Flyaway on Waypoints - DJI support and offer is terrible

[Justin Playfair]

Most of it, particularly the last two sentences.

Again, I thought I did, but of course we all comprehend things differently.

"Are you certain about that?"

Yes, I'm certain that I've seen DJI employees cite the manual to justify a decision (that I never said was theirs personally, though you implied that I did).

"Their forum people don't make any determinations regarding warranty claims even if they draw attention to parts of the manual."

I've already agreed with you on this, but will again if it helps.

"I've never seen flying over water used to deny a claim."

As I already agreed, they won't deny a claim just because someone flew over water, at least not if the evidence strongly supports a defect. However, if someone presses them with no strong evidence one way or the other, they'll remind the person that the manual says not to fly over water.

"But failing to retrieve the wreckage because the incident occurred over deep water is a very different reason for denying a claim."

No, they certainly don't deny warranty claims just because the aircraft wasn't recovered; that only applies to Care Refresh. But in the absence of evidence, they do sometimes fall back on failure to do what the manual says.

Better now?

 

[Justin Playfair]

Mumble... I don't recall the comment coming from you. Was rather by someone else who commented earlier on this very post. But anyway no problem, it was only a funny comment as WTB pointed out.

Strangely, I can't seem to find a post where anyone said anything about a 150% discount, but I appreciate you clarifying that your post about an "illiterate" comment wasn't meant for me.

 

[Justin Playfair]

You are very strange, and you are doing a fine job of derailing this thread with random accusations.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

 

[Meta4]

Yes, I'm certain that I've seen DJI employees cite the manual to justify a decision.
...
However, if someone presses them with no strong evidence one way or the other, they'll remind the person that the manual says not to fly over water.
...
No, they certainly don't deny warranty claims just because the aircraft wasn't recovered; that only applies to Care Refresh. But in the absence of evidence, they do sometimes fall back on people who don't do what the manuals says.

Flying over water is not a reason for DJI to deny a claim and I've never seen them use it to deny a claim.
I think you've just been confused by their low-level people mentioning the general and vague warning in the manual.
It's not a prohibition as you suggested in post #63 and I'm pretty sure it's has never been used to justify denial of a warranty claim.

 

[sar104]

Quod erat demonstrandum.

And there goes the ignore button - one of the more well-deserved uses of it.

 

[Justin Playfair]

Flying over water is not a reason for DJI to deny a claim and I've never seen them use it to deny a claim.
I think you've just been confused by their low-level people mentioning the general and vague warning in the manual.
It's not a prohibition as you suggested in post #63 and I'm pretty sure it's has never been used to justify denial of a warranty claim.

Whether it's a "prohibition" or not is just parsing semantics as technically nothing in the manual is a prohibition. The fact is, they sometimes remind people wanting free warranty replacements of what the manual says in the context of explaining / justifying a refusal to provide a free replacement.

 

[JAW]

Here's pretty much everything the manual says about operating near water:


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[dannybgoode]

Here's pretty much everything the manual says about operating near water:
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I assume by Flight Environment Requirements #3 they mean avoid flying *into* bodies of water and not *over* them ?

 

[7thstring]

Gents and I started the post with the best intentions not to see it derail it went worse than my M2... can I get a 60% discount on a new thread?

 

[7thstring]

Doing a quick research I found a Video that reports issues with M2 batteries swelling and possibly causing a physical disconnection and DJI allegedly replacing the swollen batteries for free.
I don't believe it might have been my case, because a swollen battery popping out on my first WP mission would have been too much of a coincidence, but... any thoughts?
I also don't remember feeling the battery having any issue sliding in its place and I always check both buttons as much as I check propellers on each flight.

 

[7thstring]

Now that I think of it, however, I experienced both RC and video disconnection at the same time. Normally I get video disconnection first then RC follows suit... this might explain what happened

 

[sar104]

Doing a quick research I found a Video that reports issues with M2 batteries swelling and possibly causing a physical disconnection and DJI allegedly replacing the swollen batteries for free.
I don't believe it might have been my case, because a swollen battery popping out on my first WP mission would have been too much of a coincidence, but... any thoughts?
I also don't remember feeling the battery having any issue sliding in its place and I always check both buttons as much as I check propellers on each flight.

