Hit something in the air, drone never fell

[Echo5delta16]

So I have a question for you all.
My first outside of my sight flight went great except for at one point I hit what I think was a bird. On the screen the gimbal or drone went sideways, spun twice and was slow to respond for about 45 seconds then everything went back to normal. Problem is that the video was recording when I hit what ever and the impact made the camera stop recording. I hit the record button and it started recording again with no issues. I had taken a few POI shots and was still recording when I hit something and the whole clip seems to have disappeared.
Today the same exact thing happened, I was flying and hit something and camera went crazy then stopped recording even though it never fell from the sky. I was at a lower altitude on the other side of a pond so I left it there and walked to see and NOTHING was within 100 feet of it. But again, the whole clip stopped. Has anyone had this issue before or know what could have happened to the video?

 

[ed1nh0]

Kind of SD card issue. What is your video settings and SD card specs?

 

[Echo5delta16]

Kind of SD card issue. What is your video settings and SD card specs?

vid settings are 4k@30fps
SD card is Sandisk Extreme Plus 64G

The clips i recorded just before and just after all are fine its just the clip i was recording when i hit something that isnt on the card.

 

[ed1nh0]

Weird... Did you take a look on your flight record? Note if it shows you some specific alert.

 

[Echo5delta16]

Weird... Did you take a look on your flight record? Note if it shows you some specific alert.

Good idea. Checking that now.

 

[Echo5delta16]

This is a pic of either really big bug guts or bird poop the first time I hit something 70' up in the air.

 

[ed1nh0]

Perhaps an UFO with a turtle shell.
I guess the flight record will point that out with something like mine did "Motor Idling (Loose or Missing Propeller)".

 

[Echo5delta16]

This is the point when I hit something. Watch the video when I turned around it was because the cam rocked and I couldn't see anything.

Perhaps an UFO with a turtle shell.
I guess the flight record will point that out with something like mine did "Motor Idling (Loose or Missing Propeller)".

i looked at the video flight record and it shows where i suddenly stopped and just sat there for the 5 min it took me to walk over there but i dont see and errors. i tried to take a video of the flight record but this sight doesn't even allow a 8 second clip video i guess.

 

[Echo5delta16]

Perhaps an UFO with a turtle shell.
I guess the flight record will point that out with something like mine did "Motor Idling (Loose or Missing Propeller)".

where do you see the errors? motor idling or missing prop?

 

[ed1nh0]

where do you see the errors? motor idling or missing prop?

That error was shown in my second flight. I saw it in the .TXT file.
You can upload yours here.

 

[Eric17]

interesting, I took mine out yesterday and noticed my gimbal stop moving when I was rotating it down, then it jerked a few times in weird ways and straightened out but was crooked coming back in, it seemed to be flat again hovering in front of us but I landed and recalibrated the gimbal and took back off. not sure what it was my I did not hit anything it just freaked out. I am using firmware .550

 

[Echo5delta16]

I downloaded it and didnt show anything except a high amount of "minor signal errors" but I have no idea how to see those minor errors.

 

[BudWalker]

So I have a question for you all.
My first outside of my sight flight went great except for at one point I hit what I think was a bird. On the screen the gimbal or drone went sideways, spun twice and was slow to respond for about 45 seconds then everything went back to normal. Problem is that the video was recording when I hit what ever and the impact made the camera stop recording. I hit the record button and it started recording again with no issues. I had taken a few POI shots and was still recording when I hit something and the whole clip seems to have disappeared.
Today the same exact thing happened, I was flying and hit something and camera went crazy then stopped recording even though it never fell from the sky. I was at a lower altitude on the other side of a pond so I left it there and walked to see and NOTHING was within 100 feet of it. But again, the whole clip stopped. Has anyone had this issue before or know what could have happened to the video?

A mid air collision will cause spikes in the accelerometer and gyro data which exists in the .DAT file. If you retrieve the .DAT file for one of those flights we could take a look and see if there was a mid air collision. For info on retrieving the .DAT look here. The .DAT file exists on the Mavic; it's not the .dat on the RC. It'll be large so you'll need to Dropbox it and provide the link.

 

[Echo5delta16]

Ok thanks I'll try that this afternoon

 

[Echo5delta16]

Im not sure if i am doing this right. I had to plug in my mavic to my comp and DL a program to pull info off of it then open that data with a different downloaded program? Still dont know what i am looking at but this is the file. I THINK its the right one. There is 4 files of that time period.
There is a .dat file and .txt file

DJIFlightRecord_2017-04-20_[15-55-29].txt

FLY088.DAT

 

[BudWalker]

Im not sure if i am doing this right. I had to plug in my mavic to my comp and DL a program to pull info off of it then open that data with a different downloaded program? Still dont know what i am looking at but this is the file. I THINK its the right one. There is 4 files of that time period.
There is a .dat file and .txt file

DJIFlightRecord_2017-04-20_[15-55-29].txt

FLY088.DAT

I looked at this flight. In summary, there was no evidence of a mid air collision. But, in the last part of the flight the battery got low enough that the SmartBattery system triggered a Go Home and then forced the Mavic to land. Maybe this made it seem like the Mavic was unresponsive?

