Ok, had my freakout moment

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So I was flying with just under 75% battery. I flew over a river and was getting footage of a field to do an ND filter test. I had a good signal, and everything was normal.
I changed out of manual mode and was ready to do my second shot and I got a low voltage warning. Then the app crashed. It started to land, and it was coming back home over the river. I looked through at the camera and decided to bring it down in the field rather than let it come down in the river.
I lost total connection with the app. This is an area that I have done dozens of flights without incident. When I got closer to the field the app reconnected with the Phantom. I tried to initiate a takeoff, but it kept resetting the home point. The battery finally died and I lost connection

It took me an hour 1/2 to walk through hip deep grass to find it. I am currently charging the battery to see if it is ok.

Just thought I would share. Time to do a tick search.
 
Wow....scary....I'm assuming you're on firmware 1.1.9 ? Craziness. I still am on whatever shipped in 1st wave 1.1.4 or 5....scared to touch the updates cause everything works so far.
Is there any group conscious about 1.1.9 introducing disconnections etc?
 
I truly hope this is not continuation of the mystery batteries incidents that have been posted over the last 6 months... Just saying!
 
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Jeez! I've had some scary moments, but I can't match that one. And I hope I never can :)
 
Where do you have your low battery and critical battery warnings set? default? Glad you could get to it, and good decision on not trying to cross the river.

Strange that you asked this. I never changed my battery warnings and left them on default. Today when flying. I looked at the battery warning and they were both switched to 0%. I didn't do this.
 
Strange that you asked this. I never changed my battery warnings and left them on default. Today when flying. I looked at the battery warning and they were both switched to 0%. I didn't do this.
I have C2 to show battery condition and warnings, had a low power event (near autoland in lake) on my P2 so I am now paranoid about the battery condition.
 
OK, I'm a total newb, just got my P3P, In reading here Is it correct that if you lose signal with the remote auto land does not land at the home take off co-ordinates? If so, then Autoland is different than RTH, Yes-No?
 
Where do you have your low battery and critical battery warnings set? default? Glad you could get to it, and good decision on not trying to cross the river.

I had reset my low warning to 35%, and my critical to 20%. My warning came when I was at 69%. I am not sure what would have caused the app to crash immediately after the warning. I am leaning towards a software malfunction as opposed to a hardware. The strangest thing was when I got closer to the Phantom, the app reestablished connection, but I could not initiate a takeoff. I was wading through high grass, and could not find it, and wanted to see if there was a way I could at least hear it power up.
When I pulled the sticks down to initiate takeoff, the only message I got was "Homepoint updated" which was strange.
After finding it, I went home and did a full charge on the battery. I looked at the battery stats, and all cells appeared to be normal, so I went outside and tried to initiate takeoff without props on. I pulled the sticks down and it powered right up.
I am going to write this one off as a fluke, but I am very concerned about my next flight. I had done that exact run 30-40 times with my P2 and at least a dozen times with my P3 without incident. I think I will uninstall the app and try a fresh install. I'll keep you posted.
 
I had 2 batteries start to do that I threw them both out and got new ones now no issues
 
A Marco Polo tracking system will make locating your lost bird much quicker in the future. Were you at 75% at the time of the disconnect or when you first took off?

75% when I took off. At 69% when the incident happened.
 
How many charge cycles is on this battery? Some have suggested cycling the battery several times from 100% to 50%. Not sure if that's still the recommendation.

I did cycle the battery for the first 10 flights.
 
I didn't get a low voltage message, but last weekend after about 5 minutes of flying I received a "check battery error" message or something on my iPad.

You know how the batteries were impossible to remove in some previous Phantom models because they were so tight? Well apparently it's a little on the loose side with the Phantom 3 and the battery wasn't clicked all the way into place. I'd say it was sticking out of the Phantom by between1/16th and 1/8th of an inch when I brought it down for an inspection. So there was still a connection, but it knew it wasn't pushed all the way in.
 
I didn't get a low voltage message, but last weekend after about 5 minutes of flying I received a "check battery error" message or something on my iPad.

You know how the batteries were impossible to remove in some previous Phantom models because they were so tight? Well apparently it's a little on the loose side with the Phantom 3 and the battery wasn't clicked all the way into place. I'd say it was sticking out of the Phantom by between1/16th and 1/8th of an inch when I brought it down for an inspection. So there was still a connection, but it knew it wasn't pushed all the way in.
No THAT is something I learned the hard way, I now always make sure the battery is locked in place by tugging on it a bit, and giving it a slight twist back and forth to make sure the data pins are seated. Although that might be overkill on the P3 as there are 4 data pins and not 2 as the P2 had.
 
I solved my extra battery low voltge warning cleaing contact on both side (bird and battery) with a specific contact cleaner and towels. I made the same for data contact. For some reason the extra battery socket wasn't clean and it was enough dirty to make not good contact at high current drain (flight).
But I hope this is a solution, it worked for 3 more flight without a issue!!
 
I solved my extra battery low voltge warning cleaing contact on both side (bird and battery) with a specific contact cleaner and towels. I made the same for data contact. For some reason the extra battery socket wasn't clean and it was enough dirty to make not good contact at high current drain (flight).
But I hope this is a solution, it worked for 3 more flight without a issue!!
What is that specific cleaner and towel brand?
 
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The towel best suited are the ones supplied for LCD cleaning or phone screen cleaning because are very thin. I use KONTAKT Cleaner also for other electrical/electronics porpouse all the time. To clean inside battery contact you need a "fastom" type connector. Please don't use too much force inserting fastom+towel otherwise you can create damages to the four small blades inside !!!
After that slide battery 3-4 times slowly into the aircraft to clean both male and female power and data connectors connectors.
 
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