Fly Away, Poor DJI customer service response

[mstuart]

I had updated the firmware on the Phantom 2 Vision Central Board to V1.0.1.18, and used had also updated the IOS version to
iOS App V1.0.30 about 2 weeks, ago, this was probably the 12th or so flight I had with the DJI Vision.
I had done an advanced calibration after doing the firmware, and have been doing a compass calibration on every flight, 2 weeks ago, I launched it from my roofdeck, and sensed something was wrong, it was wobbling, and spiralling aggresively, knowing I was in an urban area, turning off the transmitter, so that it would return back to the launch area - might not be such a good idea, since it may have collided with a tree.

About 23 seconds in, very aggressive spirals started to occur, I tried to send it higher, so that it would not smash into a side of the building, no luck. at 43 seconds, the DJI Phantom Vision very aggressively spiraled out, and I was unable to control it at all.

It smasehd into a tree, where it is still in the branches, I went to the base of the tree, and I have the camera, that broke from the unit. It's all I have left.

I contacted Dronefly, and have not gotten any response, I was told to fill out a .pdf incident report, and return it to Dronefly.com, I also contacted DJI Support and have not heard any response, not even an acknowledgement that they have received anything from Dronefly. It's been almost 2 weeks since the accident, and definitely sense a dragging out of the process to deal with this.

Here is the footage taken on the 3rd or 4th flight, prior to the firmware upgrade, where everything worked


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awu05bp1nKI[/youtube]

And here is the clip from the crash, retrieved from the camera

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvBB8qmhnSk[/youtube]

I get the sinking feeling I am getting the blow off from DJI, has anyone had any luck, after a crash in dealing with either DroneFly or DJI ? Or am I out of luck ?

Bummed in Portland, since we have snow, and had gotten this to do vids of the snowboarding season

Marc

 

[kenskid]

I have had two incidents with my Phantom. Not vision. However, I can't rule out human error in either.

I hate to say it but you might get slammed on this forum for flying in an urban. Look up one of my recent entries about one of my crashes.

The first thing that you will hear is that there was some kind of interference from the buildings: wifi, microwaves, cell towers etc. and that may be true but there will be no sympathy from anyone.

I hate to say it but you better get up that tree because you won't hear a thing from DJI or Dronefly on this. I've never heard one instance where someone had a flyaway and was compensated for the loss.

I had updated the firmware on the Phantom 2 Vision Central Board to V1.0.1.18, and used had also updated the IOS version to
iOS App V1.0.30 about 2 weeks, ago, this was probably the 12th or so flight I had with the DJI Vision.
I had done an advanced calibration after doing the firmware, and have been doing a compass calibration on every flight, 2 weeks ago, I launched it from my roofdeck, and sensed something was wrong, it was wobbling, and spiralling aggresively, knowing I was in an urban area, turning off the transmitter, so that it would return back to the launch area - might not be such a good idea, since it may have collided with a tree.

About 23 seconds in, very aggressive spirals started to occur, I tried to send it higher, so that it would not smash into a side of the building, no luck. at 43 seconds, the DJI Phantom Vision very aggressively spiraled out, and I was unable to control it at all.

It smasehd into a tree, where it is still in the branches, I went to the base of the tree, and I have the camera, that broke from the unit. It's all I have left.

I contacted Dronefly, and have not gotten any response, I was told to fill out a .pdf incident report, and return it to Dronefly.com, I also contacted DJI Support and have not heard any response, not even an acknowledgement that they have received anything from Dronefly. It's been almost 2 weeks since the accident, and definitely sense a dragging out of the process to deal with this.

Here is the footage taken on the 3rd or 4th flight, prior to the firmware upgrade, where everything worked


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awu05bp1nKI[/youtube]

And here is the clip from the crash, retrieved from the camera

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvBB8qmhnSk[/youtube]

I get the sinking feeling I am getting the blow off from DJI, has anyone had any luck, after a crash in dealing with either DroneFly or DJI ? Or am I out of luck ?

