Mavic 3 Cine Chicago Gone!

[TuanQt]

He wouldn’t reply here but he’s over on Facebook crying about it still.

“just because you think it’s BS doesn’t mean it’s not true either so try and remember that one in life. The home point did record properly before flight but was inaccurate and had plenty of satellites too…which dropped off significantly too. I had a friend who has $100k plus on drones he flies for government agencies review my log files and he even said nothing added up just so you and others know. It showed I was 24 feet away then immediately 400’ the next time stamp….it’s all good people can believe what they wish all good and no skin off my back. DJI will handle snd I’ll move on and life is good and just having this drone back because of all the positive vibes that people helped me with easily cancel out negative noise like this so there’s that. ”

 

[Meta4]

He wouldn’t reply here but he’s over on Facebook crying about it still.

“just because you think it’s BS doesn’t mean it’s not true either so try and remember that one in life.

Which only reinforces the idea that he knows very little of drone flying basics.
The GPS issues are directly attributable to a poor flying environment where much of the sky is blocked and a reduced number of satellites are visible.
He considers comments by anyone that has genuine understanding to be "negative noise".

 

[Lasidora]

Saw the video of him finding it with the camera unit completely mangled, looks like it had collided with the side of a skyscraper & was retrieved by the window washer guy in side lifts.

 

[Paradigm]

=

He wouldn’t reply here but he’s over on Facebook crying about it still.

“I had a friend who has $100k plus on drones he flies for government agencies review my log files and he even said nothing added up just so you and others know. ”

Well if that's the case, put a bow on this thread, we figured it out.

Next up, he milks about 5 more videos on this subject:

"mavic 3 footage right before it goes berserk between skyscrapers"

"how long it took for me to get my M3 cine replaced after it freaked out"

"uboxing my refreshed brand new M3 cine"

-----------------

Only thing we want is the logs, bro. To help us understand if there was something that went wrong with the hardware/software so the community knows or to help you understand what user error you made.

But I guess you don't want to be apart of the community, well, other than mooching views for your YT channel.

Either way, hope you're flying your M3 as soon as possible.

 

[Perceivedshift]

He should sell everything and find a new hobby. Shoot, I hope he posts the video and the FAA goes after him...

 

[JohnnyChicago]

Thanks for letting me down DJI having 500gigs of the best Chicago pro res footage I ever captured and becoming unresponsive and breaking total connection to my app and flying away on me and recording an inaccurate home point….$5k gone and priceless footage for a client! SO bummed on DJI right now.

Followed this on YouTube and facebook posts. Glad the drone was found. Standing up for my Chicago buddy. It's tough flyin' in this city, bro! Don't let the bastards get you down.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Thanks for letting me down DJI having 500gigs of the best Chicago pro res footage I ever captured and becoming unresponsive and breaking total connection to my app and flying away on me and recording an inaccurate home point….$5k gone and priceless footage for a client! SO bummed on DJI right now.

The microwave interference in downtown Chicago must be insane. After 6 years of successful flying in the Southwest, I just lost a bird due to massive WiFi interference combined with lack of diligence on my part. Now I run WiFi analysis before every flight, regardless of location. And I monitor signal strength throughout the flight.

I presently have 3 construction jobs I fly biweekly. One of those properties is in a rural location, but is near a cell tower. Every single one of my 32 channels has some level of interference. Channel 12 has the least interference, so that's the channel I use there. Even then, I use a signal booster and monitor signal strength throughout the entire flight.

Of my three present construction locations, all 3 locations are WiFi saturated. The thing is that the Santa Fe location didn't start that way. But the construction project is an apartment complex and it's nearly finished. I assume they have a built-in WiFi infrastructure, because as construction has come close to completion, all my channels are "filling up" with interference. At this time I now have some form of interference on all them. In this world of "free WiFi for all," I'm finding it harder and harder to fly in that bandwidth.

Dollars to doughnuts you ran into some hard interference on your bird. Remember, when we LOSE signal, the bird should RTH. But when the bird is bombarded with erroneous signal, it translates those signals into erroneous commands. And when that happens, there's almost nothing that can be done. All you can do is try to prevent that scenario through diligence both before and during the flight.

Good luck.

D

 

[Meta4]

Remember, when we LOSE signal, the bird should RTH. But when the bird is bombarded with erroneous signal, it translates those signals into erroneous commands. And when that happens, there's almost nothing that can be done.

Interference won't ever fly your drone erratically or away.
At worst (rare), it would swamp the control signal and trigger RTH.
But it cannot cause the drone to fly away.

 

[timinator]

Interference won't ever fly your drone erratically or away.
At worst (rare), it would swamp the control signal and trigger RTH.
But it cannot cause the drone to fly away.

