Wire detaches from main board, drops from the sky.

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I checked all my Mainboard to ESC connections thoroughly when I first received my P2v, wiggling the wires firmly to ensure they were well attached. I gave it a check about two weeks ago, but only visually inspected.

Today I was flying from my backyard into the wooded field behind my house, which serves as a frisbee golf course . I was flying non line of sight, above the trees, returning to home as my battery level was getting low. I could not see the P2V, but was confident I was above the trees.

Suddenly I heard a commotion in the trees, and heard a couple of frisbee golfers comment about something falling out of the sky.

Fortunately my WIFI stayed connected. I used "find my P2V", which lead me right to the area. One of the golfers approached me and showed me where it had come to rest, in a big bush.

It broke one prop, but destroyed my Dronexpert gimbal, tearing the camera from the mounts, cracking the baseplate. I started to consider that I had flown into a tree, since I previously had been over a road and then flew over or into the tress.

I did not have my camera running, but have a FLYTREX. I d/loaded the info, it shows me maintaining stable altitude out and over the trees, over the road. Then suddenly the data feed ceases at my constant altitude of 120 AGL.

I took it home, fired it up. Everything worked but one motor. I removed the upper housing. A wire from the Mainboard to one of the ESCs was completely detached.

It looks like it fell from 110 feet, dropping about 60 feet until it struck the tree branches, then construed to fall the remains 50 feet through the branches

I'm amazed at how tough the thing is; except my Dronexpert gimbal. The electronics are all intact, but the gimbal mount, etc are done. I'm thankful it decided to let go over the trees instead of 120 feet into the busy street, where it had been 5 seconds previously.

I have a flytrex and
 

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Looks like that loose wire may have been the culprit. Sorry your gimbal got messed up. I've not been terribly impressed with the look / design of the drone expert mounts. I think the Rotorpixel would be a far more durable mount. Hopefully you can get it fixed up. I myself was not as lucky today. I let my friend fly my Phantom 2 Vision out today in some gusty winds and they had it too far out with the battery running below 30% and it wasn't able to make it back in time against the winds so I believe it auto landed somewhere I just don't know where. And silly me hadn't had the chance to re-attach a phone number to the Phantom should this very thing occur and someone find it. :cry: Scratch one P2V. Well I guess that could give me an excuse to get the new one, if DJI adds an "off" button to their new fly safe "feature".
 
BenDronePilot said:
Looks like that loose wire may have been the culprit. Sorry your gimbal got messed up. I've not been terribly impressed with the look / design of the drone expert mounts. I think the Rotorpixel would be a far more durable mount. Hopefully you can get it fixed up. I myself was not as lucky today. I let my friend fly my Phantom 2 Vision out today in some gusty winds and they had it too far out with the battery running below 30% and it wasn't able to make it back in time against the winds so I believe it auto landed somewhere I just don't know where. And silly me hadn't had the chance to re-attach a phone number to the Phantom should this very thing occur and someone find it. :cry: Scratch one P2V. Well I guess that could give me an excuse to get the new one, if DJI adds an "off" button to their new fly safe "feature".


Bummer, first thing I'm doing when I get my P2V+ is that 10c decal. Sorry bro. Lesson learned for me as well. 2 actually. The sticker and the impact on return home with wind.
 
WeaponsHot said:
BenDronePilot said:
Looks like that loose wire may have been the culprit. Sorry your gimbal got messed up. I've not been terribly impressed with the look / design of the drone expert mounts. I think the Rotorpixel would be a far more durable mount. Hopefully you can get it fixed up. I myself was not as lucky today. I let my friend fly my Phantom 2 Vision out today in some gusty winds and they had it too far out with the battery running below 30% and it wasn't able to make it back in time against the winds so I believe it auto landed somewhere I just don't know where. And silly me hadn't had the chance to re-attach a phone number to the Phantom should this very thing occur and someone find it. :cry: Scratch one P2V. Well I guess that could give me an excuse to get the new one, if DJI adds an "off" button to their new fly safe "feature".


Bummer, first thing I'm doing when I get my P2V+ is that 10c decal. Sorry bro. Lesson learned for me as well. 2 actually. The sticker and the impact on return home with wind.

