Phantom 2 Catastrophic Failure after Firmware 3.06

i've only got 1 battery so don't get many flights in, but i've done probably 5-6 flights on 3.06. Only had one issue were maximum it could get was 5 satelites (this was at a new location so not sure if this is unusal for there). & when the rth cut in because of battery level it tried to land on a car bonnet, this was obviously a satelite /home point issue & not 3.06 related

touch wood i've never crashed it or had a glitch apart from the one above, but it does make me nervous with all these stories coming out

ps i'm p2 with gimbal
 
Zinnware said:
Xrover said:
I heard that there was some talk that batteries from about 6 months ago might have an issue with some bad cells.
I had two batteries that had issues and I documented video of my iOSD where it failed with one battery at 72% and the other with 92%, but the voltage level was below the hidden third level threshold of 10.65V.. See my posts including video here...
Ref Thread: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17324&start=138
The thread shows additional information I provided about the batteries. This behavior (failure) was repeated for each battery. I have sent them back to DJI and await their replacement. The video of one of the batteries is shown below.
---------------------------------------
Autoland at 92%
I guess I am the latest victim to a bad battery. Mine will go into autoland just as it reaches 92% or about 1 to 2 minutes of hovering. I have a video that shows the battery level indicator go from full charge to zero from the DJI osd mini.
http://youtu.be/K8YaDtoFVi4

This is what I believe happened in Xrover's case as well. Although it seemed related to the firmware update because of the timing, this was probably just coincidental. Thousands of people are working off the new firmware for sometime now with very few incidents reported. A bad cell can cause very strange behavior as you well documented in your video. At $129 a pop, it would certainly be helpful if DJI could get some better quality control of these batteries.
 
I dunno if this helps, but I had my 6th flight this morning and I noticed that the battery level displayed 60% and when I looked some 30 seconds later it was down to ~40%? As I'm a beginner I don't rely flying fpv only so I don't constantly look at the screen. Maybe the phantom is having issues reading the *actual* battery value?
 
This is all very troubling. If the new firmware somehow interpets the battery condition differently then in previous FW versions then maybe a battery sympton that didn't neccesarily affect previous FW versions is now being handled differently by the Flight Control system in 3.06.

I have 4 batteries now. All were purchased 5-6 months ago. At the same time as the one in the P2 when it crashed. Other then looking at cell voltage in the P2 assistant software, i don't know of any other way to check the battery's comdition.

It seems like their are numerous batteries out there that are failing and there is nothing you can do to determine if you have one of them until it is to late.
 
I wonder what would happen if one of the batteries failing on 3.06 was tested in a different Phantom with 3.04.
I recall Apple had problems in the iPhone 4 (iirc) where a new firmware caused the GPS to drain the battery much faster than an older version, and a newer firmware then resolved the issue.
Doing a google search, it seems that that iOS has this problem again https://discussions.apple.com/message/25342247
I'm on 7.0.x on my 5s and I was lucky to never have these issues as I don't update with every FW.
 
Xrover said:
This is all very troubling. If the new firmware somehow interpets the battery condition differently then in previous FW versions then maybe a battery sympton that didn't neccesarily affect previous FW versions is now being handled differently by the Flight Control system in 3.06.

I would not rule that out as being a possibility, but we would need to see many more cases like yours to make that link I believe. And of course, we know people are discovering and reporting bad batteries on a weekly if not more frequent basis (prior to firmware update), so it would take some pretty high numbers of this problem to show a causal relationship.
 
Lozboz said:
I've been a happy flier on 3.04.

Houston... I think we have a problem!

I really don't want to push my luck to a fourth crash landing. Would it be possible for someone to either explain or point me to a thread as to how I can go back to 3.04?

I did it, changed back to 3.04. Just use the previous DJI Phantom Assistant 3.0 and then it will show firmware upgrade to 3.04. (downgrade actually).
Make sure to re cal everything both on RC Assistant and Phantom Assistant. I have to do RC Assistant cal for the controller three times due to gimbal pitch was not working after downgrade.
 
Thanks felas.

I presume that I also need to 'downgrade' the android app ?

Would anyone be able to advise how to do this?

Thanks
 
felas said:
Lozboz said:
I've been a happy flier on 3.04.

Houston... I think we have a problem!

I really don't want to push my luck to a fourth crash landing. Would it be possible for someone to either explain or point me to a thread as to how I can go back to 3.04?

I did it, changed back to 3.04. Just use the previous DJI Phantom Assistant 3.0 and then it will show firmware upgrade to 3.04. (downgrade actually).
Make sure to re cal everything both on RC Assistant and Phantom Assistant. I have to do RC Assistant cal for the controller three times due to gimbal pitch was not working after downgrade.

