Well, it happened to me :(

[Mopar Bob]

This is just a longshot but I think worth mentioning. When you went to grab the copter, did you put the transmitter in such a position that you ended up blocking the antenna path? If so, and the connection was lost it may have been trying to initiate fail safe when either a motor or esc went bad. So instead of just hovering waiting for you to grab it, she started moving.

 

[richiewrt]

It stayed on the whole time.

I think could see where I was going with my last question to you. What Mako79 mentioned is right on point, and one area you never want to be off on. I want to add that you should always...always reboot the quad after you calibrate the IMU and/or Compass. I think because some are able to fly after doing a calibration and not reboot is why they don't know of there being any harm in not doing it. It's no different then when you do a firmware update of any kind on the vPlus. I hate to say it, but this very well could be why you experience the type of failure that took place. Unfortunately I don't have the proper data to see into the gps side of what took place. Nor is there battery voltage in your data to search for a electrical issue. All flytrex data you do have is good with no issues showing anywhere.

And what is your documentation on rebooting the quad after doing a compass calibration? The owners manual doesn't say anything about it, and the only thing I have seen is anecdotal. Also if the compass wasn't calibrated properly, you would think that I would have seen some issues in the prior 16 minutes of flight before landing. Not saying you are wrong, but I just like proof or documentation to back up claims.

 

[richiewrt]

Well, after 8 hours on a forced air dryer on low and a complete tear down, the phantom works completely. The battery was still good as well and still showing about 30% charged. It came up wanting a compass calibration, which I did, and it quickly acquired sats. I spun the motors up and all four seem to spin normally, although I didn't try to take off. The bird is now boxed up and ready to be on its way back to Amazon. I suspect that it was a compass issue, although I doubt that powering it off and back on would have made a difference, but who knows. With that said, I have a flytrex core2 and an extra battery charger that will be for sale if anyone is interested. The core2 has been submerged and dried, but I didn't test to see if it worked so it will be cheap.

 

[rbhamilton]

The bird is now boxed up and ready to be on its way back to Amazon.

Good call. Send it back to the mother ship and let DJI worry about what went wrong. You paid your dues when you drove home in your boxers. You don't owe them anything more.

 

[singapore_phantom]

Good call. Send it back to the mother ship and let DJI worry about what went wrong. You paid your dues when you drove home in your boxers. You don't owe them anything more.

LOL!

 

[PsychopathRC]

Power cycle after calibrating the compass? Not heard that before. Would have thought that if that was required, it would tell us. Like it does in the assistant software.

 

[sbjr0203]

If on the flip side of the road or in the pic north where you took off from, why it showing landing on the rocks? Just curious

 

[richiewrt]

That was where I intended to land it, but it inverted itself and slammed into the rocks.

 

[sbjr0203]

Gotcha,just curious why didn't land from where took off from. That's one sketchy place to land in any fashion.

 

[richiewrt]

I actually took off from there, but had switched on the phantom in the parking lot. That is why the flytrex shows it taking off in the parking lot. There is a row of trees between the parking lot and the creek.