Platinum crash ocean.
On Dec 30th, 2018, I was flying my Mavic Pro Platinum in the vicinity of Catbalogan harbor, Samar Philippines. I flew 15 minutes with no problems.6 minutes of that was in tripod mode, because I was flying around people and boats. I noticed the battery was 30%, so I decided to come back
and land. I pressed Return To Home. The Mavic ascended to it's return to home altitude of 260 feet. After that, the remote control disconnected from the drone. I never saw the drone start to come back to me. I moved around hoping to reestablish connection, but it never reconnected. So I gave my wife the remote control, and tablet, and started walking over to the pier where I knew it had been when I lost connection. I asked people if they had seen my drone crash, but no one had. I started walking back to my wife, assuming I would never find it. Then a guy came up to me and pointed to around 15 kids out in the water, and said they were looking for my drone. So I walked to the spot on the pier, as close to them
as I could get. Where they were looking the water was muddy and shallow, around 3 feet deep. After 5 to 10 minutes, one of them found the Mavic and held it up. I signaled to them to bring it to me. When it got close, I could see the battery was missing. I gave the boy who found it 3,000 pesos,
around $60, and the guys who carried it over to me 1,000 pesos. They were very happy! So I carried it back to where my wife and our boat was. On the way I bought 2 liters of drinking water. When I got to my wife, I poured the drinking water on the Mavic hoping to rinse off the salt water.
I noticed one of the motors wouldn't turn, and the gimble wouldn't move left to right(yaw). There was a quarter inch by half inch piece of one propeller broken, but still attached to the rest of the propeller. I saw no other damage. So I took the boat back to my wifes house on Darem Island. There, there is no Internet.
I now go back to September. Originally, I bought a Mavic pro in June 2017. I lost it by pilot error in Dec 2017. I bought a Platinum in Jan 2018. So I had one new Platinum battery and two old Mavic Pro batteries, one of which was the original one that came with my Mavic pro. This was
the battery I was flying with when the Platinum crashed. In September this year, I noticed my Mavic pro batteries wad swollen up on their underside where they attached to the drone. One was so swollen I had to use extra pressure to attach it to the Platinum. But you couldn't pull them off the Platinum without pushing the battery release buttons down. In October I went on a trip to Puerto Galera, Philippines, an
excellent place to fly a drone. I took all three batteries, but I never used the one that was swollen the most. I had about 10 flight with the slightly swollen battery without incident. So when I went to Samar in December I only took the Platinum battery, and the slightly swollen
Original Mavic Pro battery. At my wifes house I made 3 or 4 flights with the swollen battery and had no problems. So I took everything to Catbalogan because they have internet there, and I wanted to get Google Map showing up on my app. I fly with an app I wrote myself
in B4A, not DJI Go 4. After getting the map working at a restaurant with wifi, I decided to fly around the harbor. My swollen battery was already on so I decided to fly with it instead of using my Platinum battery, which was fully charged. The swollen battery was clearly not attached to the drone as tightly as a good battery would of been. So I flew around the harbor. After a while I started to fly in close proximity
to people and boats, so I switched to tripod mode to avoid hitting someone/something. I was in tripod mode around 6 minutes. I recovered the sdcard and all of the video plays. So what I think happened, was the Mavic/battery got hot from reduced air flow, and swelled more and detached from the
Platinum 260 feet in the air.
The day after I got my crashed drone back to my wifes house I filled a plastic container full of drinking water and submerged the Mavic in it for thirty minutes. Then I put it in a Tupperware container with rice for 3 days. On the fourth day I took it out and tried to power up. The platinum turned on, all the motors moved, the gimble moved, although not as much as it usually does, and all the lights came on and
it made the DJI sound. But the remote never connected to the drone, even after several minutes. So I put it away and I will try again later.
Conclusion: So I know everyone is thinking I shouldn't have tried to fly with the swollen battery. Was I stupid? Maybe. I certainly would never try it again. But I took a risk and I lost. In my opinion these original Mavic batteries have a design defect, but all DJI will do is tell you not to use them. They won't replace them, even though they crap out in 18 months.
I'll probably buy another drone, a Mavic 2 or 3, but not right away. I found several good Youtube videos about what to do if you crash in the ocean or get sand in the motors. Here are the links:
I also just posted another thing in the forum about "Repair defective mavic videos" but I can't find the exact link.
Here's the last 45 seconds before the crash. This is the repaired file.
Here's a picture of where it crashed, the red ball.