Bummed in Portland, since we have snow, and had gotten this to do vids of the snowboarding season

Marc

 

[Pull_Up]

That rotating flight pattern (even when you were trying to correct with stick inputs) looks like compass getting confused to me. From page 29 of the Manual:

(1) DO NOT calibrate your compass where there is a possibility for the existence of strong magnetic
interference such as magnetite, parking structures, and steel reinforcement underground.
(2) DO NOT carry ferromagnetic materials with you during calibration such as keys or cellular phones.
(3) Compass Calibration is very important; otherwise the flight control system will not work properly.

Calibration Procedures
Choose an open space to carry out the following procedures...

I think calibrating it on your roof deck was what may have caused this, you got away with it the previous times. The way it's flying in spirals seems to me like the so-called "toilet bowl effect" which is symptomatic of misaligned - or miscalibrated - compasses. Sadly I think the dealer and manufacturer would have every right to class this one as user error. Still worth trying to retrieve the aircraft - spares are starting to become available now.

 

[kenskid]

So that toilet bowl thing is due to compass error? One of my few REAL crashes had the classic toilet effect. I'll try to dig out the vid.

That rotating flight pattern (even when you were trying to correct with stick inputs) looks like compass getting confused to me. From page 29 of the Manual:

(1) DO NOT calibrate your compass where there is a possibility for the existence of strong magnetic
interference such as magnetite, parking structures, and steel reinforcement underground.
(2) DO NOT carry ferromagnetic materials with you during calibration such as keys or cellular phones.
(3) Compass Calibration is very important; otherwise the flight control system will not work properly.

Calibration Procedures
Choose an open space to carry out the following procedures...

I think calibrating it on your roof deck was what may have caused this, you got away with it the previous times. The way it's flying in spirals seems to me like the so-called "toilet bowl effect" which is symptomatic of misaligned - or miscalibrated - compasses. Sadly I think the dealer and manufacturer would have every right to class this one as user error. Still worth trying to retrieve the aircraft - spares are starting to become available now.

 

[Migmon]

sounds like a lot of people are doing advanced calibrations and having problems afterwards... what made you decide to do that? was it not operating properly or you just wanted to do it for fun? im just trying to figure out if its the culprit somehow.

 

[Dave Pitman]

Sorry for your loss.

+1 on compass error as the culprit.

To All:

Lift off, and evaluate the flight characteristics of your bird. If anything seems wrong, or not quite right or normal, terminate the flight. Go through your checklist, and go again.

 

[BenDronePilot]

I had updated the firmware on the Phantom 2 Vision Central Board to V1.0.1.18, and used had also updated the IOS version to
iOS App V1.0.30 about 2 weeks, ago, this was probably the 12th or so flight I had with the DJI Vision.
I had done an advanced calibration after doing the firmware, and have been doing a compass calibration on every flight, 2 weeks ago, I launched it from my roofdeck, and sensed something was wrong, it was wobbling, and spiralling aggresively, knowing I was in an urban area, turning off the transmitter, so that it would return back to the launch area - might not be such a good idea, since it may have collided with a tree.

About 23 seconds in, very aggressive spirals started to occur, I tried to send it higher, so that it would not smash into a side of the building, no luck. at 43 seconds, the DJI Phantom Vision very aggressively spiraled out, and I was unable to control it at all.

It smasehd into a tree, where it is still in the branches, I went to the base of the tree, and I have the camera, that broke from the unit. It's all I have left.

I contacted Dronefly, and have not gotten any response, I was told to fill out a .pdf incident report, and return it to Dronefly.com, I also contacted DJI Support and have not heard any response, not even an acknowledgement that they have received anything from Dronefly. It's been almost 2 weeks since the accident, and definitely sense a dragging out of the process to deal with this.

Here is the footage taken on the 3rd or 4th flight, prior to the firmware upgrade, where everything worked


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awu05bp1nKI[/youtube]

And here is the clip from the crash, retrieved from the camera

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvBB8qmhnSk[/youtube]

I get the sinking feeling I am getting the blow off from DJI, has anyone had any luck, after a crash in dealing with either DroneFly or DJI ? Or am I out of luck ?