This flight began at time 1126 with the batteryPercentage at 37%. At time 1403 batteryPercentage had reached 18% which was below the SmartBattery threshold of 19%. In response SMART_POWER_GOHOME was triggered. The lowVoltage state had been effect since 1228


At time 1515 SMART_POWER_LANDING was triggered and the Mavic proceeded to land where it was

Here

 

[Logger]

I am wondering if what visually appears to the operator as collision could be the Gimbal misbehaving along with the camera resetting. Had it happen twice with .600 where the sudden jolt in video makes it appear like I struck something in clear air. Both occasion the video recording to SD trips off however the fpv view recovers promptly. @BudWalker seemingly you are not able to pull the Gimbal pitch angle or camera state at present? As it would be good to see what was going on with the camera in these events.

This is the live video feed in one such event. Doesn't show a lot other than the instant it starts you can see the gimbal recovering from a jolt. The moment prior which was not recorded was where it looked like a collsion. Then in the last 4 second the camera flashes bright, refocuses then a climb starts.

As best I can tell video starts at ~551 and goes for 24 seconds until 574 as mavic starts to climb. Just prior to the start of the video where the black vertical line is in the log you cans see four of five spikes in the gyro degrees. But they are simply me rotating the Mavic to take some stills JPG+Raw images. Maybe recording the raw images cause the camera to misbehave although it has never caused an issue in the past.
Either way it visually looked to me like a collision when in reality it was not.

The second event was more visually exciting although I have no cache record. Likewise the DAT for it revealed nothing untoward as far as I can see. Would be interesting to see what the gimbal pitch was doing in these events.

 

[BudWalker]

I am wondering if what visually appears to the operator as collision could be the Gimbal misbehaving along with the camera resetting. Had it happen twice with .600 where the sudden jolt in video makes it appear like I struck something in clear air. Both occasion the video recording to SD trips off however the fpv view recovers promptly. @BudWalker seemingly you are not able to pull the Gimbal pitch angle or camera state at present? As it would be good to see what was going on with the camera in these events.

This is the live video feed in one such event. Doesn't show a lot other than the instant it starts you can see the gimbal recovering from a jolt. The moment prior which was not recorded was where it looked like a collsion. Then in the last 4 second the camera flashes bright, refocuses then a climb starts.

View attachment 11311

As best I can tell video starts at ~551 and goes for 24 seconds until 574 as mavic starts to climb. Just prior to the start of the video where the black vertical line is in the log you cans see four of five spikes in the gyro degrees. But they are simply me rotating the Mavic to take some stills JPG+Raw images. Maybe recording the raw images cause the camera to misbehave although it has never caused an issue in the past.
Either way it visually looked to me like a collision when in reality it was not.

The second event was more visually exciting although I have no cache record. Likewise the DAT for it revealed nothing untoward as far as I can see. Would be interesting to see what the gimbal pitch was doing in these events.

The gimbal info has proven to be elusive. But, the .txt has that info and can be seen using CsvView.

I was wondering if @Echo5delta16 's incident was somehow caused by the SmartBattery system deciding the Mavic needed to land. I.e., it would decide to turn off video recording to conserve power. Did your event occur in a low battery state?

 

[Logger]

The gimbal info has proven to be elusive. But, the .txt has that info and can be seen using CsvView.

I was wondering if @Echo5delta16 's incident was somehow caused by the SmartBattery system deciding the Mavic needed to land. I.e., it would decide to turn off video recording to conserve power. Did your event occur in a low battery state?

Ah no mine did not. Plenty of battery.

Issues were brief and continued on my way after both of them to do other things, as I worked out straight away it was only really the image system playing up and not a collision.
BUT in both of my events the signal strength was reduced to the point that the TXT file has no gimbal telemetry recorded for a period before and after the events. even though the Mavic was relatively close by and flight telemetry was still OK. ie when I play back the flight in GO the gimbal position greyed out about 20 seconds before each of the events.

 

[Echo5delta16]

I looked at this flight. In summary, there was no evidence of a mid air collision. But, in the last part of the flight the battery got low enough that the SmartBattery system triggered a Go Home and then forced the Mavic to land. Maybe this made it seem like the Mavic was unresponsive?

This flight began at time 1126 with the batteryPercentage at 37%. At time 1403 batteryPercentage had reached 18% which was below the SmartBattery threshold of 19%. In response SMART_POWER_GOHOME was triggered. The lowVoltage state had been effect since 1228
View attachment 11308

At time 1515 SMART_POWER_LANDING was triggered and the Mavic proceeded to land where it was
View attachment 11309
Here
View attachment 11310

That low battery part was after it hit something. I had walked around the pond to get to it and i was flying it back to my vehicle while walking behind it to see what would happen if i pushed it past low battery.. the spot where i sat for a long time before that low battery part is where it stopped and i saw the camera go sideways on the screen but it the video was apparently lost.