Phantom 3 malfunction and crash (flight record video)

Having seen my dog get run over I would smash a hundred flying toys to the ground before gong through that again.

You're bummed and understandably so but unfortunately it's part of the hobby. I watched my 2 week old P2V+v3 drop from 200' like a rock for no reason. Definitely sucks but don't let it ruin your whole weekend!
Hopefully it'll get taken care of petty quick and you'll be back in the air in no time.

I had to read this post twice and make sure it wasn't me talking. I had the EXACT same thing happen to my 2 week old P2V+ v3! 200 ft, nothing around. It hit the ground like a rock. All blades still attached but broken. The battery was at 99%.
 
I static tested the motors and found that motor 4 (Right rear) was spinning at almost 1000 RPM slower than the rest. The bird is back with DJI for warranty work. I will be adding tach tests to all my birds regular maintenance schedules.

What type of equipment would I need to buy to test the motors on mine as well?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Actually, the more I think about this, the more I am convinced of the possibility that degraded motor performance could be responsible for the OP's crash. The fact that he was chasing intermittent jello that progressively got worse and then would go away supports the theory that at least one motor was slowing or lagging until it began to seize. Every temporary seizure caused a change in vector after which the motor attempts to spin up again. Never fully regaining enough momentum to generate enough lift, the copter crashes.
ESCs either work or not so the progressive intermittent problems with vibrational jello can not be blamed on ESC failure. The loss of GPS does not cause these characteristics nor does loss of compass.
I would bet a shot of whiskey that this crash is the result of progressive motor bearing failure that never progressed to a full seizure of the motor.
 
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Hello, I'm new here and have a new P3P, so this post has a lot of interest to me.

I hope DJI can understand what really happened and is a malfunction in the Hardware, they assume and make a recall.

Just one thought, could it be possible to exist some wifi interference?
 
Reduced? It has been increased from p2 to p3

Correct more power on the p3 system which does help in this scenario.

But just like in a real aircraft once this state is entered the only way to get out of it is to fly out of the ring. Sometimes you can not recover.
 
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I have read this post twice and whilst briefly mentioned on a couple of occasions.. the actions of the quad displays all the indications of a compass error... I have a P3 and an Inspire and nearly all inspire crashes are compass related.

we have the abilty to check the mod values, before flight, on the ipad or what ever you use...but who does.. people who have 3k invested tend to do so.. I do on every flight
 
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Just to clarify something. Vortex ring or settling with power will not make you spin at all.
I found out that quadcopters are far more difficult to introduce in such state than conventional helicopter rotor systems that can get into vortex more easily if you get complacent.
Said this, vortex ring is surely a danger to anything flying with a rotor and pilots should always be aware of such possibility and fly accordingly. If a multimillion helicopter or tilt rotor can get into a vortex ring, be sure a DJI product can do that as awell.
Said this in my oppinion the accident mentioned in this post is not related to this cause because the aerodynamic behaviour of the crashed phantom mentioned here is not consistent with vortex
 
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I agree with no VRS. I disagree it can't happen on the P2 or P3. Depends on the air.

In re: jello, the only time I get it is if flying in gusty, breezy conditions. I didn't see any tree movement on the OP's jello video.
 
we have the abilty to check the mod values, before flight, on the ipad or what ever you use...but who does.. people who have 3k invested tend to do so.. I do on every flight

Can you expound on this a bit? I need to learn more about the mod values, what they should be and what they mean.

Thanks!
Chris
 
The reduced speeds help but in a calm environment it can still happen. Its just flight principles
Sounds like hot air.
If it was a real problem we'd be hearing of regular reports of people's drones falling out of the sky when they use RTH which induces controlled descent once over the home point.
4 vortex rings with opposite polarities make it fairly hard for this to happen for any significant length of time. I've seen it on an early P2 firmware.. it wobbles and then corrects itself within a second or so as it falls into thicker air.. this was before DJI limited the descent speed to 2m/s (on that model).
 
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Little else to do while on hold for 20 minutes with DJI (nothing like hearing you have a 2 minute wait-time for a half an hour - LOL) so I figured I'd update everyone on the remarkable service from Advexure...

The founder and CEO of Advexure, Travis, wrote me on Sunday and called me first thing this morning to talk me through everything. Considering all the proof I have, I felt comfortable enough to purchase another phantom hoping I get a 100% replacement from DJI. The truth is, I have little choice here since I actually have shoots lined up and some pretty incredible trips with my Delorean Time Machine (on a freaking battleship in a couple of months) and I can't be without that drone.

