SOS - My P3 fell from the sky!

[Wes Janson]

Wow, thanks for your analysis. My impression was that the motors stopped and the bird just fell down. I've put the props on numerous times without incident; could the drone take off with a faulty prop?

 

[sar104]

Wow, thanks for your analysis. My impression was that the motors stopped and the bird just fell down. I've put the props on numerous times without incident; could the drone take off with a faulty prop?

It happens. Do you just spin them on or actually hand tighten them? If you get the DAT file off the internal SD card then the motor data will allow a definitive determination of what happened.

CsvView/DatCon

 

[BudWalker]

The first graph below shows altitude and throttle position as a function of time. You will notice that it climbed until 12.7 seconds and then began an uncontrolled descent. At 13.1 seconds you applied full down on the throttle, but that was after the event.

View attachment 87517

Looking at the pitch, roll and vertical speed data (below), it appears that at 12.5 seconds it went into uncontrolled oscillation with a period of 0.4 seconds. That's typical of losing a prop, so are you sure that the motors stopped?

View attachment 87519

One more thing to add here is that the AC began to rotate CCW which is consistent with a leftBack or rtightFront propulsion problem.
Your plot shows an initial pitch up and roll left which is consistent with a leftBack propulsion problem. Was the leftBack prop broken or missing?

 

[tom iliffe]

Do you have both the Dji go and the Dji go4 apps on your device? Because if you use the go4 app with your phantom 3 you could fly away or crash.

 

[msinger]

Because if you use the go4 app with your phantom 3 you could fly away or crash.

It's not possible to fly a Phantom 3 with DJI GO 4.

 

[PsychoBob]

Phantoms usually don't fell from the sky unless there is a prop loose, motor, battery or compass malfunction. Most of the time is pilot error.

And when it happens to you it won't be pilot error right? I updated the app. Then flew a route that I always fly to get out over some fields and my drone angled to the right and flew into the ground from 200 feet. I have had my drone for years and then all of a sudden it decides to self destruct. I will not fly another drone that is under so much control by an app like DJI GO. You should see all of the pieces my P3A is in.

 

[macoman]

And when it happens to you it won't be pilot error right? I updated the app. Then flew a route that I always fly to get out over some fields and my drone angled to the right and flew into the ground from 200 feet. I have had my drone for years and then all of a sudden it decides to self destruct. I will not fly another drone that is under so much control by an app like DJI GO. You should see all of the pieces my P3A is in.

Did u used the go app or the litchi app to flew the route?

 

[steveobebop]

I cannot think of a single case reported on this forum of bad firmware turning out to be responsible for a crash or flyaway. If there are any such cases, they are certainly vastly outnumbered by pilot error and, to a lesser extent, hardware failure.

3.1.2 android was a really bad update for flyaways myself included. It reset the home wnw 1.30km give or take and affected lots of people.

Standard - First fly away with Happyish ending

 

[sar104]

3.1.2 android was a really bad update for flyaways myself included. It reset the home wnw 1.30km give or take and affected lots of people.

Standard - First fly away with Happyish ending

There have been plenty of reports of the DJI GO app having compatibility problems with various flavors of Android on various mobile devices. That's a hazard of running software on such a fractured platform.

So agreed - that's definitely an example of something other than hardware or pilot error (unless you count choosing an Android device), but not a firmware problem.

 

[Josecoelho]

There have been plenty of reports of the DJI GO app having compatibility problems with various flavors of Android on various mobile devices. That's a hazard of running software on such a fractured platform.

So agreed - that's definitely an example of something other than hardware or pilot error (unless you count choosing an Android device), but not a firmware problem.

Yeah because there are never any problems with iPad or iPhone right ?

 

[sar104]

Yeah because there are never any problems with iPad or iPhone right ?

No, there have been problems with iOS too, but fewer, probably due to the reduced diversity of hardware and tighter integration. Plus it's been apparent, over the past few of years, that DJI has tended to prioritize iOS app development.