Not a good day

[Brojon]

Glad I have State Farm insurance!
I did a flight with my Mavic Pro at a local park at lunch. Everything seemed ok but I did get electromagnetic interference warnings - even close in. It affected the video feed back to the controller as I got closer to some construction so I brought it home.
Went to a local creek that runs nearby and decided I would check out near the walking bridge. DJI Go4 refused to show video - 3rd time this week. So I terminated it and started Litchi which just updated last night.
Flew about 10 feet below the bottom of the bridge and right when I got underneath the edge it shot up, smacked the bridge and plummeted into the mud on the side of the creek. Gimbal ripped out and no response from the drone - controller showed disconnected.
Took photos after getting it out of the water puddle and shlepped back up the bank. Went back to work and called SF to start claim process. First idiot said I needed to get DJI to look at it then they'd reimburse me for repairs. Started the DJI process and they want the flight logs. Guess what - Litchi doesn't apparently write any flight logs, nor did it upload anything to Airdata UAV. Well crud.
Then I looked at my policy - it's a replacement policy. So I called back SF and got someone who also owns a drone and he got me going properly.
We discussed what had happened and I remembered that I saw a brief message and a beep but I missed it because I had my eye on the MP. He suggested that possibly a bird flew at it and caused the avoid response to rise. I bet that is it.
Anyway -sorry for the verbosity I'm curious about a couple of things

1 - DJI has been acting flakey by acting like no video feed and showing no exposure information - like the camera is disconnected. Latest iOS, DJI Go and Litchi as of last night.

2 - Why no flight logs? Is this a known thing with Litchi?

3 - No data uploaded to Airdata UAV either in spite of me having my phone set to wifi hotspot and being connected.

Thanks

 

[JMF]

Sorry to hear that, glad you got the Mavic covered with State Farm.

 

[Brojon]

Sorry to hear that, glad you got the Mavic covered with State Farm.

Not only that, they surprised me by saying when I got my new Mavic to send them to new serial and purchase info so the policy can be updated. Apparently it is in force the full term which is a year. Good stuff if you can get it. Of course I don't have a check in hand yet either... I've been considering upping to the Platinum assuming I can find one.
I sure would like some closure on the issues I mentioned though...

 

[Brojon]

So I finally got the MP to sort of connect and Litchi uploaded the logs to Airdata UAV. Poor bugger is dead though - gimbal errors, motor errors flashy red lights. *sigh*
The bad news is absolutely no error messages shown on the Airdata site until the actual crash which was recorded as excessive compass rate change.
No collision avoidance warnings, still had 8 satellites - no clue why it started to rise and wouldn't stop. Height is controlled by barometric pressure and I was well above the water, or I thought I was anyway. My next bird I am going to make a shallow water surface and investigate the reflective effects vs flying heights.

 

[sar104]

So I finally got the MP to sort of connect and Litchi uploaded the logs to Airdata UAV. Poor bugger is dead though - gimbal errors, motor errors flashy red lights. *sigh*
The bad news is absolutely no error messages shown on the Airdata site until the actual crash which was recorded as excessive compass rate change.
No collision avoidance warnings, still had 8 satellites - no clue why it started to rise and wouldn't stop. Height is controlled by barometric pressure and I was well above the water, or I thought I was anyway. My next bird I am going to make a shallow water surface and investigate the reflective effects vs flying heights.

Are you sure that it didn't just lose uplink under the bridge and go into RTH? It would have attempted to climb to the RTH altitude and would not have detected the bridge since it has no upward-looking sensors. Did the log file actually include the ascent into the bridge and the impact - that would be in the pitch and roll data rather than appearing as a compass error.

 

[Brojon]

Are you sure that it didn't just lose uplink under the bridge and go into RTH? It would have attempted to climb to the RTH altitude and would not have detected the bridge since it has no upward-looking sensors. Did the log file actually include the ascent into the bridge and the impact - that would be in the pitch and roll data rather than appearing as a compass error.

Nope. The control signals show excellent - I was only 30-40 feet away tops.

 

[sar104]

Nope. The control signals show excellent - I was only 30-40 feet away tops.

Interesting. The log files, especially the internal DAT file, are the best bet to see what actually happened from the point of view of the FC.

 

[Brojon]

Interesting. The log files, especially the internal DAT file, are the best bet to see what actually happened from the point of view of the FC.