Steve
On Dec 30th, 2018, I was flying my Mavic Pro Platinum in the vicinity of Catbalogan harbor, Samar Philippines. I flew 15 minutes with no problems.6 minutes of that was in tripod mode, because I was flying around people and boats. I noticed the battery was 30%, so I decided to come back
and land. I pressed Return To Home. The Mavic ascended to it's return to home altitude of 260 feet. After that, the remote control disconnected from the drone. I never saw the drone start to come back to me. I moved around hoping to reestablish connection, but it never reconnected. So I gave my wife the remote control, and tablet, and started walking over to the pier where I knew it had been when I lost connection. I asked people if they had seen my drone crash, but no one had. I started walking back to my wife, assuming I would never find it. Then a guy came up to me and pointed to around 15 kids out in the water, and said they were looking for my drone. So I walked to the spot on the pier, as close to them
as I could get. Where they were looking the water was muddy and shallow, around 3 feet deep. After 5 to 10 minutes, one of them found the Mavic and held it up. I signaled to them to bring it to me. When it got close, I could see the battery was missing. I gave the boy who found it 3,000 pesos,
around $60, and the guys who carried it over to me 1,000 pesos. They were very happy! So I carried it back to where my wife and our boat was. On the way I bought 2 liters of drinking water. When I got to my wife, I poured the drinking water on the Mavic hoping to rinse off the salt water.
I noticed one of the motors wouldn't turn, and the gimble wouldn't move left to right(yaw). There was a quarter inch by half inch piece of one propeller broken, but still attached to the rest of the propeller. I saw no other damage. So I took the boat back to my wifes house on Darem Island. There, there is no Internet.
I now go back to September. Originally, I bought a Mavic pro in June 2017. I lost it by pilot error in Dec 2017. I bought a Platinum in Jan 2018. So I had one new Platinum battery and two old Mavic Pro batteries, one of which was the original one that came with my Mavic pro. This was
the battery I was flying with when the Platinum crashed. In September this year, I noticed my Mavic pro batteries wad swollen up on their underside where they attached to the drone. One was so swollen I had to use extra pressure to attach it to the Platinum. But you couldn't pull them off the Platinum without pushing the battery release buttons down. In October I went on a trip to Puerto Galera, Philippines, an
excellent place to fly a drone. I took all three batteries, but I never used the one that was swollen the most. I had about 10 flight with the slightly swollen battery without incident. So when I went to Samar in December I only took the Platinum battery, and the slightly swollen
Original Mavic Pro battery. At my wifes house I made 3 or 4 flights with the swollen battery and had no problems. So I took everything to Catbalogan because they have internet there, and I wanted to get Google Map showing up on my app. I fly with an app I wrote myself
in B4A, not DJI Go 4. After getting the map working at a restaurant with wifi, I decided to fly around the harbor. My swollen battery was already on so I decided to fly with it instead of using my Platinum battery, which was fully charged. The swollen battery was clearly not attached to the drone as tightly as a good battery would of been. So I flew around the harbor. After a while I started to fly in close proximity
to people and boats, so I switched to tripod mode to avoid hitting someone/something. I was in tripod mode around 6 minutes. I recovered the sdcard and all of the video plays. So what I think happened, was the Mavic/battery got hot from reduced air flow, and swelled more and detached from the
Platinum 260 feet in the air.
The day after I got my crashed drone back to my wifes house I filled a plastic container full of drinking water and submerged the Mavic in it for thirty minutes. Then I put it in a Tupperware container with rice for 3 days. On the fourth day I took it out and tried to power up. The platinum turned on, all the motors moved, the gimble moved, although not as much as it usually does, and all the lights came on and
it made the DJI sound. But the remote never connected to the drone, even after several minutes. So I put it away and I will try again later.
Conclusion: So I know everyone is thinking I shouldn't have tried to fly with the swollen battery. Was I stupid? Maybe. I certainly would never try it again. But I took a risk and I lost. In my opinion these original Mavic batteries have a design defect, but all DJI will do is tell you not to use them. They won't replace them, even though they crap out in 18 months.
I'll probably buy another drone, a Mavic 2 or 3, but not right away. I found several good Youtube videos about what to do if you crash in the ocean or get sand in the motors. Here are the links:
I also just posted another thing in the forum about "Repair defective mavic videos" but I can't find the exact link.
Here's the last 45 seconds before the crash. This is the repaired file.
Here's a picture of where it crashed, the red ball.
Steve
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