DJI Phantom 2v+ Burned up in Flight! Pix of Damage

[paulgrenga]

Well, I actually thought that all the posts about the ESC's being faulty sounded a little hysterical. I could not tell from looking at my ESC's what version I had anyway.

My initial flights all went fine. I purchased FPVLR's Stage 4 setup, installed it according to the instructions, and it all was working perfectly. (PS: The Stage 4 really is a Great product Tony, thank you!)

THEN on a relatively short programmed flight today my bird disappeared quickly. I could see throught my iPhone's wifi settings that I was still connected but, the DJI app was giving me the "disconnected" signal and I lost video. I figured it would return after the short pre-programed Gound Station flight concluded. It did not. The DJI app never re-connected.

After about 10 minutes I went looking. Using WifiFoFum, I tracked it's hidden wifi signal to a 100m area a few blocks from my home. My 13 year old son eventually found her in a neighbors back yard. It was still very hot. (I'm grateful no one was hurt). By the way, its 20 degrees here in New York, so that temp does not compensate for the ESC faulty wires. 3 out of 4 motors were hanging through the melted plastic cover by the ESC connection.

It still smells like burning electronics.

Here's the pictures.

What should I do???? I have purchased 3 PV2's and this PV2+. Having bought 4 of DJI's products, it will be a "heart breaker" if they give my the typical "out of warranty" BS over a known issue just because I opened the cover to install antennas.

 

[jasonb777]

If you could please check the escs next to the qr code for a esc number. It will be blank, or v2.0, or v2.1. I hate to beat the horse on this whole esc issue but it does make me nervous. Also did you ever pop the top to gently pull the wires up off the circuit board?

 

[Tripc]

Got mine the other day and have been nervous about flying it. As I have no numbers(V2-V2.1) on my ESC. I don't think im gonna fly it now. Lol.
Sucks about what happen to yours.
How many total flights did you have on it when this happened.. Whats your serial number

 

[paulgrenga]

Thank you for responding to my post. & I guess it's certainly not a "dead horse"! LOL

Pix of esc's attached. Can you make anything out from this? It's funny, it kind of "feels" like the small white label has been applied over a previous label of the same size. I couldn't see that before and it's only noticeable now that the esc heated-up both labels.

 

[paulgrenga]

Followup... there is another label under there. I cannot make out what it says. Too damaged by the heat. Here'smore pix. Thank you again.

 

[paulgrenga]

Thank you, it does suck. Where would I find the serial number? Oh, the one underneath the bird is: ph645395516

 

[phenom3030]

Wow, just wow. It's good you were able to recover it. Hopefully DJI will take special interest in this case, since it seems very abnormal. Which in turn could hopefully help other owners with this whole confusing ESC/new motors issue.

 

[paulgrenga]

Another pix of a different ESC. Hope this is more clear.

 

[burlbark]

Well, I actually thought that all the posts about the ESC's being faulty sounded a little hysterical. I could not tell from looking at my ESC's what version I had anyway.

My initial flights all went fine. I purchased FPVLR's Stage 4 setup, installed it according to the instructions, and it all was working perfectly. (PS: The Stage 4 really is a Great product Tony, thank you!)

THEN on a relatively short programmed flight today my bird disappeared quickly. I could see throught my iPhone's wifi settings that I was still connected but, the DJI app was giving me the "disconnected" signal and I lost video. I figured it would return after the short pre-programed Gound Station flight concluded. It did not. The DJI app never re-connected.

After about 10 minutes I went looking. Using WifiFoFum, I tracked it's hidden wifi signal to a 100m area a few blocks from my home. My 13 year old son eventually found her in a neighbors back yard. It was still very hot. (I'm grateful no one was hurt). By the way, its 20 degrees here in New York, so that temp does not compensate for the ESC faulty wires. 3 out of 4 motors were hanging through the melted plastic cover by the ESC connection.

