Return To Home Function Did Not Work After RC Signal Loss

[Islandguy27]

If he found the Mavic at the base of that antenna and the blades were all chewed up I guess it is possible it just hit the antenna. With the onboard flight logs DJI figures out exactly what happened in a heartbeat.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Betting my house that it's user error. These things don't just drop out of the sky.

Don't bet your house. One case a few weeks ago was very likely a badly installed battery that came out in flight. No proof but that's what all the data pointed to.

And of course the battery is a single point of failure as is the motor control (several "single points of failure" that will each result in catastrophic failure).

To be sure the OP set things up against himself and we never got the final .DAT which would have told us much more... so I'd tend to believe more a post RC loss RTH into the sun and OA'd on that ... descended on depletion and then hit a tree ... that's something I'd believe.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Sun was not in the direction of travel...
Why would you suspect it to lock from that?

If the RTH turned to the left on initiation. From the data the RTH should have turned right, but you never know.

My RTH Setup Checklist.

 

[GSPRODUCT]

Unlikely as the craft RTH is completely independent of the RC so it would have RTH.

Imo it's either

Just dropped with loss of power for some odd reason - unlikely.

RTH fail due to low sun possibly on the OE and it sat there then critical landed - real possibility.

It hit something, bird perhaps - remote but possible.

Did not make it back with enough power and critical landed on route - real possibly

Based on those logs it's just ended with no further interaction, no final errors or anything that looks odd.

Probably lost power and dropped. Did this. Luckily i was inside and it was only 3 feet in the air and over carpet. It did it twice. After the second time the motors would not power up. It gave me an esc status error. I think this is a known issue with some of the drones. So most likely if the logs just cut out suddenly than it lost power and fell where you last saw it on the screen

 

[Skyler King III]

Hello Everyone,

I am writing this while fighting back tears. The date is 4/3/2017. I purchased my drone directly from the DJI site a week ago, got the drone 2 days ago. The mavic is an amazing piece of technology, was very satisfied. I flew it probably 5 or 6 times. The flight that matters, is obviously the last. I live in Tahoe, specifically Kings Beach. I was at the lake tahoe beach and was flying my drone. i decided to go over the little city of kings beach. i was only 663.7 meters away, had only a flight time of 3 minutes and 30 seconds and had full signal on my RC controller and was connected to 16 satelites when all the sudden i started losing RC signal. This is kinda normal being i live in tahoe and there are alot of trees around but i wasnt very far and had already flown it alot farther the day before. as soon as i lost visual it prompted me as usual to RTH, which i complied. I zig zagged to that location where i lost signal so it should have only took about 1- 2 minutes to return but no such luck. Waited probably around 5 with my heart racing, then around 7 minutes i freaked out and got in my car, with the remote out the window i flew to the destination that i had last seen on my video feed. never regained RC signal. spent hours searching for my drone until it was too dark and i was using my cellphone flashlight. then woke up early the next morning, asked all the neighbors around the last known location if they say a flying machine fall from the sky but no luck. one of the residents even loaned me a 50mm set of binoculars. from 7 am to 11:30 am me and my girlfriend searched for it. looked at the last known location for hours, then spent 2 hours walking from the last known location to the home point to see if maybe it crashed into a tree which is doubtful because i have the RTH setting at 120 meters. and trees around here dont reach past 100-120 feet. well below my height. no luck. Not looking for sympathy. just thought id get my story out there for anyone else so they can beware. and maybe get some advice on how to find it. I have the DJI Care Package but you know if you dont have the drone, you arent getting a new one.

Thanks for reading Everyone,
Sincerely,
The Sad Owner of a mavic Controller


Flight log here:

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

I am sorry for your loss. Do you have a personal property articles policy that would cover it?

On another note: I check my RTH every day in two ways: 1) climb 50 feet below my RTH altitude and move 100 fee away. Then I press RTH. 2) I do the same thing BUT I turn off controller to see if on lost signal it RTH. Some may says I'm overly cautious or paranoid, but I say there is no such thing.

I had a similar situation as SadMavic said but with my YUNEEC TYPHOON H PRO....FOUND IT 1900 FEET AWAY IN A TREE AFTER FLY AWAY.

 

[SadMavicControllerOwner]

Glad you found it. I suspect it sun locked, landed in a tree and then fell. I don't really believe the "fell out of the sky" scenario (witness or not). The .DAT file (in the drone) is the critical one to get out and post to really understand what happened.

Wasn't a tree around for at least 10-20 meters, and all the pieces of the propellers were all within a foot or 2 of the crash site. Never hit a tree, and OA was turned off.

 

[GSPRODUCT]

Another case of lost battery during flight?

TRUE

 

[AlanTheBeast]

TRUE

possible.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Wasn't a tree around for at least 10-20 meters, and all the pieces of the propellers were all within a foot or 2 of the crash site. Never hit a tree, and OA was turned off.

Are you sure the battery was properly latched in place before flight?

I noticed in the .TXT file that the disconnect occurred after you entered Sport mode and were flying at about 35 mph. This is similar to a case a few weeks back. I'm not saying it _was_ such, but it's a possibility that the higher speed flight had more vibration and that could have been enough. (OTOH, the nose down attitude should give some airload to help hold the battery down - why I say possible and not likely). The disconnect occurred 23 seconds after you accelerated from 0 in Sport mode.

The battery is one of many single points with the potential to result in catastrophic failure. Whether due to a defect or due to operator error in latching it.

IAC with Care Refresh you can let DJI sort it out - but they'll never reveal root cause if it has to do with their hardware. Just wish you had posted the .DAT.

