Phantom 3 Pro just crashed. What do I do ??

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

My Phantom 3 Pro just went nuts and killed itself !

I was going to fly it over some very old abandoned saw mill. I did the usual... turn on remote, then turn on Phantom 3 Pro (firmware 1.2.6), then start DJI Pilot (v1.2.0) app. I picked it up after it initialized and did compass calibration and put it on the ground. There are the familiar green "safe to fly" bar at the top with 17 satellites connected (P-GPS)

I started the motors, and after a few seconds, made it lift off the ground just over 1m, A few more seconds, then raised it to about 2-3m. Slowly moved it forward for a few meters... so far so good... then BAM! It just full throttled forward and traveled 87m before smashing into the side of a wall. I initially tried pulling back on the right stick to force it to slow down and go backwards, but nothing worked. It happened so fast (to me). The stricture it flew into was (in elevation) a few meters lower than where I was standing.

I managed to locate it using it's last known location and picked up the drone, some broken blades, and the disconnected battery (fully charged). It's 2 1/2 hours later and the battery is pretty warm.

I put in a new battery and started it up. It sees satelites, the gimble initiates and I can see video. I unscrewed the damaged lens cover and the main camera seems fine). I can start the motors (no props on) and the crashed motor also runs, but it's slightly rubbing against the crushed drone arm. It feels like all I need it a new drone body.

I've had absolutely flawless flights. I've gone 500m up and also tried 4.1k out. Not a single issue until today. What more should I do? Call DJI or something?

Green_Phantom · Jul 2, 2015

Hell yeah. Call them up and make them make this right. That's an expensive flying russian roulette machine you've got there.

Don't the new 3s have some sort of "black box" feature or something like that that lets you or DJI go in and see exactly what happened during a crash? If so, you should probably stop powering it up in case you overwrite the crash data.

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

Green_Phantom said:
Hell yeah. Call them up and make them make this right. That's an expensive flying russian roulette machine you've got there.

Don't the new 3s have some sort of "black box" feature or something like that that lets you or DJI go in and see exactly what happened during a crash? If so, you should probably stop powering it up in case you overwrite the crash data.

Good advice. I only powered it up once more just to make sure it was picking up a crapload of satellites. It did.

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

Did you pull the data file yet?

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

rhoffart said:
Did you pull the data file yet?

Will this be on the MicroSD? What am I looking for?

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

no it's on your device, what device?

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

rhoffart said:
no it's on your device, what device?

Note3

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

I use an IOS but it's in your app ... someone will jump in shortly

http://www.flylitchi.com/logs

Jbundy63 · Jul 2, 2015

Oh man that sucks! I would definitely contact DJI and hopefully you can figure this out and get it resolved. I noticed on your flight data screen you posted it's not showing the battery level, GPS,ATTI Mode in other words the green, yellow, red bar that's above the middle of the screen. The reason I'm asking is because mine does and it's not showing on yours. Maybe it's a setting or something, just curious?

ImageUploadedByPhantomPilots1435888188.518582.jpg

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

I keep searching for tutorial

Jbundy63 · Jul 2, 2015

rhoffart said:
I use an IOS but it's in your app ... someone will jump in shortly

http://www.flylitchi.com/logs

As well here, I use an ISO device so not sure about the other?

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

Jbundy63 said:
Oh man that sucks! I would definitely contact DJI and hopefully you can figure this out and get it resolved. I noticed on your flight data screen you posted it's not showing the battery level, GPS,ATTI Mode in other words the green, yellow, red bar that's above the middle of the screen. The reason I'm asking is because mine does and it's not showing on yours. Maybe it's a setting or something, just curious?View attachment 23737

That's odd. None of my flight records shows it.

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

Here is text I found ...

Connect your mobile device to your PC. In my case I'm using a Galaxy S5, so it's very straightforward. I just connect the appropriate charging/data cable from the S5 to my PC. A dialog box should open up that will allow you to see the files on your phone/mobile device.

Look for the DJI folder (it might say DJI Files). In that folder, you will find the pilot log folder which contains the flight records for your craft. They should be in a *.txt format. Leaving that screen available, open your browser and navigate to www.flyitchi.com - then choose LOGS. In the lower left-hand corner you'll see a small dialog box asking for the file. Copy and paste one of the .txt files from the pilot logs on your mobile device and press CONVERT to CSV.

As long as the file is not corrupted, you'll get a download to your PC (I'm using WIN 7 - don't know what happens on a MAC). When the download is complete, click on it and it should open Excel, with the contents of the file displayed.

It is highly detailed. My most recent flight of just under 6 minutes displays about 2,000 lines of data. There's about a dozen or so different items that are displayed. The data more or less matches what I see in my Pilot Log data available through the Pilot App, but with details given every so many fractions of a second. No course data (like a line on a map) is displayed, but geographical coordinates are displayed in two of the fields (one for lat and one for long).

I think this flylitchi data was originally designed to be used with the Phantom 2 Vision+ to create autonomous flight plans. Other than be fascinated with the detail of the data, I'm not sure how they could be utilized to produce more info than you get in the summary logs in the pilot app.

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

Once you get the CVS file then go here to view what happened ...

https://www.flightreplay.com

Jbundy63 · Jul 2, 2015

Prometheus_Xex said:
That's odd. None of my flight records shows it.

Maybe someone can jump in here and clarify why? Maybe just a setting? Wish you luck man on a positive results. Definitely let us know what they say at DJI

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

On this video can you show the controller stick position? You should have a controller icon on bottom. Like this ...

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

rhoffart said:
On this video can you show the controller stick position? You should have a controller icon on bottom.

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[/QUOTE]
The video I posted us just the screen capture recording of the playback of the flight data from DJI Pilot.

rhoffart · Jul 2, 2015

The video I posted us just the screen capture recording of the playback of the flight data from DJI Pilot.[/QUOTE]
yes, replay it again but click the controller icon.

Jbundy63 · Jul 2, 2015

rhoffart said:
On this video can you show the controller stick position? You should have a controller icon on bottom. Like this ...

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Yes that would be really good to look at, very useful information, especially on a fly away issue!

Prometheus_Xex · Jul 2, 2015

I think I might have just noticed something. When I play back the flight record in DJI Pilot and click on the little crosshairs icon, I click on the little arrow symbol and it shows where the drone is. When I click on the little Home symbol, it takes me all the way back to my house.

I think when the drone started up and initiated and locked in on the satellites, etc, it didn't pick a new home area which is where I was. At least that's what I'm thinking.

This is odd because it's never failed on establishing home from where I started off. It's always come back on its own and landed beside me when I push the home button in the past. I'm not saying that I push the home button this time, as there was no need to since I was just starting a flight.