Bad behavior

[hedbonker]

I went for a flight today. With the drone at max altitude and about 670' away from me it appeared as tho the drone stopped responding. The display was not updating. It was not responding to controller input. I was about to initiate a return to home when the display returned to functioning and it was responding to stick inputs once again. There was no warning about interference or anything and certainly there is nothing around where the drone was at to cause interference. at this point I initiated RTH and then cancelled it when the drone was. fairly close to me and seemed to be acting normal.

I then flew the drone for a little while longer and it seemed to be working fine. Looking at the logs I see a number of odd things. Entries M and O indicate an automated RTH. I know I did not initiate that and it never said anything about it during the flight. After my cancelled RTH and flying around a bit I ended the flight with RTH to see if it was working correctly and indeed it did a perfect RTH.

Should I return the drone and exchange it for a new one? I have had this drone for 14 days of a 15 day return policy so tomorrow is the last day for that.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Meta4]

Should I return the drone and exchange it for a new one?

Probably not ... it just sounds like you flew out to where you were on the edge of losing signal.
Post your flight data and it might explain better what actually happened.

 

[hedbonker]

Probably not ... it just sounds like you flew out to where you were on the edge of losing signal.
Post your flight data and it might explain better what actually happened.

But it was just at 400' and about 675' out - They say it has a 12 mile range... How do I post my flight data on here? Also why would the logs not show that it lost signal? Nowhere in any of the notifications does it indicate a lost signal but it clearly had some kind of issue.

I should also mention that the first day I flew the thing I was at about 150' and about 70 feet away from me when I attempted to adjust the gimbal. The display again locked up and was not responding to controls for about 60 seconds and then it updated the display like it was in high speed mode to catch up and then it worked fine. There was nothing in the logs - no auto RTH - not a thing - no warnings, nothing.

I have been flying my Phantom since 2015 and it has never acted this way.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

How do I post my flight data on here?

What controller or what was the screen device? If a phone have a look at the instructions on DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Whatever the controller you will probably end up uploading the log to that site, when it has been processed post the URL here.

 

[hedbonker]

I attached the DJI log in .txt format here.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Were there any Geo. Zones you might have been near by, ?

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water and fly away from GEO Zones.

 

[hedbonker]

Were there any Geo. Zones you might have been near by, ?

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water and fly away from GEO Zones.

Not a thing. Out in the boondocks so to speak. A couple of miles from the old Spahn Ranch where Charles Manson used to hang out... Specifically: 34.2742009195567, -118.62320962978391

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I attached the DJI log in .txt format here.

I can't find anything there

 

[hedbonker]

attached it as a zip this time

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

The log on PhantomHelp = DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

At what time do you think you manually started an RTH?
That may seem to be a daft question but a quick skim of the log seems to show only two RTH's and they might have been triggered in the same way. If one was deliberate and manually triggered could it be that the other was accidentally manually triggered.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Just thinking out loud here, are you using a screen device and if so what is it? The Air 2 had issues with slower devices because of using up too much system resources. Just throwing it out there.

 

[hedbonker]

The log on PhantomHelp = DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

At what time do you think you manually started an RTH?
That may seem to be a daft question but a quick skim of the log seems to show only two RTH's and they might have been triggered in the same way. If one was deliberate and manually triggered could it be that the other was accidentally manually triggered.

I did 2 RTH - one about 1/2 way thru the flight and then cancelled. Then I wrapped up the flight with an RTH.

 

[hedbonker]

Just thinking out loud here, are you using a screen device and if so what is it? The Air 2 had issues with slower devices because of using up too much system resources. Just throwing it out there.

It's an iPhone 8.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

It's an iPhone 8.

You might need a more powerful device, I had an iPhone 7 with the Air 2 and it was too much for it. I had to finally go with an iPad Mini 5. The Air 3 probably uses more resources than that, given its capabilities.

 

[hedbonker]

Well since today is the last day I will return the drone just to play it safe. I can upgrade to a 12 phone for about $500 and I should prolly do that - the 8 is pretty old heh.

 

[Meta4]

I went for a flight today. With the drone at max altitude and about 670' away from me it appeared as tho the drone stopped responding. The display was not updating. It was not responding to controller input. I was about to initiate a return to home when the display returned to functioning and it was responding to stick inputs once again. There was no warning about interference or anything and certainly there is nothing around where the drone was at to cause interference. at this point I initiated RTH and then cancelled it when the drone was. fairly close to me and seemed to be acting normal.

I cannot find anywhere in the data that the drone was at max height and 670 ft away and failed to respond to your joystick inputs.
You never lost signal, the uplink and downlink was 100% for the whole flight.

At 3:34.5 you changed to Tripod Mode which would have made the drone appear to respond very slowly, it you hadn't intended to go the Tripod Mode.
But the drone appears to have responded normally to all your joustick inputs.

From 4:33.7 you left the drone hovering without any joystick input for over a minute.

I can't see any justification for returning the drone in the data.
Fly some more and see how it's working.

 

[hedbonker]

Well like I said earlier I had it do some very odd things around my second flight where it stopped responding and then went into fast motion on the display (not the drone) and magically caught up. It's raining today and it's the last day I can return it so I am going to take it back today.

 

[hedbonker]

The rain let up a bit and I took it outside and flew it around a bit and it seemed to behave fine. Then I looked at the logs which showed that it was flying in a location close to me but certainly NOT where I was flying and it also had a home point of away from me as well, nowhere near where I was flying or where the home point was indicated during the flight.

I have never had any of these kinds of issues with my Phantom 3. I returned this Air 3. A replacement will be here Tuesday. Thanks for the help, gents.

 

[Meta4]

Well like I said earlier I had it do some very odd things around my second flight where it stopped responding and then went into fast motion on the display (not the drone) and magically caught up.

That sounds like a glitch in the app on your display device.
The recorded flight data doesn't show any anomalies, so the drone must have been running as it should.

Then I looked at the logs which showed that it was flying in a location close to me but certainly NOT where I was flying and it also had a home point of away from me as well, nowhere near where I was flying or where the home point was indicated during the flight.

There's probably a simple explanation and it will be in the flight data.
Post that and I can check for you ... it might help to avoid similar in future.

 

[hedbonker]

That sounds like a glitch in the app on your display device.
The recorded flight data doesn't show any anomalies, so the drone must have been running as it should.

There's probably a simple explanation and it will be in the flight data.
Post that and I can check for you ... it might help to avoid similar in future.

Well I would but due to privacy concerns that log will have to stay in my hands . I asked DJI about my phone being appropriate for the Air 3 - We'll see what they say. A new Air 3 will be here Tuesday.