P3P attempted flyaway, lost control, need help

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HI everyone! It's been a while since I've ran into any issues with my P3P fortunately, but about a couple weeks ago I was flying and I ran into a very strange, and stressful issue. I've not flown since due to my anxiety about the situation.

So I took a very successful flight in one location. I calibrated the compass and had no issues flying in the first location. After I finished the first flight, I changed locations to a different spot about .5mi away from the first. I took the P3P out of my car, calibrated again and took off. My flight was going just fine until my issue started suddenly. I had ascended to about 50 ft (from 10ish ft) fairly quickly, held my position momentarily and then started off in one direction (I think I had the right stick close to, if not, max speed) and suddenly the P3 took off on its own, rapidly ascending from my ~50ft to around 100ft and flying away from me.

Now panicking, I looked down at the screen briefly to see a long list of red error messages (I believe it was something about battery overcurrent during discharge). After seeing the errors and watching my Phantom fly away from me while trying to fight it's trajectory with my controller, I toggled the flight mode from gps to atti and then back to gps a couple times in hopes it would do something. Somehow, the phantom stopped flying away from me and I was able to bring it down at a fast rate of speed. I had a semi rough landing, nothing bad at all, but I didn't pause before I landed to see if the phantom had stopped acting up.

I tried to create a disk image from the the phantom to upload online to see errors but when I uploaded it, it didn't seem to have any critical errors listed. I checked back through my dji app to find that it did mention giving me the battery errors during my flight.

I guess my question is what should I do next? Should I stop using this battery? Has anyone else ran into the same thing? It was pretty scary at the time. I'm always pretty cautious when flying, I try to never fly near people and this time I was over an empty field so that paid off. I would greatly appreciate any info. I've got the video feed from when the P3P took off which I will post if it helps at all.

Thanks a ton!
 
HI everyone! It's been a while since I've ran into any issues with my P3P fortunately, but about a couple weeks ago I was flying and I ran into a very strange, and stressful issue. I've not flown since due to my anxiety about the situation.
The best cure for post incident anxiety is to look at the flight data and find the cause of the incident.
Go to https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.

Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone here will probably be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

ps ... you don't need to recalibrate the compass every flight and once you get a good calibration it's quite safe to stick with it.
 
The best cure for post incident anxiety is to look at the flight data and find the cause of the incident.
Go to https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.

Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone here will probably be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

ps ... you don't need to recalibrate the compass every flight and once you get a good calibration it's quite safe to stick with it.

Thanks for the tip! I think I tried this a couple days after my flight with no conclusive results. I'll definitely try it again though! Also, I always thought the good practice was to recalibrate every time you change locations?
 
Thanks for the tip! I think I tried this a couple days after my flight with no conclusive results. I'll definitely try it again though!
You can copy a link and paste it here to have more experienced eyes go over the flight data.
I always thought the good practice was to recalibrate every time you change locations?
Lots of users think that but it's not true.
Unnecessary recalibration of the compass introduces the risk of a bad calibration if done in the wrong place.
The manual is poorly written and confusing when it comes to compass calibration.
This thread gives a good understanding of what compass calibration is and when it's necessary.
Compass Calibration, A Complete Primer
 
I think that Compass Calibration is only needed if flights are a great amount of distance from your last flight. I've never Calibrated my Compass again within a 50 mile radius. I do Calibrate of traveling further than my regular flight patterns. I do believe that Calibrating your Compass to often can Confuse your Bird.

Sent from my SM-N920V using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
I guess my question is what should I do next? Should I stop using this battery? Has anyone else ran into the same thing? It was pretty scary at the time.
It looks like the Speed Error is the thing.
We don't see speed errors much and when we do it's usually because of a hardware malfunction.
The thing to do is to upload that flight record to DJI (click the cloud icon)
Then get onto DJI online support down the bottom of this page: DJI Support - Here for You
Tell them the story and let them take it from there.
 
It looks like the Speed Error is the thing.
We don't see speed errors much and when we do it's usually because of a hardware malfunction.
The thing to do is to upload that flight record to DJI (click the cloud icon)
Then get onto DJI online support down the bottom of this page: DJI Support - Here for You
Tell them the story and let them take it from there.
Thanks so much for the feedback! When you say "click the cloud icon" is that on the DJI site, to get into online support?
 
Thanks for the tip! I think I tried this a couple days after my flight with no conclusive results. I'll definitely try it again though! Also, I always thought the good practice was to recalibrate every time you change locations?

No it is not a good practice to calibrate the compass everytime.

Do it once somewhere clear , then be don't do it anymore

each time you do the calibration you introduce the possibility of a bad calibration

Almost ALL posts that mention flyaway or lost drone start out the same exact way:
I calibrated my compass and then my drone did this or that...........

the battery propulsion message is telling you battery is being pushed too hard or near danger levels
low temps and low battery percentage will get that depending on how you fly
just make sure the battery is around 20c at start and always start with full battery charge

good luck and have fun flying!
 
