Fly Away

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It finally happened. Well over 100 successful flights with nary an incident. I lifted off, did a check while hovering in front of me, 9 sats, all fine and then pushed forward. At about 20 feet it started acting odd and then started to drift and then accelerated at a 45 degree angle, narrowly missed ditching in the harbor and finally crashed into the rocks along the shoreline. 5 seonds from start to end - little time to react but the controls I did try appeared unresponsive. Either a motor shut down or it was the ubiquitous city-wide WiFi channel - they have two channels in tandem and for the heavy tourists influx. I noticed the town wifi signal on one corner of my property the ofther day .... this is all new in recent months and the signal strengths appear to be increasingly more powerful. Hard to walk through it as it was so fluid and happened so fast. But lets try ,,,,,
 
First, sorry for your crash. Is it a v3? If it is, had you done any preventive measures to keep your motor wires from breaking due to vibration? Did you take off from a surface that may have some strong ferrous properties? Like a concrete slab full of rebar. That can wreak havoc with your compass. Take it apart and see if any motor wires are broken. Or if any of your ESCs are burned anywhere.
 
Tough luck. This is what worries us all when a relative veteran can still suffer such an event. I just figure it will happen to me sometime. But there's no point having it if you don't fly it. An occupational hazard?
 
Yup agreed, Ross - live, learn and above all go for it! Ummm, it's version 2.0, Blacktracer. I've flown it before in that region with
little trouble ... but the WiFi was not present at that time ... thus the concern. Why do the signals keep overriding my Phantom Channel? Is there a programming switch on my Ipad mini that will lock in your channel of choice or is it programmed to migrate towards the strongest signal??? Yes, there could be ferrous properties in the walkway but it behaved completely normally whilst over that and for the check. It went bonkers while over the water and with nothing near it. Took it apart, the wires and board look fine ... the two motors on the side that took the direct hit are compromised and need to be replaced. One land leg is cracked and the female receptacle for which the cable plugs into on that leg is missing and needs to be replaced. The gimbal appears to have an issue as well. The good news is that it didn't ditch into the harbor, I guess. :)
 
I use the free Wifi Prioritizer app for Android. I once had a problem with my wifi trying to switch to a nearby residence wifi and dropping the Phantom wifi, but haven't experienced that problem since installing and running this app before my flights. Also, my tablet is only wifi capable and therefore I don't have to worry about a sudden switch to a 3G cell service connection. But if you do have 3G you probably should put it into Airplane Mode to prevent a sudden cellular connection if the wifi signal weakens. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.za.flash.wifiprioritizer

Oops.. Just realized you said iPad Mini. I don't know if there is an equivalent IOS app, but you should check.
 
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Hey Guys,

Managed to free up debris(small screw etc.) with two of the motors and they 'appear' to spin normally and without any resistance. Ordered a new compass. And now the gimbal. No dance and it actually worked normally the first time I powered up ... but I noticed that back of the camera is catching ever so slightly on the black ribbon wire that juts out perpendicularly behind it. So ...I think one of the axis' arms is bend a tiny bit ... so I need a photo(or link to photo) showing how much clearance(spacing) is standard/normal as the camera pans down and as the back of the camera tries to clear the black ribbon wire? Thanks in advance!
 

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