Yesterday, 53 seconds into my second Litchi waypoint mission of the day, my MPP suddenly completely lost power and fell 88 meters into a cow pasture. I was able to recover it, and it suffered a dislocated gimbal and a cracked battery case (the battery LEDs still work and show 4 lights, still nearly the full charge that it started with) Airdata shows no minor or major deviations in the battery cells, and the battery has 13 charge cycles. I have had the drone for a month and a half and it has 107 flights. I was unable to find anything unusual in the logs, but I will attach those in case anyone has any ideas... There was no wind and I had perfect VLOS. No obstacles above 20m nearby. I could hear the throttle racing and cutting back a few times before it went silent and fell. Jun 22nd, 2018 04:22PM | Power | Drone Flight Log from Litchi app, version 2.4 on iOS | Total Mileage: 727 ft | Brazil | Airdata UAV
MPP total power loss and crash from 88m (289 ft)
- Thread starter brbundy
- Start date
As you said, there is nothing notable in the log prior to the abrupt end. That suggests a sudden power loss, such as the battery disconnecting. Are you able to power up the aircraft?
I did not try to power it up due to the precarious-looking gimbal connection. If it is safe to do so though, I will try that. All four of my batteries are fully charged right now, so it would be nice to take advantage of the aircraft just to run the batteries down to 45% for storage until I return from Brazil in a month and a half. Otherwise I need to wait 10 days for the auto discharge, which I suppose is also not a big deal. When I return to the US I should be able to get a warranty repair, or I also have DJI Care Refresh. For safety reasons, I'm still hoping to find the root cause of the failure.
If you can power it up, and if you can retrieve the onboard DAT file for that flight - which may or may not be in accessible memory - then that might shed some more light on the problem.
How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File from the AC
How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File from the AC
Ripper7620
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Is there any reason you can't open a claim right away with DJI, and send it in from Brazil? I would let DJI do the diagnostic, because they have the means to do so without guessing.
Was the battery still connected to the AC when you found it? Maybe the battery was not connected properly? DJI Care Refresh only works on the country it was registered in. I had to wait 2 weeks to return from trip in NZ to claim. As DJI pays for the postage, I guess they don't want to pay for international postage. Greater likelihood of getting lost and much longer turnaround time.
The battery was not in the aircraft on the ground, however it was very close, so it could have been ejected due to the impact with the ground. I'm very careful to press the battery firmly into position and to make sure that it clicks into place and is held firmly. I also wondered if it could have somehow become disconnected during the flight, but if it fell separately from 289 feet, I would expect it to be farther than a few feet from the aircraft on the ground, though I suppose that is still a possibility.
I am able to power up the aircraft, and there are some DAT files, however none of the dates make sense for the 6-22 flight in question. The top three are just my 3 attempts to download a meaningful dat file. The others are either from mid-May or have a bogus time stamp. Given the .11 MB per second estimate, none of the file sizes match what I would expect for the battery connected time of the flight with the failure (flight time 53 seconds, connected time possibly ~2 minutes)
Yes - unfortunately that's not uncommon with the Mavic. There are two locations that the DAT files may be written to - the internal SD card (user-accessible) and internal flash memory (inaccessible).
Had the same thing happen to my Spark from 80 metres while it was in LANDING mode. There had been reports of the battery clips coming lose but that wasn't the case and the drone even bounced on and up from an awning and I managed to regain control. Surprisingly not damaged but can't trust it.
A friend's Mavic Pro had the battery swell and pop out but he was lucky that it was about 3 metres up only so damage was minimal.
A friend's Mavic Pro had the battery swell and pop out but he was lucky that it was about 3 metres up only so damage was minimal.
No, unfortunately it was not recording as it fell. Some experts in the Spark forum looked through my flight data and couldn't find anything abnormal other than one battery cell looking a bit suspicious (though not significantly so). The battery was actually at about 80% power available. It was clear that it was in free fall (which I also observed) as I was told the data said its descent was at double the normal speed.
There is a video in the Spark forum of another Spark which somehow got flipped over as it was descending and its motors cut and it fell all the way. Cause unknown but I have read that if the drone is inverted, the motors will cut automatically.
There is a video in the Spark forum of another Spark which somehow got flipped over as it was descending and its motors cut and it fell all the way. Cause unknown but I have read that if the drone is inverted, the motors will cut automatically.
HDBOB
Member
If you want your batteries to last .... change to 3 or 4 days .... not 10. Just my humble opinion!!
HDBOB
Member
Based on 11 years of using lipo batteries. LOL They survive a lot longer when not stored at full charge.
Agreed, but I just wondered if you had direct evidence that 10 days is too long to wait for self-discharge, or significantly different than 3 or 4 days. Perhaps they immediately start to degrade significantly when fully charged, in which case shorter would definitely be better, but I've seen no actual data.
Nathan Hoover
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I love that DJI has the feature to auto discharge. I set mine at either 2 or 3 days. Have been doing that since they came out with it. My Mavic batteries are now over 18 months old and still going strong.
Turn11
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