 

[SadMavicControllerOwner]

well, This is a lesson people could learn.. All these people trying to help you find out why this happened and you don't download the very piece of information needed for these people BEFORE you send the drone back to DJI? These people and myself are trying to learn how and why these failures happen. The log on your Mavic may have told us!

Dang, your life may never continue. Are u kidding me man ? Is your life really that boring ? I don't have a computer right now so I can't use DJI assistant 2, and have a very expensive trip planned for the whole month of May and we all know the reliability of DJI customer service, but you want me to waste precious time getting a log so people on here who don't believe me and all the

Are you sure the battery was properly latched in place before flight?

I noticed in the .TXT file that the disconnect occurred after you entered Sport mode and were flying at about 35 mph. This is similar to a case a few weeks back. I'm not saying it _was_ such, but it's a possibility that the higher speed flight had more vibration and that could have been enough. (OTOH, the nose down attitude should give some airload to help hold the battery down - why I say possible and not likely). The disconnect occurred 23 seconds after you accelerated from 0 in Sport mode.

The battery is one of many single points with the potential to result in catastrophic failure. Whether due to a defect or due to operator error in latching it.

IAC with Care Refresh you can let DJI sort it out - but they'll never reveal root cause if it has to do with their hardware. Just wish you had posted the .DAT.

i know I wish I could of loaded the .DAT but I don't have a computer and I would have wasted a day or 2 of precious time getting it repaired. And I've heard nothing but horror stories about DJI repair reliability and turnaround time. And I desperately need it back by April 31st for my month long trip to Indonesia. The whole reason I bought the thing lol and my money is on the battery too. I was flying it around for some time before I lost it. The battery died and I slapped My second one in and hadn't really pushed the mavic too hard until that last flight where I lost it. So I'm about 95% it was an improperly inserted battery. The other 5% is only because of the place where I lost signal. If you look at my flight logs with gps, the exact spot I lose signal in, Is literally right above this 20 foot antenna and the last warning I got was losing RC signal adjust RC controller. But I'm still going with the battery

 

[SadMavicControllerOwner]

Betting my house that it's user error. These things don't just drop out of the sky.

I've literally read like 100 threads on here of that happening lol and a guy who told me where it was, which led me to look in that exact spot, SAID IT DROPPED OUT OF THE SKY. Tahoe is very small community full of very nice helping people. If the dude said it dropped out of the sky, you can rest assured the drone dropped out of the sky

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Dang, your life may never continue. Are u kidding me man ? Is your life really that boring ? I don't have a computer right now so I can't use DJI assistant 2, and have a very expensive trip planned for the whole month of May and we all know the reliability of DJI customer service, but you want me to waste precious time getting a log so people on here who don't believe me and all the

i know I wish I could of loaded the .DAT but I don't have a computer and I would have wasted a day or 2 of precious time getting it repaired. And I've heard nothing but horror stories about DJI repair reliability and turnaround time. And I desperately need it back by April 31st for my month long trip to Indonesia. The whole reason I bought the thing lol and my money is on the battery too. I was flying it around for some time before I lost it. The battery died and I slapped My second one in and hadn't really pushed the mavic too hard until that last flight where I lost it. So I'm about 95% it was an improperly inserted battery. The other 5% is only because of the place where I lost signal. If you look at my flight logs with gps, the exact spot I lose signal in, Is literally right above this 20 foot antenna and the last warning I got was losing RC signal adjust RC controller. But I'm still going with the battery

Per the TXT log where you lost signal you were at 379 feet above your Home Point.

The terrain where you lost signal is (on Google Earth) 3 m LOWER than your Home Point (per Google Earth).

So if you hit that tower it was during descent.

The "exact spot" of the last recorded location was in the 1/4 of the width of the street.

I'd still want to know if OA was off for RTH. This is not the same as OA for general flight. Sorry to harp - we've found over time that the slightest misunderstanding of settings can have unexpected consequences.

 

[JLane]

Sorry to harp

Did you mean to say... Sorry to HAARP?

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Did you mean to say... Sorry to HAARP?

Ahah! THE CAUSE, THE CAUSE, THE CAUSE!!!!!

And he should not be flying there!!!! bad boy!

 

[SadMavicControllerOwner]

Per the TXT log where you lost signal you were at 379 feet above your Home Point.

The terrain where you lost signal is (on Google Earth) 3 m LOWER than your Home Point (per Google Earth).

So if you hit that tower it was during descent.

The "exact spot" of the last recorded location was in the 1/4 of the width of the street.

I'd still want to know if OA was off for RTH. This is not the same as OA for general flight. Sorry to harp - we've found over time that the slightest misunderstanding of settings can have unexpected consequences.

View attachment 10201

Google earth is wrong. Those trees don't go higher than about 150 feet.

 

[lagunamavic]

No one wants to hear this but... it's people like you, original poster, who are going to ruin flying drones for the rest of us. I hope you start following the rules or stop flying altogether.

 

[SadMavicControllerOwner]

No one wants to hear this but... it's people like you, original poster, who are going to ruin flying drones for the rest of us. I hope you start following the rules or stop flying altogether.

Your right. No one wants to hear a fact that 10,000 other people have already pointed out.

 

[D95GAS]

As a new user I am picking up so really good tips here for pre flight checks, just trying to avoid any pit falls. Is the general consensus to disable obstacle avoidance on the RTH setting?

 

[SadMavicControllerOwner]

As a new user I am picking up so really good tips here for pre flight checks, just trying to avoid any pit falls. Is the general consensus to disable obstacle avoidance on the RTH setting?

From what I've learned here, obstacle avoidance turns on during RTH no matter what you do

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Google earth is wrong. Those trees don't go higher than about 150 feet.

I never mentioned trees. The altitudes in GE are supposed to be ground level per survey data.