Thus my question on why

Interesting. The log files, especially the internal DAT file, are the best bet to see what actually happened from the point of view of the FC.

One of my questions was why Litchi doesn't write the same logs as DJI Go4. I DID synchronize the flight data with Go 4 data and it only shows the flight I made with Go4 - not the Litchi flight.
Litchi instead will upload data to Airdata UAV.

 

[sar104]

Thus my question on why

One of my questions was why Litchi doesn't write the same logs as DJI Go4. I DID synchronize the flight data with Go 4 data and it only shows the flight I made with Go4 - not the Litchi flight.
Litchi instead will upload data to Airdata UAV.

As far as I'm aware, Litchi has always written separate logs, presumably since it doesn't have access to the internal Go app file storage. But the DAT files on the aircraft are the same whichever app you are using, and those are the ones that have the comprehensive sensor and control data. I'd take a look at those for answers.

 

[Brojon]

Except for the part where it's dead as a doornail.
The good news is State Farm called me today and is wiring the full amount to my bank account. Dang! Was not expecting a call so soon much less on a Saturday. So I went ahead and put a MPP on order from Amazon with guaranteed delivery Tuesday. I can live with that.
I think I will tear this one down and see what is fubar and if worth fixing.

Here's the sensor data from Airdata UAV -you can see it was a very short flight.

100
Signal Strength Score ™
0 to 100, higher is better'

Flight time Altitude Home Distance Type Notification
A 00m 00s 0.3 ft 0 ft Mode Mode changed to AutoTakeoff
B 00m 01s 3.3 ft 1 ft Mode Mode changed to GPS_Atti
00m 23s 0.0 ft 76 ft

61% Battery at maximum distance

 

[BudWalker]

Glad I have State Farm insurance!
I did a flight with my Mavic Pro at a local park at lunch. Everything seemed ok but I did get electromagnetic interference warnings - even close in. It affected the video feed back to the controller as I got closer to some construction so I brought it home.
Went to a local creek that runs nearby and decided I would check out near the walking bridge. DJI Go4 refused to show video - 3rd time this week. So I terminated it and started Litchi which just updated last night.
Flew about 10 feet below the bottom of the bridge and right when I got underneath the edge it shot up, smacked the bridge and plummeted into the mud on the side of the creek. Gimbal ripped out and no response from the drone - controller showed disconnected.
Took photos after getting it out of the water puddle and shlepped back up the bank. Went back to work and called SF to start claim process. First idiot said I needed to get DJI to look at it then they'd reimburse me for repairs. Started the DJI process and they want the flight logs. Guess what - Litchi doesn't apparently write any flight logs, nor did it upload anything to Airdata UAV. Well crud.
Then I looked at my policy - it's a replacement policy. So I called back SF and got someone who also owns a drone and he got me going properly.
We discussed what had happened and I remembered that I saw a brief message and a beep but I missed it because I had my eye on the MP. He suggested that possibly a bird flew at it and caused the avoid response to rise. I bet that is it.
Anyway -sorry for the verbosity I'm curious about a couple of things

1 - DJI has been acting flakey by acting like no video feed and showing no exposure information - like the camera is disconnected. Latest iOS, DJI Go and Litchi as of last night.

2 - Why no flight logs? Is this a known thing with Litchi?

3 - No data uploaded to Airdata UAV either in spite of me having my phone set to wifi hotspot and being connected.

Thanks

Your incident seems similar to this incident
P4P crash: why???
Maybe the cause is the same. Too bad Litchi doesn't log the vpsHeight info. If you can retrieve the .DAT file it's possible that the cause of this incident can be determined.

 

[BossBob]

If you are going to strip the wreck down you’ll be able to look at the files on the internal sd card. That’ll be where the dat files are stored.

 

[Brojon]

If you are going to strip the wreck down you’ll be able to look at the files on the internal sd card. That’ll be where the dat files are stored.

I'll have to look for it - I have it apart. I got it to power up after cleaning the gunk, attached it to DJI Assistant but it just hangs when I try to export the blackbox file. I've never used that before so I'm unclear what's supposed to happen - I point it at a directory and hit go and the cursor spins but nothing happens after several minutes. Ran a battery down to half trying last night.

