My drone journey has and is still having challenges.

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The P 2 vision + camera view saga continues BUT a bigger obstacle arose last weekend. Our son Matt took the P 3 advanced to the top of my brothers 500' high Mt Emu in Victoria Australia that has a Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) installed on the top. Matt conducted the correct checks and took off and after 16 seconds tumbled out of the sky. :(
YouTube
Thoughts please.

Aussie Paul. :)
 

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The attachment doesn’t help, at least I can’t see how it might. What would give you a chance of understanding what happened would be to upload the flight log to phantomhelp and share the link to the flight here. There are plenty who will do some analysis for you.
 
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Ok thanks, the info is on Ipad so having to get it sorted with Itunes. :(

Aussie Paul. :)

Hi Paul, Victorian flyer here too, curious on a few things once you post the flight logs. The picture you posted on the first post indicates Inspire AC? What is this picture intending to show? Did you retrieve Phantom? Any damage / reasons you suspect caused it to fail? as very unusual just to drop like that. Cheers
 
Hi Paul, Victorian flyer here too, curious on a few things once you post the flight logs. The picture you posted on the first post indicates Inspire AC? What is this picture intending to show? Did you retrieve Phantom? Any damage / reasons you suspect caused it to fail? as very unusual just to drop like that. Cheers

Hi Loz from here in Ballarat, pretty dumb at all this stuff. Fortunately our IT capable son Matt (who crashed it :) lives two doors away!!! :) They retrieved P 3, lots superficial damage to plastic stuff. Gimbal and camera ok. The "vision" pcb under the VPS has had the socket pulled from the pcb!!! :( Trying to locate a parts list for my P 3 and P 2 so I can order parts.

Aussie Paul. :)
 
It dropped 440ft in 6 sec? How long had that battery been sitting before launching? Looks like it only had one charge on it but it is never a good idea to launch with a partially charged pack. How many props were on it when he found it? Compass errors show it was spinning as it went down and there are a lot of ESC/propulsion errors suggesting a potential problem with a prop not being fitted correctly.
 
The answer is clear to see in the flight data.
You are starting with a battery that's been sitting around discharging for some time.
At the start it shows 49% but unless the battery is fully charged this indication is false.

Before taking off, the cell voltage is 3.8 volts - much lower than a fully charged battery.
As soon as you launch (00:06.3) the cell voltage has dropped to 3.3 volts which is critical low voltage !!
But the poor Phantom is pushed to climb and at 00:20 the voltage is now 3.0 volts.
This can only end badly.
And it does, crashing to the ground at 00:31.4.
Any data after that can largely be ignored.
Because of the crash it's putting out lots of crazy data.

The only factor in this incident is launching with a battery that was almost empty.
The flight was doomed from the start.
 
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It dropped 440ft in 6 sec? How long had that battery been sitting before launching? Looks like it only had one charge on it but it is never a good idea to launch with a partially charged pack. How many props were on it when he found it? Compass errors show it was spinning as it went down and there are a lot of ESC/propulsion errors suggesting a potential problem with a prop not being fitted correctly.
Two hours before that flight he had flown it for 9 mins I think. All the props were still mounted correctly. The battery was new and was fully charged for the days outing. Attached previous flight. DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Aussie Paul. :)
 
Two hours before that flight he had flown it for 9 mins I think. All the props were still mounted correctly. The battery was new and was fully charged for the days outing. Attached previous flight. DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
Th first flight looks OK but tre was nothing left in the tank for the last flight.
It was showing critical low voltage at takeoff and went significantly lower soon after.
The drone can't fly with less than 3.3 volts per cell.

I wouldn't have expected a battery to be so drained after only 10 minutes flight.
 
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Two hours before that flight he had flown it for 9 mins I think. All the props were still mounted correctly. The battery was new and was fully charged for the days outing. Attached previous flight. DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Aussie Paul. :)
Unfortunately it looks like a power issue. The log reveals the battery only had one cycle on it but was at 48% when launched (with a prior 9 minute flight that makes sense). I mentioned the bigbrecorded drop at the end because that looks strange and as meta has also noted is likely to be erroneous data following the impact. The later ESC errors probably also fall into this catagory.

This really looks like the issue was power issues from flying with a partially depleted pack unfortunately.

Seems you will need an OFDM board and maybe a shell. That connectirnis very tricky to solder back in, usually the board is damaged when it comes off.
 
Th first flight looks OK but tre was nothing left in the tank for the last flight.
It was showing critical low voltage at takeoff and went significantly lower soon after.
The drone can't fly with less than 3.3 volts per cell.

I wouldn't have expected a battery to be so drained after only 10 minutes flight.
Autoland isn’t an available option if the battery can’t supply the power needed to perform it.
I don't quite understand that. :( When I have been flying it the first battery warning is at 30% and it will continue to fly until it is down to 10% and it automatically lands whether I want it to or not.

Aussie Paul. :)
 
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I don't quite understand that. :( When I have been flying it the first battery warning is at 30% and it will continue to fly until it is down to 10% and it automatically lands whether I want it to or not.

Aussie Paul. :)
When your battery gets to a genuine 10%, it's putting out more volts than this one was.
When the battery gets to 3.0 volts per cell (not enough juice to keep a drone in the air), the outcome is inevitable.
 
When your battery gets to a genuine 10%, it's putting out more volts than this one was.
When the battery gets to 3.0 volts per cell (not enough juice to keep a drone in the air), the outcome is inevitable.
Ok, so my new battery must be a dud. :( I had not used that battery myself, only charged it ready for the outing. I have ordered shells and now need to find an OFDM board hopefully in Australia. Any Aussie have a recomendation. Trying to get part numbers and parts is like chasing hens teeth. lol. :)
Today I was able to, I'm hoping without causing any damage, remove the top shell.

Aussie Paul. :)
 
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One thing that has been mentioned by someone watching the crash flight was that "something" flew off the aircraft. Apparently there were a couple of "chunks/bits" out of a blade as they drove to the top of the mount. A bit hard to get accurate witness reports, and most peoples recollection bears no resemblance to flight log. lol

Aussie Paul. :)
 
One thing that has been mentioned by someone watching the crash flight was that "something" flew off the aircraft. Apparently there were a couple of "chunks/bits" out of a blade as they drove to the top of the mount. A bit hard to get accurate witness reports, and most peoples recollection bears no resemblance to flight log.
Even with perfect props, a Phantom can't stay in the air when the battery cells are down at 3.0 volts.
 

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