Yeah i'm going to need to append my sticky to always give yourself a good fly back battery buffer, and double that if you're getting any heavy head winds at all. It could have been easily avoided if he began flying back at half the distance. The Phantom was around 1,800 feet away with around 26% battery remaining and strong head wind. When flying back he accidentally flew further away thinking he was coming back. And with the wind before you know it 2,800 feet away, then wifi loss probably because he wasn't pointing the range extender at the Phantom from the wind drift. Then MIA Phantom. :cry:
 
Yeah i'm going to need to append my sticky to always give yourself a good fly back battery buffer, and double that if you're getting any heavy head winds at all. It could have been easily avoided if he began flying back at half the distance.[/quote]
Ya Roger that. The new pluses are shipping quick, I ordered mine 2014-04-07 01:02:38 just shipped today.
 
I noticed after 5 flights that my red power wire to the XT60 connector had a massive tear in it leaving live wire exposed. I fixed that up with heat shrink tubing but reading all of these comments make me think that next time I have the bird apart I'll re check all of the connections.
 
BenDronePilot said:
WeaponsHot said:
BenDronePilot said:
Looks like that loose wire may have been the culprit. Sorry your gimbal got messed up. I've not been terribly impressed with the look / design of the drone expert mounts. I think the Rotorpixel would be a far more durable mount. Hopefully you can get it fixed up. I myself was not as lucky today. I let my friend fly my Phantom 2 Vision out today in some gusty winds and they had it too far out with the battery running below 30% and it wasn't able to make it back in time against the winds so I believe it auto landed somewhere I just don't know where. And silly me hadn't had the chance to re-attach a phone number to the Phantom should this very thing occur and someone find it. :cry: Scratch one P2V. Well I guess that could give me an excuse to get the new one, if DJI adds an "off" button to their new fly safe "feature".


Bummer, first thing I'm doing when I get my P2V+ is that 10c decal. Sorry bro. Lesson learned for me as well. 2 actually. The sticker and the impact on return home with wind.

Yeah i'm going to need to append my sticky to always give yourself a good fly back battery buffer, and double that if you're getting any heavy head winds at all. It could have been easily avoided if he began flying back at half the distance. The Phantom was around 1,800 feet away with around 26% battery remaining and strong head wind. When flying back he accidentally flew further away thinking he was coming back. And with the wind before you know it 2,800 feet away, then wifi loss probably because he wasn't pointing the range extender at the Phantom from the wind drift. Then MIA Phantom. :cry:

Sorry to hear this. The "find my phantom" feature was no use?
 
JohnBohen, I am so sorry to hear about your P2V "drop from the sky" experience. I also had a sudden drop from the sky experience ( Look in Help Thread for my post "Known cause/explanation for sudden vertical drop/crash?" viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11802&hilit=known ). And, others have posted experiences and thought it might be attributed to the recent firmware/software upgrades.

You are adding a lot of good data to trying to figure out the problem since you identified a wire having been disconnected and had the tracker data to substantiate the sudden drop. My hypothesis has been some sort of loose solder joint between main board and power supply. However, I did not feel I had the expertise to open and inspect the P2 and sent the whole system back.

So, what are the take home ideas from these reports of sudden drops? Do we need to open and inspect on some regular basis just as we plug into the software assistant on a regular basis? Others wondered if there would be any use in using a silicone glue to hold the solder joints more firmly but experts in electronics did not chime in if this was a good idea or not.
 
This, and other threads about a 'sudden' drop out of the sky has prompted me to open up my Phantom and check every wire I can get to. I found nothing amiss but to be safe have added dollops of silicone at many places to add support to any wires with long runs that would allow to much movement under flight vibration. Hopefully this will help prevent any 'loose' wires issues. I am not an aggressive pilot and tend to stay LOS if possible. I get nervous when I lose sight of my bird and have used return to home a couple of times when I became dis-oriented and the Phantom was not in sight, I have added a very bright LED flood to the front which has helped maintain visual out to about 1000' or so.
I sure hope you can find your Phantom, friend or not he would be out there beating the bushes looking for it, he should offer to replace it as it was partly his fault it was lost. If I lost someones bird I would be dragging out my checkbook.
 
phantomguy said:
Sorry to hear this. The "find my phantom" feature was no use?

