P2 Flyaway - NOT GPS

garrock · Aug 25, 2015

I had my first actual Flyway Event:

But it does NOT appear to be GPS related:

I ascended the drone vertically
Then jogged left a right a few times
Spun the drone nose a bit to line it up
THEN.. I moved the joysticks just a little to back the drone up a bit
That is when the drone took off
As if it locked in the last commanded direction and speed
The drone did not respond to the joysticks
I saw the drones LEDs green indicating it had a a GPS lock as it flew off

Luckily it crashed into a nearby cow pasture hill side of the same height or it would have kept on going.

Suspect/Theory:

The drone ignored additional RC control reception and kept using the last commanded direction and speed.
The controller firmware is buggy and it kept sending the same information ignoring its own joysticks

robsquad · Aug 25, 2015

did you fry flicking to atti ?

garrock · Aug 25, 2015

No.. brain was overloaded not believing what I was experiencing.

Has ATTI been reported to fix?

I was moving the joysticks and the drone did not waver a bit. Just kept on a steady heading; I saw the green light status as it flew away.

Timtro · Sep 6, 2015

Any UFOs nearby at the time? [emoji12]

garrock · Sep 6, 2015

I saw only IFO's in the area.

WD40 · Sep 8, 2015

i had simular flight.... But I think that was my fault because i got in the air with only 2satelitess....
Maybe that u try to turn off your controler when that happenes? That will help?

garrock · Sep 8, 2015

Loss of satellites does not affect the 5.8ghz RC control signal.
Loss of satellites does not trigger a Return To Home.

( unless.. there is a bug deep down in DJI's IMU and control firmware )

justin00 · Sep 17, 2015

I had same thing ages ago... was maybe 50th flight (when I say flight I mean 2 batteries worth... as I have 2 batteries)
1st battery it flew fine... second battery randomly it stopped responding to controller and kept going against tthe wind in the direction it was headed b4 it lost controller.... luckily for me it relised it knew the controller was dead and it flew back... once it came back hand caught it... still not responding to controller... so def wasn;t interferance....

only way to fix it was to reboot the phantom, then like magic it all worked perfectly again... and has worked perfectly for 100 flights (again 2 batteries per flight). Have flown in exact same area, and due to the fact when I had the problem once it returned and was 1 foot away from controller the controller still didnt work... tried atti, turned it on/off... as far as phantom was concerned the controller was out of range/not connected.

Anyways I call that a fly away.. as it literally flew away... sounds exact same as yours... I just put it down to a bug that luckily only happened once.

*edit* forgot to mention when it flew away it was pretty close... mabe 100 feet away and 50-100 ft high.... no tree's of anything.. perfect LOS. have flown it waaaaaaaaay further away without issues before/after that one occurance.

*edit* forgot to mention... wierd thing was when flew away it was still flash green as if it was happy, then got msg on app saying connection lost and it flew back and did the 'coming home' led flash... can't remember colors.. once it was back home it was still flashing green even thoguh controller didn't work... didn't flash yellow to signify no controller, which is odd... Perhaps it was a problem wit the controllers TX... but luckily for me its never happened again..

justin00 · Sep 17, 2015

BTW even if you had 2 satellites or 12, that should be no reason for it to stop responding to the controller...
I know some people loose satts, then the wind picks it up and it "flies away" but when that occurs the controller shoul still be working, THAT scenario seems to be a common problem when you lose visual... but anyways thats not what happened to me, and doesn't like what happened to the OP.

JM Levesque · Sep 19, 2015

garrock said:
I had my first actual Flyway Event:

But it does NOT appear to be GPS related:

I ascended the drone vertically

Then jogged left a right a few times

Spun the drone nose a bit to line it up

THEN.. I moved the joysticks just a little to back the drone up a bit

That is when the drone took off

As if it locked in the last commanded direction and speed

The drone did not respond to the joysticks

I saw the drones LEDs green indicating it had a a GPS lock as it flew off

Luckily it crashed into a nearby cow pasture hill side of the same height or it would have kept on going.

Suspect/Theory:

The drone ignored additional RC control reception and kept using the last commanded direction and speed.

The controller firmware is buggy and it kept sending the same information ignoring its own joysticks

Garrock, reading your post,it looks like you now worry about GPS lost... or rather you want to put that possible problem away... ;o) but reading the description of what has happened to your drone, you may be right; does not seem to be GPS related.. this time ;o)

N017RW · Sep 19, 2015

IMU

Ask Ian Wood about that.

dirkclod · Sep 19, 2015

N017RW said:
IMU

Ask Ian Wood about that.

JK ..he does know all about that

I know ..I Googled it

N017RW · Sep 19, 2015

Yep... and that tingle tells you it's working!

daniel_erpe · Sep 28, 2015

Hi. I just wana ask something. I turned on the wifi of my gopro and i lost control of the drone it went back to where it took off. Why is that? Thanks!

N017RW · Sep 28, 2015

It's supposed to RTH when it looses signal.

The GoPro is known to create interference.

So the GoPro interference manifested itself as loss of signal and the quad RTH

garrock · Sep 28, 2015

daniel_erpe said:
Hi. I just wana ask something. I turned on the wifi of my gopro and i lost control of the drone it went back to where it took off. Why is that? Thanks!

That appears explainable.

It sounds like you have a plain Phantom 2 with a GoPro mounted. A plain Phantom 2 uses 2.4ghz for the RC uplink control signal.

The GoPRo WiFI signal is also on 2.4ghz. WiFi is a spread spectrum signal. According to the wifi channel-band in locked on to, it sounds like it jammed the Phantom 2.4ghz RC uplink control signal.

Since radio reception is about "Signal To Noise", you would not be able to fly your Phantom 2 as far with the GoPro WiFi turned on until it jammed the RC signal and forced an RTH.