It still smells like burning electronics.

Here's the pictures.

What should I do???? I have purchased 3 PV2's and this PV2+. Having bought 4 of DJI's products, it will be a "heart breaker" if they give my the typical "out of warranty" BS over a known issue just because I opened the cover to install antennas.

Awesome carnage... :lol: It may have gone down from overheating wires and then spun itself to death on the ground. There is no way it stayed in the air anything close to that.

 

[paulgrenga]

Burlbark... is kind'a awesome! But I'm still pouting

 

[Ivan]

Insane damage!!! Those are unmarked ESCs alright, meaning that at best you have v2.0. However I would not put this in the same bag with any potential problems with ESCs

It looks to me as if you lost the motor screws in air! then the motors started drilling the plastic causing immense heat from friction which then caused the melting. Then from spinning around the wires the motors got pulled back and drilled further into the shell.
Now the big question is how the hell did that happen?! Have you been recording video on the phantom while this happened?. Did you ever take your motor screws out(for inspection, upgrades or similar)? We need more clues

 

[Bymg]

The v2 or 2.1 is printed on the other end of the circuit boards.... It would help greatly if you could post images of tje state of the wires on the esc.s you should be able to get a free replacement....

 

[Ivan]

The v2 or 2.1 is printed on the other end of the circuit boards.... It would help greatly if you could post images of tje state of the wires on the esc.s you should be able to get a free replacement....

That V2 mark near the capacitor is not relevant at all. All new (v3.0) phantoms have that and probably all or almost all v2.0 phantoms have that mark too. The ESCs are differentiated by the white printed sticker near the motor. On which you can either not see any version mark or see v2.0 or v2.1.
And about images of the wires, I believe you missed few photos from the previous page.

 

[burlbark]

Burlbark... is kind'a awesome! But I'm still pouting

I would be devastated for a couple of hours and have to take a nap.... :lol: Then I would start computing my next step. I would certainly contact DJI as soon as I woke up. As others have said the motor mounts appeared to let go and then friction caused more heat... Obviously as soon as a motor let go it was down to the ground from there. I just have never seen this level of damage before.

It really appears that the motors got turned into heaters from faulty esc's output or perhaps wires began to let go and the signal wire did not trigger the fets properly. Its really strange to have so many crash at the same time.

Did you have prop guards on before?

 

[Mako79]

The v2 or 2.1 is printed on the other end of the circuit boards.... It would help greatly if you could post images of tje state of the wires on the esc.s you should be able to get a free replacement....

That V2 mark near the capacitor is not relevant at all. All new (v3.0) phantoms have that and probably all or almost all v2.0 phantoms have that mark too. The ESCs are differentiated by the white printed sticker near the motor. On which you can either not see any version mark or see v2.0 or v2.1.
And about images of the wires, I believe you missed few photos from the previous page.

+1.

To the op. . Can you restore the bird to stock by removing the installed components?

Its a definite short in one of the phases causing the entire motor to heat up. The thinnest conductive part world heat up first, these are the screws. It must of glowed red quickly and melted enough to detach from the main body. The twist of the cables is the wind resistance the props caught on the way down. If it dug into the ground then you world have seen dirty or scratched/broken tips.

 

[ToThePoint]

The 6453***** serialnr is one of the first V3 birds.
If one motor/arm is still fine then i suspect a wire came lose/detached.
The bird dropped rotating to the ground and the other 3 were still running and blocked causing them to overheat and eventually the melting of the casing.
The V3 i have had the same issue yesterday.
Upon opening one wire from a motor broke off on the ESC.
It flies again after 5 hours repair but them wires coming out of the motors have to be replaced, its just disaster waiting to happen as some have mentioned before in other topics.