This.

I fly in some really dense urban areas and have never had that problem. I may get some notifications in the app and some lag in the display but never even had an RTH trigger because of it.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

After 6 years of successful flying in the Southwest, I just lost a bird due to massive WiFi interference combined with lack of diligence on my part. Now I run WiFi analysis before every flight, regardless of location. And I monitor signal strength throughout the flight.

What drone Donnie ?
Is it a wifi signal model ?

If so, yes wifi could have a bearing when it overwhelms, but usually the occusync type signals are ok in those environments.

My BILs Air has a little trouble sometimes in urban places, like you say there is usually 4, 5, 10 wifi notifications come up in some places.
Mind you, have never had an issue with my Spark.

The M3 should have no problems in those places, with decent LOS or close to it, signal will be rock solid usually.

 

[ianwood]

Interference won't ever fly your drone erratically or away.
At worst (rare), it would swamp the control signal and trigger RTH.
But it cannot cause the drone to fly away.

Exactly. Unless you have a Phantom 1. Those actually did cause the flight controller to get out of whack if the receiver was swamped with RF. But nothing since.

I will add, just for good measure the two other things that play havoc in urban environments:

• GPS signal multi-pathing and sudden changes in visible satellites. Both should be managed cleanly between the GPS and the flight controller but it is not 100% perfect.
• Magnetic interference near the ground and structures.

The microwave interference in downtown Chicago must be insane. After 6 years of successful flying in the Southwest, I just lost a bird due to massive WiFi interference combined with lack of diligence on my part. Now I run WiFi analysis before every flight, regardless of location. And I monitor signal strength throughout the flight.

I presently have 3 construction jobs I fly biweekly. One of those properties is in a rural location, but is near a cell tower. Every single one of my 32 channels has some level of interference. Channel 12 has the least interference, so that's the channel I use there. Even then, I use a signal booster and monitor signal strength throughout the entire flight.

Of my three present construction locations, all 3 locations are WiFi saturated. The thing is that the Santa Fe location didn't start that way. But the construction project is an apartment complex and it's nearly finished. I assume they have a built-in WiFi infrastructure, because as construction has come close to completion, all my channels are "filling up" with interference. At this time I now have some form of interference on all them. In this world of "free WiFi for all," I'm finding it harder and harder to fly in that bandwidth.

Dollars to doughnuts you ran into some hard interference on your bird. Remember, when we LOSE signal, the bird should RTH. But when the bird is bombarded with erroneous signal, it translates those signals into erroneous commands. And when that happens, there's almost nothing that can be done. All you can do is try to prevent that scenario through diligence both before and during the flight.

Good luck.

D

I've flown in Chicago a lot. It's windy and cold. That's the worst of it. Plenty of RF noise but signal quality degrades gradually and you watch it. Sometimes you get a brief disconnect. Which you plan for by mentally figuring out the RTH path repeatedly as you fly. Same with being ready to lose GPS if you're in the shadow of buildings.

 

[beermat]

In one of his YouTube videos, he presents screen capture of the final seconds of the drone feed, and you can see that the obstacle avoidance indicates obstacles to the left and rear of the drone, and it is preventing him from flying backwards. He then puts it into sport mode (to turn off obstacle avoidance), flies backwards, and gets a disconnect 2 seconds later.



I have annotated buildings 1, 2 and 3 on this screen grab. Those 3 buildings show the left and right extremes of the video frame and the centerpoint/heading. I then located those buildings on a map and did some (low grade) drawing on that map to estimate where the drone was, in order to be able to capture buildings 1 and 2 in the video frame. Here is what I came up with:




If you watch his videos, in earlier ones he said he lost sight of the drone and, in the later video with the screen capture of the final moments of the drone video, he *repeatedly* indicates where he thinks the drone is, which coincides with where the red lines cross in the map above. How is it possible for his drone to be in that location and capture buildings 1 and 2 in frame? It would need a 180 degree FOV to do that, not the 84 degree FOV it has. But, based on his assumption of where his drone was, there were no obstacles there, which is why he turned it to sport mode to fly backwards, losing connection a couple of seconds later.

Based on my calculation from his screen capture of the drone video feed, I place the drone where the purple circle is, in order for it to be able to "see" buildings 1 and 2 with an 84 degree FOV. Note that if it was there, the proximity of the building angled to the drones orientation to the left and behind, would be consistent with the obstacle avoidance pattern coming from his drone. Note that if it was there, flying backwards for a second or so would crash it into those buildings. Note that later, his drone was found, on the third floor ledge of one of those buildings....

