Started spinning and fell 50 m

[angrybob]

Took phantom out and was trying an Orbit. Just as it starts to turn to get into position, it started spinning and fell out of the sky. Luckily I wasn't over a body of water and it landed in some bushes! Its about 6 weeks old.

Here is the log and I pulled the log from the drone.
HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Problem is now one of the motors is weak, and obviously cannot take off. The motor doesn't seem to have any power and is easily stopped by a finger compared to the rest. It sounds normal. Everything else looks ok.

I'd love to know the cause and whether this is something that DJI would consider repairing. There was some wind outside and I am wondering if a hard gust caught it off guard.

Or should I just repair it myself?

 

[msinger]

Please upload your log here.

 

[robsquad]

Please upload your log here.

its in his post

 

[msinger]

its in his post

What is in his post?

 

[kirk2579]

considering the water all around I have 2 thoughts.

you are lucky.. it landed on land..
a bird, sea gull, strike maybe!

 

[185EZ]

.

 

[msinger]

HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Yep, but that's precisely the problem. There's not enough data in that log viewer

 

[185EZ]

.

 

[angrybob]

Connected my tablet to usb, but all the logs under Litchi are old. Obviously it created logs and uploaded to HD, but now they are not present The HD ones don't show enough info.

Watching the video it all happened very quickly.

Is a slow/weak motor nearly always the motor itself or could this be something horrible like the main board?

 

[RodPad]

Anybody know what is "Mode changed to GPS_HotPoint" ?

 

[msinger]

Anybody know what is "Mode changed to GPS_HotPoint" ?

It's POI.

 

[RodPad]

It's POI.

Thanks, Well you can tell, I have never tried that, I sure can't tell what happened. Now that Wind is gone on free account. Does the poster have to pay for it or the viewer? Got a clue?

 

[msinger]

Now that Wind is gone on free account. Does the poster have to pay for it or the viewer?

I'm not sure. The wind is calculated, so it's usefulness is questionable. I've never heard of wind making a bird drop out of the sky though.

 

[RodPad]

True, but maybe a Funnel Cloud.
He must have had a motor problem, At his distance he should have seen a bird impact, I think I would send it in for repair, I guess there is chance of debris in the motor.

 

[angrybob]

yeah I reckon I would have seen evidence of bird impact on the quad (IE blood) or on the video (feathers). I cannot see any evidence of external factors. It was windy but tbh I have flown a lot in winds. TBH its just looked like a vortex ring state which tied in nicely with a yaw....perhaps it caught nicely with a gust of wind and was too much.

Would max throttle help against a VRS? I'll try at least uploading a youtube vid.

I guess I just want to figure out if I should change the motor (25 $) and not bother sending it in, or if its something bigger like the main board. I think it will need to be sent to the Netherlands.

 

[OrlyP]

Go to Sensors then Compass. It's all in red! If I read it correctly, you had a compass error prior to crashing, but it seems that the controller was out of range to receive the notifications.

Did you do a compass calibration prior to flight?

 

[RodPad]

Read the details on how HD checks for compass errors spinning to fast is how the evaluate a problem

 

[angrybob]

Here is the video recovered....very sudden!

Admit it we all love crash videos

 

[OrlyP]

Read the details on how HD checks for compass errors spinning to fast is how the evaluate a problem

After seeing the crash video, I tend to agree with you. It was doing fine heading towards the body of water but, after doing a couple of degrees of left yaw, it happened.

I think that the weak motor could be the root cause rather than the result of the crash. The behavior is similar to a quadcopter suddenly losing a prop. Maybe an ESC failure?

 

[syotr]

Sounds like a motor or ESC failure. Send it in for warranty repair. Maybe they will cover it. If you open it up, and it turns out to be a problem with an ESC on the main board, then you have voided your warranty on something that should be covered. The main board is very expensive. On previous models, it was easy and cheap to replace motors and ESC's.