Weird behaviour from Air 3 - drone seemed to flip over then lost signal (possible bird strike?)

[MM2]

Drones do not crash into powerlines. People with drones crash into powerlines. But seriously, my money is on what Vic said barring any other proof.

Very true Tony. Would have been nobody's silly fault but my own if I did get tangled up! Will be much more aware in the future of any such risks/obstacles.

 

[Meta4]

Thanks so much Meta4 for that detailed explanation. Everything you say makes sense to a layman such as myself. Just a question though, do you think the drone being quite close to those transmission lines could have had any negative impact on the gimbal to make it glitch so erratically? Or do you lean more towards there being a fault somewhere internally, such as a gimbal cable etc?

Gimbal glitches just happen sometimes, without any obvious cause.
I've had the occasional scare from them.

Perhaps the proximity to the powerlines might have had something to do with it or that might have been coincidental and unrelated.
Drones are used for high voltage powerline inspection without problems and I've had to fly close sometimes and never noticed a problem.

 

[MM2]

Gimbal glitches just happen sometimes, without any obvious cause.
I've had the occasional scare from them.

Perhaps the proximity to the powerlines might have had something to do with it or that might have been coincidental and unrelated.
Drones are used for high voltage powerline inspection without problems and I've had to fly close sometimes and never noticed a problem.

Thank you Meta4, hopefully just one of those things that happened. Will definitely be steering clear to avoid getting too close to any transmission/powerlines in the future though, just in case. It does sort of seem like there could be a link possibly in that the gimbal went haywire and the signal to the RC was lost shortly thereafter. The one common denominator that comes to mind was the proximity to the transmission lines. But as you say, may still have beem unrelated really.

Thanks again mate for the help/advice, much appreciated.

 

[Yogi053]

You mention that the drone possibly uses 3 freqs. If so, I reckon the new freq is the 5.1 ghz as the previous drones used 2.4 and 5.8 freqs. Of course, I may be wrong. Does anyone have an idea if power lines emit a frequency, or a harmonic that would affect this new? drone freq.

 

[msinger]

Hello msinger. When you say the area of interest missing (when the drone was disconnected from the RC) is important. I would have thought the moment the gimbal/drone started to move erratically would be the critical point in time to look at?

I don't see anything in your flight log showing the gimbal/drone starting to move erratically. Where exactly do you see that in your flight log?

 

[mb34928]

Hello all,

Am hoping to get some assistance please in regard to a flight with my Air 3 a few hours ago. Was about a minute or two into a flight when I noticed on the RC2 the drone seemed to flip sideways or upside down and I thought it was about to go down into the river below. It then suddenly lost connection to the controller and I was not able to gain any control over it, other than press the return to home button on the controller.

I breathed a huge sign of relief as the last picture I saw on the screen was the drone appearing sideways, looking like it was going down I and was convinced I lost it. Luckily, after pressing RTH it then began returning without issue. Landed it as soon as I could and checked the drone over as I was convinced it was a bird strike and was looking for claw marks on the props/on drone etc, but could not see any marks. I was confused though as a bird strike would not cause a loss in connection to the controller surely and I had visual line of sight. The props were all fitted properly as well as the battery inserted fully.

Upon looking at the video off the sd card, I could not identify any bird that may have flipped it over and also did not hear any obstacle avoidance sensor going off on the RC2 as far as I can remember. Unfortunately, was not doing a screen recording as I could then have noticed if a bird was close to the drone.

I do know I was close to some large power lines and I thought I may have clipped some wires, but reviewing the video footage again showed the drone had not reached the wires and so ruled that out.

I ended up moving to a local park a short time later, putting he drone back up using the same battery, flew for 20 mins or so and there were no issues with the flight. So would really like to know what may have happened on the previous flight and whether I should send it into DJI for assessment.

The only things I can think of possibly are a bird strike, a sudden and momentary loss of power or some type of interference from the power lines nearby. With any of these possibilities though, I can't fathom why signal was also almost immediately lost straight after the drone lost control/flipped. I guess it could also be an internal component fault, such as the motherboard, but unsure if that could cause the behaviour witnessed on this flight.

Link to flight video: DJI_20240317102110_0002_D.MOV

Link to flight log: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Appreciate any thoughts on what may have been the cause. Thank you.

I had a similar issue on my Mini 3 Pro. My controller showed a momentary state of weak signal before the drone appeared to pitch left. The logs did not provide a definitive cause other than a possible bird strike since there were no aerial objects in the area. I will be following this post.

Weird issue - Gimbal twitch - Mini 3 Pro w/RC

I had an issue with my gimbal during low signal strength to my controller @ about 2300 FT out. I upload the logs to phantom help and there is 10 seconds missing during the time of the glitch I did see and respond to a post of a similar issue, but it was Mini 2 that was landing. My initial...

mavicpilots.com

 

[RodPad]

You mention that the drone possibly uses 3 freqs. If so, I reckon the new freq is the 5.1 ghz as the previous drones used 2.4 and 5.8 freqs. Of course, I may be wrong. Does anyone have an idea if power lines emit a frequency, or a harmonic that would affect this new? drone freq.

Static Electricity
Take some thing like this near power lines.

Non-Contact Voltage Tester Pen, 50 to 1000 Volts - NCVT-1 | Klein Tools

Klein Tools Non-Contact Voltage Tester detects standard voltage in cables, cords, circuit breakers, lighting fixtures, switches, non tamper-resistant outlets and wires. A bright green LED will tell you the tester is working and also functions as a worklight. It changes to red and warning tones...

www.kleintools.com

There nice for testing electric fences.

Rod ..

 

[Yogi053]

Rod, you're still going to be far from the power lines if it is on your person. The drone, if airborne, is bound to be a lot closer.

incidentally, I have flown very close to 132,000 volt powerlines and experienced no issues. Think I won't do that anymore.

 

[RodPad]

Do you agree that Static Electricity can cause these tiny micro chips (ic chips) to get a Bit Confused.

Rod ..