My first screw up

[Hood River]

And I'm sure it won't be my last. I was flying between a row of orchard trees when the avoidance feature sensed tree limbs and the Mavic froze in place. I cold see that I had room to go right and then straight up. But it wouldn't respond to those commands. So, I figured I'd turn that function off and manually fly it out. As soon as I did, it flew left right into the limbs and down it crashed.

I picked it up and cleaned the dust off it. The arms had folded themselves in and I was expecting the worse but it looked fine and I kept flying a while longer, just not so close to the trees!

But when I was putting it away I notice the two rear motors have a bit of a rough spot. Not sure if it's some dirt or damaged motors. Anyone ever had to replace a motor? Is it hard to find replacement motors?

 

[YngveN]

I believe you have to replace the complete arm. There are one or two members here that should have the parts available.
Thunderdrones is one.

 

[sonof40]

Were you flying forward or backward when it stopped initially?

 

[tmw2023]

So if you Mavic stops dead because it has decided there is a collision risk what is the best thing to do?

 

[sekine12]

So if you Mavic stops dead because it has decided there is a collision risk what is the best thing to do?

Fly out along the path of least resistance (i.e. leave the way you came). Probably involves flying backwards. Since the mavic has no rearward or upward sensors, you should always be able to go backwards or up.

Also, use care when switching things off. Turning off VPS entirely would leave you relying on GPS for position hold which is less accurate and could allow some drift.

When in doubt, move slowly.

 

[tmw2023]

Fly out along the path of least resistance (i.e. leave the way you came). Probably involves flying backwards. Since the mavic has no rearward or upward sensors, you should always be able to go backwards or up.

Also, use care when switching things off. Turning off VPS entirely would leave you relying on GPS for position hold which is less accurate and could allow some drift.

When in doubt, move slowly.

Wouldn't the safest option be to just set the drone down and go and rescue it?

 

[Vilco]

Wouldn't the safest option be to just set the drone down and go and rescue it?

Whenever possible, that's for sure the safest thing to do

 

[sekine12]

Wouldn't the safest option be to just set the drone down and go and rescue it?

If the path of least resistance happens to be down, sure. If VPS stopped you because you were about to fly into the *top* of a tree, down isn't the best idea...

 

[Hood River]

In my case the Mavic wondered into a bunch of limbs, think pear tree that is just blooming. The only opening was to the right. But just seemed to be "stuck" there. It just wouldn't respond to any command. I thought it would hold position once I turned off the Obstacle Avoidance but it suddenly decided to go left and tangled with the limbs.

It was only about 6' up, and it didn't hit the ground hard. The props were unharmed but the arms folded themselves in due to the blades coming into contact with the limbs.

The crash didn't seem bad enough to actually damage the motors, I'm hoping there's just a little grit in there from hitting the dirt.

Here's the Instagram link. Shows what I was trying to get on video.
Instagram post by Dan • May 7, 2017 at 9:11pm UTC

 

[sekine12]

Here's the Instagram link. Shows what I was trying to get on video.
Instagram post by Dan • May 7, 2017 at 9:11pm UTC

Not gonna lie, I watched that repeat four times waiting for it to get to the clip where it got stuck in the trees not realizing it was repeating.

 

[Hood River]

Haha, That was shot after I decided to get a little higher and manually fly the drone. I ran into trouble when I tried creating Litchi waypoints manually. First waypoint at one end of the row and the second waypoint at the far end. Figured it would be the safest. But something went wrong. I'm guessing I should have turned off the OA before running the mission. And I shouldn't have tried out running manual waypoints in such close quarters.

 

[Hood River]

I think I have a better understanding of what happened. I should have turned off the OA before trying to fly the two waypoints in tight quarters and the Mavic would have just flown to the second waypoint without interruption. When the Mavic got "stuck" into a spot because of the tree branches I assumed once I turned off the OA it would hover and I could fly it out manually. What I forgot was that it was still trying to get to the second waypoint. When I turned off the OA it flew towards the waypoint and struck the branches. I should have disabled the Waypoint mode first then turned off the OA.

Lesson learned. And as far as I can tell no harm was done to the Mavic in the short fall to the ground.