Why did my P3A fall from the sky?

Also, what do you mean that the firmware has been set up to put the aircraft in a not so good situation? Also, to Mark the Droner: you may be right about the capabilities of DJI Go of displaying the individual cells' voltages. I was too glib in saying there was no way to do that. In case there is such capability, checking cell voltages should be part of preflight check. Also, why doesn't the firmware just let the rotors slow down when the voltages drop below 3v? What good does it do to quit completely?


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
 
No, that's not what I meant. I do agree it was a battery issue. I think the non-OEM battery I used was faulty. I also think that any good battery shouldn't have some cells at 3V when the battery as a whole was supposed to be 86% full. I started out with a fully-charged battery, and, after 2 short flights, the battery was at 87%. Under normal circumstances, that should be plenty to start a 3rd flight with. The cells should have discharged evenly, or so I would hope. Unfortunately, two of the cells were under 3V and there was no way for me to know this without analyzing the .dat file.

Faulty batteries are a fact of life - even OEM batteries - and not all aftermarket batteries are the same. Would you mind sharing the brand name of the battery you were using? I'm not sure your experience on its own is enough to condemn all aftermarket batteries - especially since even DJI's OEM batteries have known issues when taking off with less than a full charge.

But for others that might still consider going the aftermarket route - they may be interested in avoiding the specific brand that you had a problem with - or if going with that brand - they may want to keep a closer eye on the individual cell voltages.

So...what brand battery were you using? If they offer any kind of guarantee - it might also be interesting to hear how they handle your complaint/claim from this incident. If you pursue something with them - please share the details of your interaction with them!

Sorry to hear about your incident.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots
 
About the txt file: no, I'm not familiar with it and didn't look for it when I connected the aircraft to the computer. I'll look for it when I work on this issue next. Thanks for the information.
 
About the txt file: no, I'm not familiar with it and didn't look for it when I connected the aircraft to the computer. I'll look for it when I work on this issue next. Thanks for the information.

The file you need is in the device you have the GO app loaded on. You must connect this device to your computer and search for a folder named DJI.
Open the DJI folder and locate folder dji.pilot.
Open the dji.pilot folder and locate folder FlightRecord.
Open folder Flight Record and scroll near the bottom of the page and look for the txt file matching the flight in question. That file will look similar to this:
"DJIFlightRecord_2016-08-23_[19-22-40].txt"

DJI/dji.pilot/FlightRecord/DJIFlightRecord_2016-08-23_[19-22-40].txt

Copy and Save the .txt file to a empty folder on your desktop, and zip.
Now upload the zipped folder to this thread.
 
Ok, I'll look later. Even though I'm a CS/EE professor I have a hard time understanding the iPad's file system. It's so illogical that I had a hard time finding a local file the other day!


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
 
Ok, I'll look later. Even though I'm a CS/EE professor I have a hard time understanding the iPad's file system. It's so illogical that I had a hard time finding a local file the other day!


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

I info I listed was for a android device. I don't know off the top of my head what the exact details are for downloading from a apple setup. I know it's a little similar, and that you might down load all the .txt files at the same time. As in download the folder instead of one file at a time. I'm sure someone might be able to share what works best in this case?
 
I have a Phantom 2 that did almost the same thing. When I hit 30% and the first warning went off the battery dropped to 8% in 1 to 2 seconds and landed immediately. I've had the batteries for alt least a couple of years, it's a OEM battery.
 
I have a Phantom 2 that did almost the same thing. When I hit 30% and the first warning went off the battery dropped to 8% in 1 to 2 seconds and landed immediately. I've had the batteries for alt least a couple of years, it's a OEM battery.

You most likely had a bad cell. I have a battery with a bad cell that I fly with every now & then. Since I watch the remaining volts while flying the bad battery is not much of an issue. However, I will only do this when it's warm weather. It would be rather foolish to use such a battery in cold weather.
 
"Why did my P3A fall from the sky?" .......... Gravity, maybe?
(sorry it happened to you)
 

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