 

[BudWalker]

I'll have to look for it - I have it apart. I got it to power up after cleaning the gunk, attached it to DJI Assistant but it just hangs when I try to export the blackbox file. I've never used that before so I'm unclear what's supposed to happen - I point it at a directory and hit go and the cursor spins but nothing happens after several minutes. Ran a battery down to half trying last night.

The BlackBox won't contain the .DAT. Retrieving the .DAT can be tricky. It depends on the FW version. To see how to retrieve the .DAT take a look at these instructions

How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File

 

[Brojon]

The BlackBox won't contain the .DAT. Retrieving the .DAT can be tricky. It depends on the FW version. To see how to retrieve the .DAT take a look at these instructions

How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File

Interesting - then what the heck do I do with it?
I was trying to retrieve the one you can upload to the web site and see what happened.
I'd *really* like to know what it was thinking when it started rising and wouldn't stop.

 

[dbyantis]

Glad I have State Farm insurance!
I did a flight with my Mavic Pro at a local park at lunch. Everything seemed ok but I did get electromagnetic interference warnings - even close in. It affected the video feed back to the controller as I got closer to some construction so I brought it home.
Went to a local creek that runs nearby and decided I would check out near the walking bridge. DJI Go4 refused to show video - 3rd time this week. So I terminated it and started Litchi which just updated last night.
Flew about 10 feet below the bottom of the bridge and right when I got underneath the edge it shot up, smacked the bridge and plummeted into the mud on the side of the creek. Gimbal ripped out and no response from the drone - controller showed disconnected.
Took photos after getting it out of the water puddle and shlepped back up the bank. Went back to work and called SF to start claim process. First idiot said I needed to get DJI to look at it then they'd reimburse me for repairs. Started the DJI process and they want the flight logs. Guess what - Litchi doesn't apparently write any flight logs, nor did it upload anything to Airdata UAV. Well crud.
Then I looked at my policy - it's a replacement policy. So I called back SF and got someone who also owns a drone and he got me going properly.
We discussed what had happened and I remembered that I saw a brief message and a beep but I missed it because I had my eye on the MP. He suggested that possibly a bird flew at it and caused the avoid response to rise. I bet that is it.
Anyway -sorry for the verbosity I'm curious about a couple of things

1 - DJI has been acting flakey by acting like no video feed and showing no exposure information - like the camera is disconnected. Latest iOS, DJI Go and Litchi as of last night.

2 - Why no flight logs? Is this a known thing with Litchi?

3 - No data uploaded to Airdata UAV either in spite of me having my phone set to wifi hotspot and being connected.

Thanks

I did get information from DJI re:Litche Logs, DJI in an email to me said that using a 3rd part app would void the warranty since they would be unable to review the logs. So, I didn't buy Litche.

 

[Brojon]

I did get information from DJI re:Litche Logs, DJI in an email to me said that using a 3rd part app would void the warranty since they would be unable to review the logs. So, I didn't buy Litche.

Wow - good to know. There's a US law that states a vehicle manufacturer cannot void a warranty based on who does the service. Wonder if it applies to this also... I think I would invoke it just to show I wasn't going to roll over. After all - they supply the SDK to Litchi so they can write software to run on their platform. Seems like if they required the log they should make it a failsafe and not an option for developers.

 

[JustStig]

Did you have to provide proof to statefarm that your bird crashed or is damage etc before they would process the claim?

 

[BudWalker]

Interesting - then what the heck do I do with it?
I was trying to retrieve the one you can upload to the web site and see what happened.
I'd *really* like to know what it was thinking when it started rising and wouldn't stop.

Not sure what you mean by "it". AFAIK, the only file that you can get from the AC itself is the .DAT file. As far as uploading it to a site djilogs.com may still be operational. If you want to upload a log file to a web site you probably are thinking of the .txt from the tablet. Check out DJI Flight Log Viewer which will have instructions for retrieving and uploading the .txt

 

[Brojon]

Not sure what you mean by "it". AFAIK, the only file that you can get from the AC itself is the .DAT file. As far as uploading it to a site djilogs.com may still be operational. If you want to upload a log file to a web site you probably are thinking of the .txt from the tablet. Check out DJI Flight Log Viewer which will have instructions for retrieving and uploading the .txt

"it" being the dat file. I had always understood the file you uploaded to DJI was the file created by downloading the blackbox file.