks back. Completely lost power and dropped to the ground. I notice your take off battery was 61%. There are several discussions on the DJI forums about taking off on a partially charged battery.

 

[RedHotPoker]

You act like there is some easier way to get the case.

No, instead of act, I took pro action.
I bought mine, paid cash. Have the smile to prove it. ;-)

RedHotPoker

 

[tcope]

Yet another crash when taking off on a partially discharged battery, sorry for your loss
From your flight log:
Take off Battery
61%

Some good advice here:
Phantom’s Falling From The Sky | Phantom Addicts

Yup. Don't usually do it. But does not justify entire power loss. I'm not blaming anyone.

 

[alokbhargava]

We are hearing more and more cases of P3 loosing total power suddenly without even sounding any alarm. What's DJI doing about it? My heart burns for such a silly design deficiency.

DJI can you insert an interlock in DJI go app for starting on partially charged batteries until you resolve this issue by mapping the correct battery characteristics at different conditions. It's a request, please take care of your customers.

 

[RedHotPoker]

Why should @dji be responsible to babysit your panty waist? Charge your F'ing (flying) battery before you take off.
That's probably why they included a charger in every kit. ;-)

RedHotPoker

 

[tcope]

Why should @dji be responsible to babysit your panty waist? Charge your F'ing (flying) battery before you take off.
That's probably why they included a charger in every kit. ;-)

So a battery should turn off in flight if it's at 60% charge?

Part of my issue was that the batteries were charged at 100%... it's just that the auto discharge had kicked in and I did not realize it. I do understand alokbhargava's point... if this _is_ an issue, then it should be addressed by DJI. It it comes down to the fact that someone should never start flying at less then 100% battery then a simply solution would be to either install a warning or lock out the flight. There are warnings for other things, such as lack of GPS signal.

 

[phantom13flyer]

We are hearing more and more cases of P3 loosing total power suddenly without even sounding any alarm. What's DJI doing about it? My heart burns for such a silly design deficiency.

DJI can you insert an interlock in DJI go app for starting on partially charged batteries until you resolve this issue by mapping the correct battery characteristics at different conditions. It's a request, please take care of your customers.

No one from dji monitors this forum anymore . I'm afraid your suggestions are falling on deaf ears .

 

[RedHotPoker]

Sorry for sounding harsh, but it's a simple thing to turn on the radio controller, your drone then your device, open the Go app, and check your battery situations. This all, before going flying. And charge them back up to 100% capacity, accordingly. How long could it possibly take? I divide that time by 1/2, with two 100w chargers.

I can only smile, with the various reasoning you fellas come up with, to justify, why you took off with an intelligent flight battery that should have been charged back up, first. ;-)

Yes, I believe you, but Oh-no, you shouldn't have done the deed. Ha

RedHotPoker

 

[RedHotPoker]

No one from dji monitors this forum anymore . I'm afraid your suggestions are falling on deaf ears .

Yes, but who's at fault, for that circumstance?
A forum moderator, told @Tahoe_Ed he had no authority here.
So he merrily walked out the forum entrance.
He Didn't look over his shoulder.

RedHotPoker

 

[Adil J]

Sorry for sounding harsh, but it's a simple thing to turn on the radio controller, your drone then your device, open the Go app, and check your battery situations. This all, before going flying. And charge them back up to 100% capacity, accordingly. How long could it possibly take? I devide that time by 1/2, with two 100w chargers.

I can only smile, with the various reasoning you fellas come up with, to justify, why you took off with an intelligent flight battery that should have been charged back up, first. ;-)

Yes, I believe you, but Oh-no, you shouldn't have done the deed. Ha

RedHotPoker

I'm hoping the 100% charge only applies to the first takeoff, I usually land a few times during one session, that shouldn't matter right?

 

[RedHotPoker]

I 'think', once the battery is sufficiently warmed up from flying, or just running, it should be safer than a cold one at the same low voltages.
It's recommended to let a cold bird hover a minute or so always, to let it warm up a hot minute, and watch for any unusual or erratic behavior before venturing off into the wild blue yonder, above. It's well worth the extra effort.;-)

But why are you landing several times per session? Just go up and complete a battery worth of air time. It's marvelous, exhiliarating, a feeling of euphoria, phantasmagoria, or in French FanTuckingFastic!!



RedHotPoker

 

[alokbhargava]

Why should @dji be responsible to babysit your panty waist? Charge your F'ing (flying) battery before you take off.
That's probably why they included a charger in every kit. ;-)

RedHotPoker

You will realize when your panty drops off in the open

Back to the point: there are chances that some one misses a check sometimes and the penalty should not be that heavy if our dear software engineers can plug few auto checks. This is my point and not a baby sitting. We are talking about a professional product and not something designed in a corner of a lab.

 

[AsiaFlyer]

I'm hoping the 100% charge only applies to the first takeoff, I usually land a few times during one session, that shouldn't matter right?

I leave it switched on if I have to land to be on the safe side, if I switch it off I always put in a fully charged battery in, from all the research I have done it is normally batteries that have gone in auto discharge that have the problems but not in every case. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

[RedHotPoker]

You will realize when your panty drops off in the open .

Gosh, I hope so. Hahaha
I do realize it can be a major headache for some folks to RTFM.

But it does recommend some pretty key rules and swell methods to increase your chances of flying another day. ;-)
And in keeping those frilly knickers in place.

If they added any unique safety measures, it would have to be user friendly & perhaps adjustable. That would entail reading more pages of text/script. ;-)

RedHotPoker

 

[TC Malker]

I'm the battery expert, so listen to me. I assume this was stock battery, the one you had for approx 6 months? How many times did you charged it and what was the battery health?