I got an used P3S and it throws sometimes "RC signal lost"

[deuarg]

Hi people,

I'm new to the Phantom family . I bought a new P3S from Amazon and I received an used/refurbished product. The bags and boxes were open, the drone had 7 flight logs from one month ago in Germany and even the props were dirty/slightly crashed (!!!). Oh, and I could not activate it (well, I was never asked to do it). I have already sent an email to DJI support and attached the proof of purchase so as to see if I can reactivate it.

I tested the drone twice yesterday (it has been very rainy here). It seemed to work fine. As I already own a Syma X5C it wasn't too difficult for me to use it, but I was a little shy anyway, of course. I only noticed a single issue: I got "RC signal lost" or something like that a couple of times, and said it was "poor" from time to time in the Status screen. Honestly it didn't seem to be serious because it was very brief and I never noticed it in the drone behaviour. But of course I expect it to work fine and these warnings weren't even when the drone was too far away, I had line of sight all the time, etc. It seemed more like independent of how far the drone was, or maybe even happened more often when the drone was near the Controller or not yet flying...

The 2.4G FPV transmission did work well. I managed to get at least about 400m without noticing any significant trouble. As I was quite shy I didn't test it further yet, but I surely will.

The aircraft came with v1.8.10. I didn't want to update yet to v1.9.20 because it works kind of fine now and I read many comments about people regretting the updates, so I would prefer to investigate a little further before doing it.

So, the question is: should I worry about the brief "RC signal lost" warning sometimes, even though I managed to get about 400m distance controlling the drone all the time? Should I relink, even though it worked ok? Or why might it be caused? (Interference with my particular phone close to the Controller antenna, interference with some eventual 5.8G P2P links some hundreds of meters away, wet/humid floor, I don't know...) My question is mainly because I have to decide ASAP what to do with this product. Amazon has offered me a partial refund for having received this drone or to change it for a new item. If it works fine I would actually prefer the refund and avoid all the hassle of returning it. However, if this is something to be worried about, I guess I should ask for a new item. I wish there was a way of knowing why this person in Germany returned the item after 7 flights!

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[captainmilehigh]

If it were me I'd return it to Amazon, especially if it was sold 'as new' when it was 'used'. Ask them to send you a new, sealed from the factory drone. Who knows what problems you will uncover with a used and returned drone that obviously has issues. Good luck!

 

[BourgeoisSJC]

Hi people,

I'm new to the Phantom family . I bought a new P3S from Amazon and I received an used/refurbished product. !

There is no way you should accept this. Amazon has a great return policy. Take advantage of it.

 

[Older_Man]

Return it and tell Amazon you want a sealed box as you know you won't have any problems it.

 

[deuarg]

Well, I guess that's not normal at all, then .
I wanted to avoid returning it if it worked fine (and at the same time get a cheaper P3S), but if this shouldn't happen at all I guess I will return it and ask for another one... I had some kind of hope that this German had returned it because he was looking for a P3A or something better, but noted the drone worked perfectly...
Thank you very much!

 

[Older_Man]

I don't know what you paid but you can get a refurbished from DJI for $399. and it has a 1 yr warranty.Sometimes these arn't even flown and if you check around I have seen them as low as $339. at a few places.

 

[eatpasta]

Hi people,

I'm new to the Phantom family . I bought a new P3S from Amazon and I received an used/refurbished product. The bags and boxes were open, the drone had 7 flight logs from one month ago in Germany and even the props were dirty/slightly crashed (!!!). Oh, and I could not activate it (well, I was never asked to do it). I have already sent an email to DJI support and attached the proof of purchase so as to see if I can reactivate it.

I tested the drone twice yesterday (it has been very rainy here). It seemed to work fine. As I already own a Syma X5C it wasn't too difficult for me to use it, but I was a little shy anyway, of course. I only noticed a single issue: I got "RC signal lost" or something like that a couple of times, and said it was "poor" from time to time in the Status screen. Honestly it didn't seem to be serious because it was very brief and I never noticed it in the drone behaviour. But of course I expect it to work fine and these warnings weren't even when the drone was too far away, I had line of sight all the time, etc. It seemed more like independent of how far the drone was, or maybe even happened more often when the drone was near the Controller or not yet flying...

The 2.4G FPV transmission did work well. I managed to get at least about 400m without noticing any significant trouble. As I was quite shy I didn't test it further yet, but I surely will.

The aircraft came with v1.8.10. I didn't want to update yet to v1.9.20 because it works kind of fine now and I read many comments about people regretting the updates, so I would prefer to investigate a little further before doing it.