Now that I think of it, however, I experienced both RC and video disconnection at the same time. Normally I get video disconnection first then RC follows suit... this might explain what happened

The cause of a disconnect can often be inferred from the data stream. Increasing data loss indicates a poor downlink signal quality. Abrupt disconnects with no prior issues suggests something else. The mobile device DAT file and the txt log often contain clues about battery connection issues. Again, this is all guesswork without seeing the logs.

 

[ajkm]

I can only guess it was an illegal or illadvised flight and wonder what the OP is looking for in this thread

I hesitate to post any comment, but when the OP edits to write “please avoid distracting from the original the intention or you'll be reported”, I, for one, have a lot of questions as to intent and attitude. IMHO, saying one will report any comment one doesn’t like (so I guess this will be reported) is akin to telling us only to provide an answer that the OP wants to hear; and that seems to go against the idea of helping or discussing issues in this forum.

 

[7thstring]

I hesitate to post any comment, but when the OP edits to write “please avoid distracting from the original the intention or you'll be reported”, I, for one, have a lot of questions as to intent and attitude. IMHO, saying one will report any comment one doesn’t like (so I guess this will be reported) is akin to telling us only to provide an answer that the OP wants to hear; and that seems to go against the idea of helping or discussing issues in this forum.

If you saw how much the thread derailed you would understand ? anyway, there are 2 separate "recovery squads" on the place, so you will likely be fed with aircraft logs to analyze. The RC ones won't tell you anything significant, as reported by DJI themselves, as the RC didn't give any input - being a fully autonomous flight.

 

[7thstring]

Ah btw one of my two residual batteries is not entirely flat, so that might be the explanation of the sudden disconnection (in such case we can forget about logs, as the drone will be in - however shallow - the water).

Batteries never left in the sun, never in a car obviously, always stored in hotel safe boxes and brought aboard a single flight as hand baggage.

May I suggest you checking also your batteries for swelling? DJI seems to have recognised a manufacturing issue and replacing batteries, accordingly to the YouTube clip I stumbled upon.

 

[Radpuppy]

VLOS?

 

[InvisibleName]

VLOS?

Visual Line Of Sight

 

[7thstring]

Nothing. None of the expeditions found it on/near the approximate path I could try and remember (as the app went blank, have I mentioned it yet? ?).

So now the battery swelling might become the most interesting explanation. Only, the disconnection point was over the sea, so no chances to recover it after a week.

Lessons learned (it was supposed to be a test wasn't it? ?) about Waypoints:
- Don't use Waypoints
- if so bored Waypoints way fundamental to save the day (first try some sports and then ?) at least stick to RTH on RC disconnection
- use one battery for Waypoint setting and do manual stuff, SAVE the mission, take a screenshot of it, then use another full battery for the mission
- don't take off autonomously, it will waste plenty of time reaching the altitude first and then move to the first waypoints, wasting precious battery (or at least set the first waypoint low but still safe and let the aircraft increase to max altitude on the next waypoint)
- don't you ever use Waypoints
- (although this has nothing to do with the incident) fly as close as you can to the place you want to film in sports mode and only then start the mission / do the same on its way back
- in case of disconnection and "continue mission" don't trust the aircraft doing its thing and wait for it to return, run towards it immediately to regain connection even if it wasn't supposed to be manually flown
- get a yellow sticker at least for the top to improve searchability
- have I mentioned "don't use Waypoints?"
- write my mobile number on the sticker
- OR (and this is literally THE catch-all solution) get a f***ing GPS tracker, until DJI equips the next Mavic with one or provide IoT capabilities at least as a backup to the RC
- AND give litchi a try

Worst thing is that by reading this forum I understood that the clip I would have gained from this mission would have been jerky at best on transistions around POIs, because apparently waypoints doesn't excel on that front. So, my drone is most likely dead for nothing... I'll stick to "don't use Waypoints" ?

 

[AnzacJack]

My advice would be to start running some waypoint missions in close so you can test and see exactly how they function. Flying BVLOS isn’t really a good, or legal way to be utilising the waypoint options.
Plan, plan and plan, and be fully educated on the capabilities of your chosen platform before operating your RPAS.

 

[Oto]

Can you copy the logs from GO4 app?