Are we able to host previous versions of DJI's software or is there some kind of distribution/licensing issue with that? It would be good to have a sticky on this forum with download links to the previous software. I don't think the outdated versions are available on DJI's website, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Xrover said:
This is all very troubling. If the new firmware somehow interpets the battery condition differently then in previous FW versions then maybe a battery sympton that didn't neccesarily affect previous FW versions is now being handled differently by the Flight Control system in 3.06.

I have 4 batteries now. All were purchased 5-6 months ago. At the same time as the one in the P2 when it crashed. Other then looking at cell voltage in the P2 assistant software, i don't know of any other way to check the battery's comdition.

It seems like their are numerous batteries out there that are failing and there is nothing you can do to determine if you have one of them until it is to late.

I remember seeing a video where a guy puts a battery on a voltmeter and shows the voltage sag once a load was applied to the battery. His load was two lightbulbs.

The video clearly showed the comparison of two batteries that display the same voltage when they are not under load. However, when one of the batteries is placed under load, it shows serious voltage sag indicating some kind of issue with one of the cells. I forget where the video is but I'll try to dig it up.

I would imagine that a key way of testing these phantom batteries would involve measuring the voltage when the battery is under some kind of load.

Perhaps someone can chime in with some kind of answer. I'm not much of an electrical guy myself, but there must be a simple way of doing this.
 
It's Like we have a new car but the manufacturer has put a hood lock on it.
 
I have two P2's running 3.06 and thus far, other than a couple of my older batteries giving up the ghost way too soon (not new to 3.06), I have been pleased with it. Maybe a dozen flights between them, and no anomalies yet. Flew my first (and hopefully last) wedding for a friend yesterday. Most nerve-wracking flight yet, having one shot to fly straight down the aisle at just the right moment, yaw smoothly around, and second pass. 3.06 was bomber.

Filming golf and maybe surfing in Cabo next week. Nervous about flying over the water for all the obvious reasons, but so far no evidence on either machine of any unreliability.

Update Aug 11th: see my post later in this thread re v3.06 crash. I am no longer comfortable in v3.06, particularly GPS mode, and will be downgrading my one remaining P2 to 3.04 before flying again.

Kelly
 
Good to hear. Down the aisle sounds nerve wracking indeed! I haven't flown for a bit. Will probably be doing some this week.
 
Spoke too soon. Just had my first fly away. Never seen anything like this. Hands-off hovering in GPS mode with 7 sats, then suddenly un-commanded exit stage left until it eventually augered into the pavement. Major damage of camera, gimbal, hull, battery, props, VTx.

Kelly
 
wkf94025 said:
Spoke too soon. Just had my first fly away. Never seen anything like this. Hands-off hovering in GPS mode with 7 sats, then suddenly un-commanded exit stage left until it eventually augered into the pavement. Major damage of camera, gimbal, hull, battery, props, VTx.

Kelly

If you only had 7 satellites it likely dropped to 6 and you have no lock. 7 satellites is really weak to take off with, I mostly have 8-10 when I fly.
 
Sucks to hear all that have had problems. I updated from 3.04 to 3.06 a couple weeks back and I am really happy with it. Thankfully it flies straight and the J hook is minimal (thank you to all involved in this fix).
I have noticed I regained a bit more speed in this new update. Under 3.04, I could barely fly up-wind in the lightest breeze. Flying in windy conditions yesterday, the upwind performance was great in GPS. Also with my battery level set to 20%, I felt like I got more flight time before it started flashing red. Under 3.04 it would start flashing red approx 16 mins but now it doesn't till approx 18 mins (vTX, camera, gimbal etc)

All up I am very happy...waited along time for this fix
 
Correction: 7 sats at takeoff, 10 sats once stabilized in the air.

Also, following upgrade to v3.06, I did full calibrations in Assistant, including IMU, and compass calibration. The site where the crash occurred I have flown and filmed at least 50+ times since my first Phantom 1.0 almost a year ago.

Just watched video of crash. I am standing there adjusting FPV screen, zero stick inputs when it suddenly took off. As my wife just pointed out, thank God this didn't happen during the wedding I filmed on Saturday, with almost 200 people immediately on either side of the flight path.

Vote of No Confidence on v3.06 firmware.

Kelly
 
wkf94025 said:
Correction: 7 sats at takeoff, 10 sats once stabilized in the air. Just watched video of crash. I am standing there adjusting FPV screen, zero stick inputs when it suddenly took off. As my wife just pointed out, thank God this didn't happen during the wedding I filmed on Saturday, with almost 200 people immediately on either side of the flight path.

Vote of No Confidence on v3.06 firmware.

Kelly

sorry to hear this... I will never update past 1.08.
 

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