So, the question is: should I worry about the brief "RC signal lost" warning sometimes, even though I managed to get about 400m distance controlling the drone all the time? Should I relink, even though it worked ok? Or why might it be caused? (Interference with my particular phone close to the Controller antenna, interference with some eventual 5.8G P2P links some hundreds of meters away, wet/humid floor, I don't know...) My question is mainly because I have to decide ASAP what to do with this product. Amazon has offered me a partial refund for having received this drone or to change it for a new item. If it works fine I would actually prefer the refund and avoid all the hassle of returning it. However, if this is something to be worried about, I guess I should ask for a new item. I wish there was a way of knowing why this person in Germany returned the item after 7 flights!

Thank you very much in advance!

IF you bought it new and its not new, DEFINITELY send it back!

I bought one secondhand and the best range I could come up with was about 50 yards. I took the remote apart and found that the primary antenna had been messed with and poorly soldered.

It was damaged beyond repair so I bought an after market antenna and popped it on there for $20 and it works perfectly.

You should be sending that one back regardless...

 

[anotherlab]

If you paid for a new Phantom, you should have received one. If someone returned it and it's not a certified refurb unit, you'll have no idea what faults it could have. If the previous owner had registered it with DJI, you may not even have a warranty. I would send back.

 

[deuarg]

I think my exact problem is this one:
Radio channel quality bouncing "good"..."poor"
Just that in my case it's a P3S, of course.

Should this warning appear in the flight logs? I haven't found them...

I also noticed no performance issues, and I saw the warning the first time at home and did not alarm because of the probable interference. But when I got this in an almost rural area, I thought it might not be ok.

Anyway, it's still rainy and I can't test outdoors some quick solutions I've read around (I relinked today at home and the warning seemed to bounce less often, or not at all). I've also read about calibrating imus (I don't know why), and other more invasive solutions I'm probably not willing to try.

I had bought the item as an offer in Amazon Italy. They are now saying they will give me my money back if I return it, but they won't send me a new item because they don't have in stock anymore. I don't completely believe this last thing (as it's available in Amazon Germany, for example) and I'm offering to wait until it's in stock again, but they would just not pay attention to me... So let's see how it goes... I wish I had received a new drone, as I asked for!! I had never had so many problems with Amazon...

Thank you for your answers!

 

[dchao]

If you upload your flight log to:
Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones
you can see a map of your signal strength there.
IMO, given that you are in the EU, your range is 400m out of box, that is guite impressive. And you have not even seen a single video transmission signal lost message. I am not 100% sure, but it looks like your RC and drone already have the Magic Power hack applied to the firmware.
If you are happy with your drone, and have got a good price, I might keep it. It's your call.
If you don't know what Magic Power is, here is a link:
How to Update Tx-Power with Magic Power v5.0

 

[120CCPM]

I would send it back, get a full refund from Amazon, and buy a new one (if not from Amazon, maybe directly from DJI? I got a refurbished one from them, it's been flawless so far, and it came with the full 1-yr warranty).
Even if Amazon offers you a partial refund, I think you will run into problems in case of a warranty claim, as that unit was used (and apparently crashed) by someone else, and DJI will be - rightfully - very suspicious about it.

As for the error message itself, it's very difficult to say if your unit has a problem, or if you're just hitting the limitations of the P3S (500m range in CE mode). The fact that you were able to reach 400m is a good indication that everything is ok, hardware wise. One some days/places you might get more, other times you will get less, it's normal.

I actually just took my P3S to Italy and I can tell you that in CE mode the range is less than impressive. I used Icarus to bump the 2.4GHz video feed, and it worked well, but Icarus (same is true for Magic Power) does nothing for the 5.8GHz control signal, and I was losing it much sooner than in US (FCC mode). The best I could do, with a windsurfer, was 600m.

 

[deuarg]

I'm actually not from Italy, but from South America. I don't know if I'm on FCC or CE mode (I guess FCC, because we tend to use the same bands and regulations as the USA). That's maybe why I'm getting more than 400m without any issues.

@dchao, I registered there and uploaded my flights, that's great! And it doesn't inform anything abnormal, luckily.

Just a last question: Is it maybe possible to analyze flight logs from the P3S like that? I used DatCon, DashWare, etc, but I couldn't yet get an analysis so summarized and clear as with Airdata (which takes the logs from the DJI app). I would like to check if I can see some crash or error in this guy's logs, and obviously I don't have his DJI app's logs... As the flight logs in the P3S are much, much larger than the ones in the app, I guess there's plenty of information waiting to be processed there...

