P2+ out of control

[jaywils]

I was doing a practice flight today in my own driveway which was perfectly
normal and uneventful. I terminated the flight by hand-capture and set it
down. Then I decided to throttle it up to idle to purge the battery to
exhaustion, something that is recommended practice. I think I had turned
everything else off which was now became a big problem. As soon as I
throttled it up, rather than staying in idle mode, the phantom just lifted
off by itself. I quickly turned on the Controller and the Wi-Fi but it was
too little and too late. The Phantom hit a tree, fell about 20 feet,
recovered and continued upward still without any control. Then it hit
another branch and came down hard on the asphalt and the camera module broke
off. Ouch!

 

[Mako79]

Battery warning = Return to Home at nominated height.
Cancel by holding the H button (P3) on the controller or flicking S1 down and then back up to GPS (p2) or tapping cancel RTH on the screen.
Never let phantom idle with props on. IF you do, bolt it down with plank of wood or some weights. Best practice is to hover til it self auto lands.

 

[Birdman]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Don't understand how you can throttle up with the controller off. Sounds like maybe the copter went into the RTH mode. How did you "terminate the flight"? Is it possible that if you turn the controller off while the copter is still being held up, it hasn't registered that it has landed yet and then wants to do the RTH routine if the controller is turned off. Just a guess.

 

[barefootbeachcombing]

Never idle on the ground with the props attached.
Never turn off the controller if the Phantom is still turned on.

 

[sdtag]

Never idle on the ground with the props attached.
Never turn off the controller if the Phantom is still turned on.

+1
never EVER

 

[cjmwales]

I was doing a practice flight today in my own driveway which was perfectly
normal and uneventful. I terminated the flight by hand-capture and set it
down. Then I decided to throttle it up to idle to purge the battery to
exhaustion, something that is recommended practice. I think I had turned
everything else off which was now became a big problem. As soon as I
throttled it up, rather than staying in idle mode, the phantom just lifted
off by itself. I quickly turned on the Controller and the Wi-Fi but it was
too little and too late. The Phantom hit a tree, fell about 20 feet,
recovered and continued upward still without any control. Then it hit
another branch and came down hard on the asphalt and the camera module broke
off. Ouch!

Your Phantom thought it was still flying, and once control signal was lost it initiated RTH.

As others have already pointed out, idling isn't a good idea either as you're not getting cooling air through the vents.

I don't think you'll make that mistake again!

 

[jaywils]

I think you're right, it went into into RTH mode. I just wasn't mindful about what I was doing.
A few weeks ago I let it idle to purge the other battery but only after it landed and everything was left ON. It worked fine. But the battery was already sufficiently low that it didn't have enough power to lift off anyway and it did enable the battery to fully charge again.
Oh well, a good excuse to upgrade to P3.

 

[jaywils]

Battery warning = Return to Home at nominated height.
Cancel by holding the H button (P3) on the controller or flicking S1 down and then back up to GPS (p2) or tapping cancel RTH on the screen.
Never let phantom idle with props on. IF you do, bolt it down with plank of wood or some weights. Best practice is to hover til it self auto lands.

NOW you tell me ;-)
I thought I could continue flying the Phantom, just for fun, even without a camera but it will not connect to WiFi. The iPhone will recognize the Phantom's WiFi address but when I switch to the DJI app, I get a "not connected" message and no telemetry status data, like battery or GPS. The Phantom will respond to throttle commands but I have not flown for obvious reasons. My guess is it's not worth fixing but I'm just curious if the loss of the camera feed is tied to everything else?

 

[Supadrone]

Hey man.... you can still fly the Phantom no problem without the cam. I myself even just fly it without being connected to wifi without the range extender on or using my smartphone. You just need to monitor your battery levels often.. maybe use a timer. Making sure you calibrate your compass and getting a good gps lock still. How bad is your camera beat up?

 

[Mako79]

NOW you tell me ;-)
I thought I could continue flying the Phantom, just for fun, even without a camera but it will not connect to WiFi. The iPhone will recognize the Phantom's WiFi address but when I switch to the DJI app, I get a "not connected" message and no telemetry status data, like battery or GPS. The Phantom will respond to throttle commands but I have not flown for obvious reasons. My guess is it's not worth fixing but I'm just curious if the loss of the camera feed is tied to everything else?

Its a common problem after a crash. There a 3 grey cables from the phantom to the gimbal. Inspect all 3, especailly the 4 pin clip in cable.

 

[robsquad]

You can link one of the camera cables back to the main board to get telemetry on the app.
You won't have pic but app will show some data.
Sorry can't remember which one so you will need to dig back in the forum to find it