Now, am I worried this will happen again? Judging from the boards, no. It seems I got the rare lemon that is to be expected in a mass produced product. However I will say to anyone experiencing the "jello" I showed in the following video:


...simply while hovering? Contact DJI immediately. It's a sign that something is off-balance with your motors and not something as simple as your horizon being level. Don't sit in the sky trying to troubleshoot it like I did. I feel extremely fortunate no one was hurt or no property was damaged.

I'll update once there's more information. Thanks to everyone who helped me troubleshoot during my 3rd, 4th and 5th stages of grief. :rolleyes:
 
Little else to do while on hold for 20 minutes with DJI (nothing like hearing you have a 2 minute wait-time for a half an hour - LOL) so I figured I'd update everyone on the remarkable service from Advexure...

The founder and CEO of Advexure, Travis, wrote me on Sunday and called me first thing this morning to talk me through everything. Considering all the proof I have, I felt comfortable enough to purchase another phantom hoping I get a 100% replacement from DJI. The truth is, I have little choice here since I actually have shoots lined up and some pretty incredible trips with my Delorean Time Machine (on a freaking battleship in a couple of months) and I can't be without that drone.

Now, am I worried this will happen again? Judging from the boards, no. It seems I got the rare lemon that is to be expected in a mass produced product. However I will say to anyone experiencing the "jello" I showed in the following video:


...simply while hovering? Contact DJI immediately. It's a sign that something is off-balance with your motors and not something as simple as your horizon being level. Don't sit in the sky trying to troubleshoot it like I did. I feel extremely fortunate no one was hurt or no property was damaged.

I'll update once there's more information. Thanks to everyone who helped me troubleshoot during my 3rd, 4th and 5th stages of grief. :rolleyes:

Good thing about those low weight, soft plastic crafts is when they fall they kinda get into a semi-state of auto-rotation, where the blades spins from fall wind, reducing fall speed, so even if it can cause some damage, it would probably be limited, plastic would bend and bounce instead of piercing deep into a item or person...
Last time i crashed something was 8 years ago, a bolt came off one of my collective pitch rc heli blade holder, and the blade passed inches beside my head, making a bullet wizzing sound and penetrating a tree beside me 2 inches deep. I believe those quad are way easier to fly and way safer in case of crash.
Yes they could cause damage or injury but the probability of life threatening/expensive damage seem lower then winning the lottery.
 
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Thank you for sharing this video again, i am sure it might be good help if people spot the same thing in one of there videos. I know i will be doing a few hovering tests from time to time to check for this, so its helped me for sure, and like you say the most important thing is no body got hurt. I hope everything gets sorted for you and all is good with the new craft. Happy flying and thanks again.
 
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Just to clarify something. Vortex ring or settling with power will not make you spin at all.
I found out that quadcopters are far more difficult to introduce in such state than conventional helicopter rotor systems that can get into vortex more easily if you get complacent.
Said this, vortex ring is surely a danger to anything flying with a rotor and pilots should always be aware of such possibility and fly accordingly. If a multimillion helicopter or tilt rotor can get into a vortex ring, be sure a DJI product can do that as awell.
Said this in my oppinion the accident mentioned in this post is not related to this cause because the aerodynamic behaviour of the crashed phantom mentioned here is not consistent with vortex

Can you cite your source on the underlined section of your post?
My experience with the P2 and with 450 size CP-helis is that VRS can be induced at any time (i.e. on purpose) in most conditions other than strong wind or breezes.
 
Can you cite your source on the underlined section of your post?
My experience with the P2 and with 450 size CP-helis is that VRS can be induced at any time (i.e. on purpose) in most conditions other than strong wind or breezes.
Well my source is my own experience with 5000 hours helicopter flight time and my lets say around just 70 hours with a more simpler quadcopter like the Parrot AR 2 and the more powerful ande heavier DJI F550.
I have been able to make hard vertical descents on calm air and I have been able to recover it nicely. I would not have dared to do so on a real helo.
The arodynamics and engenierring are different here as well.
While in a conventional helicopter the blade angle chages when you increase power while the average rotor rpm stays the same, in a quadcopter done, the blade angle remains the same while the rpm change.
And this is a very important poin because you really gent into a vortex ring in a helo when making hard a vertical descent with no forward speed and relative wind and then you increase the blade angle to reduce the rate of descent.
I am not familiar qith the quadcopter drone aerodynamics particulars so I cannot elabotare a very technica response but what I can say is that quadcopters are more resilient to enter vortex ring, but let this be clear, they can surely enter and they will crash if you get into one and do not have enough height to move forward and gain speed.
They can surely enter vortex, but in my oppinion is harder to do so in a quadcopter than in a conventional helicopter.
 
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I figured it was anecdotal and respect your opinion(s).

VRS has been a real problem for these MRs since the beginning such that at least two f/w revs. included reductions in max controlled descent and now the P3 has added dihedral to further improve stability and VRS avoidance.
 

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