Thank you very much!!

 

[RodPad]

@deuarg
Hello, send it back.
Yes, the .dat files a very large, I think the SD card is 4gig, every time you fly, older flights will be erased. So you need download files the asap and save them.
I have never took the time to view / convert them, but you would see any prior flights by the dates on the files.

Airdata doesn't really display enough information.
This viewer shows more, but probably not enough to see your problem.
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

I feel your unit is defective same as what I see when firmware messes up the Standards.

This guys problem looks very familiar.
Range issue

Rod

 

[deuarg]

@RodPad
Hi! Thank you!
I have already downloaded and processed them with the tools I've mentioned. What I found useful about Airdata is how simple they show info, how they present where there could have been a crash (magnetometer measurements), signal all along the flight path, etc. And I couldn't find anything similar for the .dat files I got from the P3S. I was able to see when, where and how fast/high this person flew the P3S.
As far as I can see, the tool you've mentioned is equivalent to Airdata in the sense that they use the DJI App logs (and I obviously don't have them).

I'm not updating exactly because of that fear of losing range. I've read some similar cases, so I think I will avoid updating while I decide what to do, at least. (Well, actually is there any reason for updating to the latest version?? All I've read is bad news haha).

It's still not clear to me why .dat files in the P3S are so much larger than the ones from the DJI app. I assume they don't have pictures/videos and the info I could gather until now is more or less similar (only formatted in a different way), so I don't understand yet...

Thank you!

 

[RodPad]

Yeah, HD/Airdata never showed my poor remote control signals, only when it lost enough to RTH.

I don't think your going to loose anything by trying to do firmware updates, its already broke.

My P3S is currently not in use, the tree grounded it before before I could. I think it may have had a broken motor, but I could start and stop the motors, view the camera, etc. Until the battery got to low.
I had been checking on it every few days, I know it fell out with in a 18 hour period. It was in 5 pieces.

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I'm not sure if you have actually saved your .dat files?

Anyways

@BudWalker

Might give you some help.

Rod

 

[BudWalker]

@deuarg I agree with the other posters here. Send it back.

The .DAT files are large because there is a lot of data, and, most of it at a higher sampling rate than the .txt produced by the Go App. The contents and structure was obtained by reverse engineering parts of the .DAT; a lot of the .DAT hasn't been figured out and can't be used. The choice of using either the .txt or the .DAT depends on what data is required. Sometimes it's beneficial to use both the .txt and the .DAT. The contents of the .csv produced by CsvView/DatCon for a P3 .DAT file can be found here.

I saw your comment that AirData was able to present magnetometer data that would be useful in the event of a crash. You might have meant accelerometer data. Either one would be an indication that the .txt has more info than previously thought. Could you provide an example?

 

[RodPad]

Cool stuff man!

Rod

 

[deuarg]

@deuarg I agree with the other posters here. Send it back.

The .DAT files are large because there is a lot of data, and, most of it at a higher sampling rate than the .txt produced by the Go App. The contents and structure was obtained by reverse engineering parts of the .DAT; a lot of the .DAT hasn't been figured out and can't be used. The choice of using either the .txt or the .DAT depends on what data is required. Sometimes it's beneficial to use both the .txt and the .DAT. The contents of the .csv produced by CsvView/DatCon for a P3 .DAT file can be found here.

I saw your comment that AirData was able to present magnetometer data that would be useful in the event of a crash. You might have meant accelerometer data. Either one would be an indication that the .txt has more info than previously thought. Could you provide an example?

Hi!
Great info! I had seen that information about DatCon fields, but I was not aware that it had been reversed engineered and some of it has not yet even been identified!! Incredible job there, thanks a lot @BudWalker!

No, I meant magnetometer/compass. I was referring to this, which is in one of Airdata's tabs:

"Looking for rate of change in the compass of 25 degrees or more per 0.1 seconds. That's about a 90 degree turn in a third of a second, which is not normal.

Most aircraft don't turn faster than 15-16 degrees per 0.1 seconds.

Faster turns can be a result of extremly strong winds, a crash into an object (example of a crash), magnetic interference, or a bad compass."
Example:

@RodPad, yes, the first thing I did as soon as I opened the box was backup the 7 DAT files (from this German guy) and process them with DatCon.

 

[Iancognito87]

It's normal to lose signal when you're flying at close ranges, however I would exchange it for a new one on the principle that you "paid for a new one"