I always re-calibrate the compass after a FW update (P3P and Controller), even if I fly near, or at, the same location.
I do fly often, these days, in populated urban areas. I'm always a little on edge about the bird locking in to position.
So far ..... so good.
Read the book, and always follow your pre-flight checklist.
 
I just submitted my support request to DJI! Hopefully I'll hear back soon


Looks like you were flying underground for a while too as the altitude was -ve! The .DAT file will reveal so much more information if you can extract that from the aircraft?
I was able to get the .dat file from my ipad. Is there somewhere I can upload it online similar to the phantom help site?
 
I was able to get the .dat file from my ipad. Is there somewhere I can upload it online similar to the phantom help site?
You can view the data with DatCon.
 
You can view the data with DatCon.
The .dat that @emerrow is referring to came from the tablet. It's a fake one and useless. :)The real .DAT is on the P3 itself. There has been a lot of confusion about this one lately. I think this other .dat must be something new with the Go App.

Usually SPEED_ERROR_LARGE isn't a hardware error. But, this time I agree with @Meta4. It might just be a hardware error. At time 536, when the SPEED_ERROR_LARGE starts, the hSpeed becomes noisy. The height also starts a descent to -36m. Both of these are physically impossible, particularly the height of -36 m
upload_2016-12-8_23-42-2.png


The battery drops to 12.18 from 14.55 volts in this interval.
upload_2016-12-8_23-45-30.png

This causes the battery output to start being limited at time 543 when the hSpeed and height values start having more reasonable values.

Would a low voltage (12.18 volts) have this kind of effect on the GPS? If so, then maybe it's just a case of don't use that battery again. I'm not a battery guy. Maybe someone else has an opinion.
 
I got an email back from dji saying that I would just have to send it in to have it looked at since it could be any number of things. I'm not sure if I should try and test it again or if I should just bite the bullet and send it to dji.
 
I got an email back from dji saying that I would just have to send it in to have it looked at since it could be any number of things. I'm not sure if I should try and test it again or if I should just bite the bullet and send it to dji.
I thought about this some more. It seems likely, to me a t least, that the sudden drop in battery voltage caused the battery output to be limited. That's how it's supposed to work. It also seems that voltage drop caused the problems with the GPS, both position and altitude. That shouldn't happen. There have been other flights where voltage drops, battery output gets limited, voltage the raises back up. But, the GPS isn't affected. IMHO it should go back to DJI. What do you think @msinger
 
Personally I think it needs to be sent back, when the battery voltage drops you usually get a yellow message saying "battery propulsion limited to ensure the health" or something like that and it shouldn't affect the GPS or anything. Could be a simple defective battery rather then the bird. Do you have a spare battery to test. Just a little hover for a few mins and slowly fly the bird. Could it also be interference as you said you was in a field. Was there any power lines around ?

Sent from my Power using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
The .dat that @emerrow is referring to came from the tablet. It's a fake one and useless. :)The real .DAT is on the P3 itself. There has been a lot of confusion about this one lately. I think this other .dat must be something new with the Go App.

Usually SPEED_ERROR_LARGE isn't a hardware error. But, this time I agree with @Meta4. It might just be a hardware error. At time 536, when the SPEED_ERROR_LARGE starts, the hSpeed becomes noisy. The height also starts a descent to -36m. Both of these are physically impossible, particularly the height of -36 m
View attachment 70394

The battery drops to 12.18 from 14.55 volts in this interval.
View attachment 70395
This causes the battery output to start being limited at time 543 when the hSpeed and height values start having more reasonable values.

Would a low voltage (12.18 volts) have this kind of effect on the GPS? If so, then maybe it's just a case of don't use that battery again. I'm not a battery guy. Maybe someone else has an opinion.

@BudWalker , I might be wrong, I think what is shown on your graph with speed noise and voltage change taking place is possibly what happens when the Propulsion system changes the ergonomics.

When say the voltage percentage drops below it's set limit (8-10%?) and a message is displayed on-screen to the operator, something has to be taking place in some area. I have seen the messages but never dug into the data to see what showed up in what area. I have wondered at what point is it once the message appears does a settings change take place, and more what exactly was being changed.

Edit: Also for what it's worth, in my 35yrs of motorcycle drag racing none of the electronics began operating strange until between 9.5-10 volts.
 
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Personally I think it needs to be sent back, when the battery voltage drops you usually get a yellow message saying "battery propulsion limited to ensure the health" or something like that and it shouldn't affect the GPS or anything. Could be a simple defective battery rather then the bird. Do you have a spare battery to test. Just a little hover for a few mins and slowly fly the bird. Could it also be interference as you said you was in a field. Was there any power lines around?

I've gotten the "battery propulsion limited to ensure health" message quite a few times at the end of my flights. I was in a big field but I think there were power lines maybe .5-.75 miles east of me. I tried to stay away from them.
 

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