 

[burlbark]

The 6453***** serialnr is one of the first V3 birds.
If one motor/arm is still fine then i suspect a wire came lose/detached.
The bird dropped rotating to the ground and the other 3 were still running and blocked causing them to overheat and eventually the melting of the casing.
The V3 i have had the same issue yesterday.
Upon opening one wire from a motor broke off on the ESC.
It flies again after 5 hours repair but them wires coming out of the motors have to be replaced, its just disaster waiting to happen as some have mentioned before in other topics.

Thank you for your post. We had seen these motor wires breaking but people swore up and down that it was not a problem. I came up with a fix and shared it with all but many people said we where crying wolf and the sky was not falling. This fix was never greed driven, it was an obvious problem that required a solution. We will see many more of these crashes and failures.

Jeremy

 

[paulgrenga]

Well. i did have to nap. Now that I'm awake, I looked at the motor screws, they did melt their way through the underside of the bird and then let loose. They pulled the heated wires through the hot upper side of the body like it was butter. I will pull the esc out an take a pic of the underside if it helps. I did post the pic's of the topside near the motor. I didn't see any "version number" but they do have awfully thin wires. Who would think that a short to these little motors could cause that kind of heat!

 

[ToThePoint]

The 6453***** serialnr is one of the first V3 birds.
If one motor/arm is still fine then i suspect a wire came lose/detached.
The bird dropped rotating to the ground and the other 3 were still running and blocked causing them to overheat and eventually the melting of the casing.
The V3 i have had the same issue yesterday.
Upon opening one wire from a motor broke off on the ESC.
It flies again after 5 hours repair but them wires coming out of the motors have to be replaced, its just disaster waiting to happen as some have mentioned before in other topics.

Thank you for your post. We had seen these motor wires breaking but people swore up and down that it was not a problem. I came up with a fix and shared it with all but many people said we where crying wolf and the sky was not falling. This fix was never greed driven, it was an obvious problem that required a solution. We will see many more of these crashes and failures.

Jeremy

I knew it and i supported the idea of replacing the hard wires on the motors.
I checked it and even separated the wires.
I even had the motors blocked to see if the ESC fried.
Even in this case were the motors were overheated and melted so the casing melted the ESC did there job and the mos-fets were not blown.
I have a bird with serial 645417 and is close to this guys bird.
As i had a wi-fi module issue that gave me just a 30-40m range i dealt with that first.
Toke the wi-fi out of the V2 and did a check on range to determine it was the module.
I got a 1,3km stock range om wifi with that.
When it came back the battery was @ 70% so i decided to have some nearby fun to deplete the battery.
It was its 3-4th flight and i checked the wires but maybe not good/close enough.
I saw it dropping rotating to the left from 200ft and smacked into the farmland that was plowed.
2 props broken, 1 prop missing and 1 ok.
3 motors packed with sand and sand in the bird everywhere.
The motor that had the missing prop was the one with the detached wire.
Go figure what happened.
Anyway i could manage to repair the bird and test the replacement wi-fi module that i bought last week.
All works now so the original wi-fi module was the culprit.
Lucky i had a CCTV camera on the bird as long i don't shoot any video or pics or the camera would have been also toast ( again ).
Next to do is to change them wires ASAP !
As a electronics engineer for 30 years i understand that motor wire design flow and as you mentioned before, were going to see more of this crap.

 

[ToThePoint]

Well. i did have to nap. Now that I'm awake, I looked at the motor screws, they did melt their way through the underside of the bird and then let loose. They pulled the heated wires through the hot upper side of the body like it was butter. I will pull the esc out an take a pic of the underside if it helps. I did post the pic's of the topside near the motor. I didn't see any "version number" but they do have awfully thin wires. Who would think that a short to these little motors could cause that kind of heat!

paulgrenga, question, did only 3 motors heated up ? what about the 4th ? A pictures of it pls ?

As mentioned before in a other topic by burlbark it is possible that they do that kinda damage.
The more i suspect the motors were still powered even after they melted true the casing.
Anyway if 1 motor and arm is still fine then its a must know to determine what happened.