Bummed in Portland, since we have snow, and had gotten this to do vids of the snowboarding season

Marc

In my opinion it's a bad idea calibrating your compass every flight. The compass should only be calibrated when you're in a relatively open space with as little interference as possible and only needs to be done once unless you change the region of the world you're in. If you've been calibrating every time in that local congested area the other posters assumption might be right that you had a bad compass calibration. Worse case scenario you can open up a case with the insurance you get with your credit card and you may be reimbursed the cost of repairing your phantom once you retrieve it. Good luck! And if you get this fixed do your self a favor and find an open clear area to do your calibration and don't do it again unless you're flying on the other side of the country or the world.

 

[kenskid]

You are exactly right. Now that you mentioned it below, right before my last crash, I did notice my Phantom not acting right upon liftoff. Usually this thing is a hovering beast. I can center the sticks and it stays put. When I lifted off my phantom was moving around in about a 4 foot circle. Smooth but just a drifting motion. I just attributed it to wind or just "nothing to be too concerned about".

After flying slow, fast, high and low for about two minutes, it seems I lost total control. It almost seemed to dive into the ground at a 45 degree angle. Some very minor body damage. When I got home I cleaned it up and decided to check the IMU b/c it was a pretty hard crash. I decided that I would take the props off and see if it would start up just for good measure. Well when I put the battery on, I got the compass warning. I calibrated the compass and then hooked up to the computer. No calibration needed. It was nearly perfect. I'm betting that compass was off before that flight....just not enough to WARN with the lights.

Sorry for your loss.

+1 on compass error as the culprit.

To All:

Lift off, and evaluate the flight characteristics of your bird. If anything seems wrong, or not quite right or normal, terminate the flight. Go through your checklist, and go again.

 

[DeweyAXD]

+1 on compass calibration... crashed my F450 with very similar attributes to this flight. Flew fine loads of times in that location but due to not flipping up my GPS puck at power up (which has the compass in), I had to do the compass dance. I was in an area with a metal shed and powerlines 500 yards away.

Wobbly on take off, erratic, poor control and then ended up powering itself hard into a field.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwDwnOzI4sE[/youtube]

@kenskid - sounds similar to your crash in powering down at 45 degrees at full chat. Bear in mind mine is NAZA mv2 with a Futaba T8J too (so interference less likely).

I also agree with BenDronePilot - Take your Phantom out into the middle of nowhere near you where there is nothing around metal or wifi and then do the compass dance. As long as you stay within 50 miles you shouldn't have any need to do it again after that.

Now the boring part (kenskid warned you lol) - I have to say from my experiance (that crash) that the OP really should seriously re-consider flying in that location ever again. Way too much risk all round to property and people. These things are so much fun until they go wrong.

Flyaways caused by the compass seem to like to power fully on in a downward/sideways route. A 1kg blender at 20 meters per second is no laughing matter..... news worthy depending what/who it hits.

 

[Dave Pitman]

The thing to remember about a compass error is that even if it is not so bad that the bird goes wonky right away, the error is magnified every time the naza makes a calculation. Every cycle of the algorithm the error is compounded. That is why in can start off flying a 'little weird", and in a short time is out of control.

 

[kenskid]

Yeah you right! Here is one of my two toilet bowl events. At the time, I was saying it was a flyaway. I flew it about 10 minutes earlier about 1/2 mile from this take off point. I took off from grass. I rode to a more secluded area for some reason my Phantom went nuts. I can't be sure at this point but I'm thinking bad compass or I didn't wait for the Phantom to find it's home before flying.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIV2NUhUY7o[/youtube]

+1 on compass calibration... crashed my F450 with very similar attributes to this flight. Flew fine loads of times in that location but due to not flipping up my GPS puck at power up (which has the compass in), I had to do the compass dance. I was in an area with a metal shed and powerlines 500 yards away.

Wobbly on take off, erratic, poor control and then ended up powering itself hard into a field.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwDwnOzI4sE[/youtube]

@kenskid - sounds similar to your crash in powering down at 45 degrees at full chat. Bear in mind mine is NAZA mv2 with a Futaba T8J too (so interference less likely).

I also agree with BenDronePilot - Take your Phantom out into the middle of nowhere near you where there is nothing around metal or wifi and then do the compass dance. As long as you stay within 50 miles you shouldn't have any need to do it again after that.

Now the boring part (kenskid warned you lol) - I have to say from my experiance (that crash) that the OP really should seriously re-consider flying in that location ever again. Way too much risk all round to property and people. These things are so much fun until they go wrong.