Actually the Find my Phantom option showed the last position it was at before loosing wifi roughly 2,800 feet out. I remember seeing the video of it at that distance for a moment before it cut. It wouldn't have lost wifi if not for not pointing the Helical antenna in the new position the Phantom was do to the Wind drift. I believe the Phantom ended up flying closer than the last position but just didn't make it all the way back between the head winds, distance and low battery level. I drove all around the area with my friend but didn't find any evidence of the Phantom either by Visual or trying to reconnect with the wifi. I see on craigs list there a few ads for lost Phantoms in my general are, maybe I should stick one up too.

Thinking back on the whole situation, when the Phantom was being piloted in what we thought was back to us and we noticed it was flying away, we should have immediately let go of the controls and let it stabilize to figure out where it now was rather than continue to try to fly in what we thought was the right direction.

The FPV feed was on 640x480 30fps. Also dropping the preview quality all the way down would also have helped. The new app can be a little buggy and occasionally lag, which is also contributed to the momentary loss of orientation while rotating the copter and trying to fly back manually. This caused us to accidentally fly further away (strong wind gusts blowing the Phantom in the wrong direction wasn't helping) By then at 2,800+ feet away the Phantom was too far to make it back to home with only 24% power and strong head winds. Also Using either Home Lock or Fail Safe RTH the Phantom flys at slower speeds using in that mode. Once it reached the second level low battery it would have begun it's ascent even while trying to fly back towards the home location so it wouldn't have stayed air born long enough to fly back.
 
BenDronePilot said:
phantomguy said:
Sorry to hear this. The "find my phantom" feature was no use?



Thinking back on the whole situation, when the Phantom was being piloted in what we thought was back to us and we noticed it was flying away, we should have immediately let go of the controls and let it stabilize to figure out where it now was rather than continue to try to fly in what we thought was the right direction.

The FPV feed was on 640x480 30fps. Also dropping the preview quality all the way down would also have helped. The new app can be a little buggy and occasionally lag, which is also contributed to the momentary loss of orientation while rotating the copter and trying to fly back manually. This caused us to accidentally fly further away (strong wind gusts blowing the Phantom in the wrong direction wasn't helping) By then at 2,800+ feet away the Phantom was too far to make it back to home with only 24% power and strong head winds. Also Using either Home Lock or Fail Safe RTH the Phantom flys at slower speeds using in that mode. Once it reached the second level low battery it would have begun it's ascent even while trying to fly back towards the home location so it wouldn't have stayed air born long enough to fly back.

Sorry to hear you lost your P2V , I hope someone finds it who knows you lost it
 
BenDronePilot said:
phantomguy said:
Sorry to hear this. The "find my phantom" feature was no use?

Actually the Find my Phantom option showed the last position it was at before loosing wifi roughly 2,800 feet out. I remember seeing the video of it at that distance for a moment before it cut. It wouldn't have lost wifi if not for not pointing the Helical antenna in the new position the Phantom was do to the Wind drift. I believe the Phantom ended up flying closer than the last position but just didn't make it all the way back between the head winds, distance and low battery level. I drove all around the area with my friend but didn't find any evidence of the Phantom either by Visual or trying to reconnect with the wifi. I see on craigs list there a few ads for lost Phantoms in my general are, maybe I should stick one up too.

Thinking back on the whole situation, when the Phantom was being piloted in what we thought was back to us and we noticed it was flying away, we should have immediately let go of the controls and let it stabilize to figure out where it now was rather than continue to try to fly in what we thought was the right direction.

The FPV feed was on 640x480 30fps. Also dropping the preview quality all the way down would also have helped. The new app can be a little buggy and occasionally lag, which is also contributed to the momentary loss of orientation while rotating the copter and trying to fly back manually. This caused us to accidentally fly further away (strong wind gusts blowing the Phantom in the wrong direction wasn't helping) By then at 2,800+ feet away the Phantom was too far to make it back to home with only 24% power and strong head winds. Also Using either Home Lock or Fail Safe RTH the Phantom flys at slower speeds using in that mode. Once it reached the second level low battery it would have begun it's ascent even while trying to fly back towards the home location so it wouldn't have stayed air born long enough to fly back.


I've always been afraid to take it very far downwind as it can get too far too fast when going with the wind. Plus it's more fun to go upwind and let it drift back in ATTI or give it the gas (with enough altitude of course) and have it come back and by me at mach 3! Hope you find your craft. I do wonder where all the fly-aways, etc. end up. I picture an old multi-rotor graveyard out in the desert somewhere.
 

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