 

[ianwood]

In one of his YouTube videos, he presents screen capture of the final seconds of the drone feed, and you can see that the obstacle avoidance indicates obstacles to the left and rear of the drone, and it is preventing him from flying backwards. He then puts it into sport mode (to turn off obstacle avoidance), flies backwards, and gets a disconnect 2 seconds later.

View attachment 139784

I have annotated buildings 1, 2 and 3 on this screen grab. Those 3 buildings show the left and right extremes of the video frame and the centerpoint/heading. I then located those buildings on a map and did some (low grade) drawing on that map to estimate where the drone was, in order to be able to capture buildings 1 and 2 in the video frame. Here is what I came up with:


View attachment 139785

If you watch his videos, in earlier ones he said he lost sight of the drone and, in the later video with the screen capture of the final moments of the drone video, he *repeatedly* indicates where he thinks the drone is, which coincides with where the red lines cross in the map above. How is it possible for his drone to be in that location and capture buildings 1 and 2 in frame? It would need a 180 degree FOV to do that, not the 84 degree FOV it has. But, based on his assumption of where his drone was, there were no obstacles there, which is why he turned it to sport mode to fly backwards, losing connection a couple of seconds later.

Based on my calculation from his screen capture of the drone video feed, I place the drone where the purple circle is, in order for it to be able to "see" buildings 1 and 2 with an 84 degree FOV. Note that if it was there, the proximity of the building angled to the drones orientation to the left and behind, would be consistent with the obstacle avoidance pattern coming from his drone. Note that if it was there, flying backwards for a second or so would crash it into those buildings. Note that later, his drone was found, on the third floor ledge of one of those buildings....

Good analysis. So basically, he lost his bearings, assumed the drone was in a different spot and then flew it into a building after turning off OA.

Obviously without the video and logs, we can only speculate but your assumptions seem quite reasonable.

 

[Deleted member 77603]

so...whiny boy with a penchant for shameless self promotion and questionable flying skills shops his tale of woe around various social media outlets for maximum effect.

/thread

 

[DJW43]

crazy story

 

[ianwood]

so...whiny boy with a penchant for shameless self promotion and questionable flying skills shops his tale of woe around various social media outlets for maximum effect.

/thread

And convinces DJI to give him a new one even when it looks like it was pilot error.

 

[Point Zero]

And convinces DJI to give him a new one even when it looks like it was pilot error.

Really. I thought he was sending the wrecked remains back to DJI which will still cost him another 1K or whatever it is for his care refresh claim?

Sorry in advance if I am mistaken.

 

[ianwood]

Really. I thought he was sending the wrecked remains back to DJI which will still cost him another 1K or whatever it is for his care refresh claim?

Sorry in advance if I am mistaken.

According to his post on FB, it looks like DJI agreed to replace it under warranty.

 

[Point Zero]

According to his post on FB, it looks like DJI agreed to replace it under warranty.

Thank you for clearing that up.
Now that's great customer service and a fairy-tale ending

 

[Paradigm]

In one of his YouTube videos, he presents screen capture of the final seconds of the drone feed, and you can see that the obstacle avoidance indicates obstacles to the left and rear of the drone, and it is preventing him from flying backwards. He then puts it into sport mode (to turn off obstacle avoidance), flies backwards, and gets a disconnect 2 seconds later.

View attachment 139784

I have annotated buildings 1, 2 and 3 on this screen grab. Those 3 buildings show the left and right extremes of the video frame and the centerpoint/heading. I then located those buildings on a map and did some (low grade) drawing on that map to estimate where the drone was, in order to be able to capture buildings 1 and 2 in the video frame. Here is what I came up with:


View attachment 139785

If you watch his videos, in earlier ones he said he lost sight of the drone and, in the later video with the screen capture of the final moments of the drone video, he *repeatedly* indicates where he thinks the drone is, which coincides with where the red lines cross in the map above. How is it possible for his drone to be in that location and capture buildings 1 and 2 in frame? It would need a 180 degree FOV to do that, not the 84 degree FOV it has. But, based on his assumption of where his drone was, there were no obstacles there, which is why he turned it to sport mode to fly backwards, losing connection a couple of seconds later.

Based on my calculation from his screen capture of the drone video feed, I place the drone where the purple circle is, in order for it to be able to "see" buildings 1 and 2 with an 84 degree FOV. Note that if it was there, the proximity of the building angled to the drones orientation to the left and behind, would be consistent with the obstacle avoidance pattern coming from his drone. Note that if it was there, flying backwards for a second or so would crash it into those buildings. Note that later, his drone was found, on the third floor ledge of one of those buildings....

Looks like you're also in/near Chicago. Maybe he's willing to pay you for some flight lessons.