Flyaways caused by the compass seem to like to power fully on in a downward/sideways route. A 1kg blender at 20 meters per second is no laughing matter..... news worthy depending what/who it hits.

 

[Ital86]

I recently experienced a flyaway after approximately 12 flawless flights. I had not yet done the firmware update, but did calibrate prior to every flight due to flying in multiple locations not near each other. Here is my experience detailed:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4389#p31040

I have been in constant contact with Dronefly, who have been very helpful. It does seem that they are inundated with people having crashed the vision. I just sent mine back to them yesterday so that they could perform diagnostics and test flights with it to determine what the issue is. We'll see. Meanwhile I get to sit here and read how much fun people are having with their PVs.

 

[Pull_Up]

+1 for the fact that a small compass error at first is going to get magnified every time the NAZA tries to work out where it is and correct. Hence why small gentle rotational elements can quickly ramp up into the dreaded toilet bowl effect... so-called because the outcome is that you spiral more and more until you get flushed down into the ****!

I know we've had this discussion before in other posts but I'm still an advocate of calibrating the compass only if you've made changes to your machine (e.g. added a Flytrex core, modded your landing gear, added a torch or light, etc) or changed your flying site by more than 20 miles or so and/or ONLY IF you are absolutely, cast-iron certain you are in an area with no chance of anything messing with the compass. That's mainly going to be in the middle of a grassy park or field somewhere. If in doubt, don't calibrate - take off and hover at head height and give it a minute while you cycle through each control input and hold a hover. If anything's not right, land straight away and deal with it then.

I've seen video of erratic flight where someone was flying in a park but chose to calibrate their compass next to and then take off from a drain cover on a footpath...

 

[Ital86]

At this point, I think it has to be stipulated that even when people are doing everything that is suggested straight off of the DJI website to prevent this from happening, it still is. Unfortunately too many people are sending their machines back to the manufacturer after having crashed due to pilot error to have made customer service very difficult for those that experienced a supposed "true flyaway." It can be argued that a "flyaway" has to be caused by something, right? Now the problem lies in determining what that "something" is and whether or not a "ready to fly" aircraft is not so "ready to fly" out of the box. If not "ready to fly", are the steps necessary to prevent these flyaways something a reasonable, experienced pilot would know to do with the limited tutorial that was initially offered by DJI. To be quite honest, this forum is essential to someone who decides to fly these because there is a plethora of information that normally would not be available elsewhere.

 

[t.rexxer]

Hello All,

Just recieved my PV2 and she's not even out of the box yet. Decided a good start would be to join the forum. Seems like there is a lot of good info here and was exploring when I saw the recent "flyaway" title. Reading this post makes me wonder if I made a purchase mistake. I was actually in the process of building a F450 full boat with Naza GPS to work with my Spektrum DX8 to eventually fly FPV,... but mainly do video and stills of my daughters wedding in May. When the PV2 came out, I thought this will sure make it easier to get a feel for aerial videography and help me prepare for the big day. Now I'm a bit nervous. I know heli's, but quads/aerial photography is very new to me, but all the dji vids of the PV2 sure make it sure look easy. (To my credit, I flew the blades off of my 1sq in preparation for larger quad flying...., nose in is second nature, so hoping this will help the learning curve)

Thank you to OP for bringing this up, and sorry for your loss. Lots of $ for only 12 flights, but the advice given by all contributors rings true.

I will do a LOT of reading here before I fire up my PV2. Hopefully I can avoid the losses many have experienced, although I know there is no guarantee. Fortunately, I live in a very rural area so with a little luck and careful preflight checks, I'll be ok. :roll:

Thanks to the administrators for creating this forum. Much appreciated. I'm sure I'll have a bunch of questions to ask in the near future. Any advice for a newbie would be graciously appreciated. :!:

Happy Holidays.
t.rexxer

 

[Pull_Up]

Hello All,

Just recieved my PV2 and she's not even out of the box yet. Decided a good start would be to join the forum. Seems like there is a lot of good info here and was exploring when I saw the recent "flyaway" title. Reading this post makes me wonder if I made a purchase mistake. I was actually in the process of building a F450 full boat with Naza GPS to work with my Spektrum DX8 to eventually fly FPV,... but mainly do video and stills of my daughters wedding in May. When the PV2 came out, I thought this will sure make it easier to get a feel for aerial videography and help me prepare for the big day. Now I'm a bit nervous. I know heli's, but quads/aerial photography is very new to me, but all the dji vids of the PV2 sure make it sure look easy. (To my credit, I flew the blades off of my 1sq in preparation for larger quad flying...., nose in is second nature, so hoping this will help the learning curve)

Thank you to OP for bringing this up, and sorry for your loss. Lots of $ for only 12 flights, but the advice given by all contributors rings true.

I will do a LOT of reading here before I fire up my PV2. Hopefully I can avoid the losses many have experienced, although I know there is no guarantee. Fortunately, I live in a very rural area so with a little luck and careful preflight checks, I'll be ok. :roll:

Thanks to the administrators for creating this forum. Much appreciated. I'm sure I'll have a bunch of questions to ask in the near future. Any advice for a newbie would be graciously appreciated. :!:

Happy Holidays.
t.rexxer

Hi. Based on your previous experience you'll probably find the Vision easy to fly to the point of being a bit boring out of the box! BUT you are wise to read the manual, forums, watch videos, etc as there are some procedural things that can catch you out no matter how many RC hours you have if you've not flown this type before. Enjoy!

 

[gpauk]

+1 for the fact that a small compass error at first is going to get magnified every time the NAZA tries to work out where it is and correct. Hence why small gentle rotational elements can quickly ramp up into the dreaded toilet bowl effect... so-called because the outcome is that you spiral more and more until you get flushed down into the ****!

The thing is, there are accepted software algorithms for dealing with this, what I don't understand is why dji have not implemented a fix.....

 

[t.rexxer]

Hello All,

Just recieved my PV2 and she's not even out of the box yet. Decided a good start would be to join the forum. Seems like there is a lot of good info here and was exploring when I saw the recent "flyaway" title. Reading this post makes me wonder if I made a purchase mistake. I was actually in the process of building a F450 full boat with Naza GPS to work with my Spektrum DX8 to eventually fly FPV,... but mainly do video and stills of my daughters wedding in May. When the PV2 came out, I thought this will sure make it easier to get a feel for aerial videography and help me prepare for the big day. Now I'm a bit nervous. I know heli's, but quads/aerial photography is very new to me, but all the dji vids of the PV2 sure make it sure look easy. (To my credit, I flew the blades off of my 1sq in preparation for larger quad flying...., nose in is second nature, so hoping this will help the learning curve)

Thank you to OP for bringing this up, and sorry for your loss. Lots of $ for only 12 flights, but the advice given by all contributors rings true.

I will do a LOT of reading here before I fire up my PV2. Hopefully I can avoid the losses many have experienced, although I know there is no guarantee. Fortunately, I live in a very rural area so with a little luck and careful preflight checks, I'll be ok. :roll:

Thanks to the administrators for creating this forum. Much appreciated. I'm sure I'll have a bunch of questions to ask in the near future. Any advice for a newbie would be graciously appreciated. :!:

Happy Holidays.
t.rexxer

Hi. Based on your previous experience you'll probably find the Vision easy to fly to the point of being a bit boring out of the box! BUT you are wise to read the manual, forums, watch videos, etc as there are some procedural things that can catch you out no matter how many RC hours you have if you've not flown this type before. Enjoy!

Thanks for the encouraging words Pullup. Yeah, boring maybe, but I can get plenty of "Exciting" flying with my heli's or my wip f450 when it's done. My goal here is steady, clear video and pics, so "boring"is ok. I plan on following all suggestions and performing all update and preflight procedures in hopes of preventing flyaways or any other mishap. I have only crashed my heli's when I either brain froze during the learning curve (off and on for 20 years) or didn't check my heli mechanics/electrics often enough (had a loose battery connection once. 700 series copter... about a foot off the ground. she just drifted to the side, tipped over an beat herself up until I could stop the glow fuel engine...Pilot error...yeah :roll: , that was about 17 years ago, before the reliable electric heli's of today). I should get many trouble free flights knowing what the end result could be if I Don't do the above.
Thanks again.