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Well, it finally happened..

Nightowl702

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after 266 flights i had a major crash. I am not blaming DJI or anyone else. I am taking full responsibility for the crash. What I would like to know is why I got a ******** error that led up to this. Me and the old lady went up to the local mountains for a couple days to get away. I brought my Mavic to get some great shots of the scenery. I had my 3 batteries with me. The one that came with the Mavic hasn't been used for a bit because I use the newer ones more to get them somewhat even so it self discharged itself. It showed 2 solid lights and one blinking. I figured I would use this one to set up the camera and then swap out a fresh fully charged on for the actual flight. I took off, waited for the home point recorded message and headed out over the trees to get the camera adjusted. I stopped forward flight and climbed to clear some power lines then moved forward while still climbing. I was looking at my notes on camera settings when I heard the remote say "landing". I looked at the app and it said "Critical low power. Landing" I turned the Mavic around so it was facing me and then let go of both sticks and began to panic. I never had a forced landing before. I looked ant the batt info and it showed 53% and 4.6 volts. I saw a red X on the app so i tried pushing it several times hoping to cancel the auto landing but nothing. After I realized it was landing no matter what I pushed forward on the throttle hoping to get it near to me without looking at what direction it was heading. In my panic I didn't even think of looking at the video. In my haste to cancel the auto landing I must have bumped the stick and turned the Mavic away from me. Instead of heading back it went away from me. At a height of 55 feet and a speed of 22 mph it clipped the corner of the church across the street and fell to the ground. I found it upside down in the grass next to the church. 2 broke props, a piece of the rear corner broke off and the camera ripped off but still transmitting video.I powered it back up and the only error im getting is the gimble. All the motors still spin freely and it still captures GPS. Hopefully it is repairable because If I have to get a new one im not even going to bother. I don't know if I trust it anymore and with the problems some ppl are having with the newer firmwares I'm not interested in an updated model. The worst part of all this is that after reviewing the flight record if I just let it land and not move it at all it would have landed in a flat dirt area next to the church and probably been fine. :( I still want to know what caused this low power error?
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Consider selling it for parts @ ebay and get a new aircraft. You can get around $400 for new one.
 
Consider selling it for parts @ ebay and get a new aircraft. You can get around $400 for new one.
As I stated before if I have to get a new aircraft with the newer firmware then Im not even gonna bother. Im not going to deal with the problems with the newer firmwares.
 
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As I stated before if I have to get a new aircraft with the newer firmware then Im not even gonna bother. Im not going to deal with the problems with the newer firmwares.
First off, sorry for your loss. It feels like a family member died when I hear of a Mavic down.

Regarding your new firmware comment; I normally do not update due to the fear of new bugs but my setup was already a bit buggy so I decided to update everything - the Mavic, RC, Go 4, and my Samsung Tab A. To my surprise, things work better than ever. Go 4 loads quicker and recognizes the MP (I used to have to restart the tablet) and it just works without problems. I could even load the offline map for my area and now the Here map works as it should. My tablet is under-powered so I still use it in airplane mode with all other apps closed. Of course, I am now back in the don't update mode because it all works perfectly in the present configuration. To those that say not to update from a "stable" version I say, try it if you are not completely satisfied with your current setup. You can always downgrade if it does not work out. In my case DJI and Android are playing nice for the first time.
 
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Here you go. I have the flight record and flight log. Thanks

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

The battery already seemed very low. 55% was not even close, it was more like 5-10% really. Under load you were dropping below 3.3v per cell.

Can you get the DAT file off of the drone itself? Instructions here:
How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File

Then upload the DAT file for this flight to dropbox and post the link here. The DAT file will give us more information about what the craft sees. So far on its face, the 55% battery life remaining when you first started flying was not correct. It was significantly lower.
 
How old is the battery? If you haven't charged in a while, maybe it's not registering the charge properly. Don't know too much about the Mavic intelligent batteries, but most batteries for laptop and smartphones, once it gets old, they dont give good readings. I've an old laptop battery, after I fully charge it to 100%, and when I unplug from power supply, the battery goes flat in seconds. Same with a smartphone, one minute it showed 70%, next minute 30%.
Too late now, but maybe you should've tried charging it first. I assume it would've been smart enough to know if is charging properly, and hence discharging properly when you use it.
 
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The reported battery status for self-discharged batteries should never be trusted. As noted above, the cell voltages collapsed as soon as the flight started. That's a fairly common observation. Never attempt to fly with a battery in that state.

That aside - we can take a look at the DAT file but it's not going to change the story.
 
This was the original battery that came with the Mavic when I bought it in April. Ill work on getting the DAT file on here.
 
Well that sucks man, sorry for your loss.

What is the best way to store the batteries if you aren't going to fly for like a week or two? Wondering if keeping them on the charger is the best way to go? Or just plopping them on the charger every few days?
 
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Well that sucks man, sorry for your loss.

What is the best way to store the batteries if you aren't going to fly for like a week or two? Wondering if keeping them on the charger is the best way to go? Or just plopping them on the charger every few days?

If you have them fully charged and set to auto discharge after 10 days of no use all you have to do is hit the button once on the battery and it will reset the auto discharge cycle. Example... on day 9 of a full battery you hit the button to check the charge it will reset the auto discharge back to 0 thus keeping your battery fully charged for another 10 days.. I wouldn't recommend leaving it full for more than 2-3 weeks. You could/will start damaging the battery.

OP sorry for your crash. I believe what you wanted to do was hit the pause button on the RC and it would have canceled the auto landing. I know this is the case for RTH but not 100% sure if it would have canceled auto land for you because it was landing due to an extremely low battery. Can anyone confirm if it would have canceled? I have never let my battery get below 25%.
 
If you have them fully charged and set to auto discharge after 10 days of no use all you have to do is hit the button once on the battery and it will reset the auto discharge cycle. Example... on day 9 of a full battery you hit the button to check the charge it will reset the auto discharge back to 0 thus keeping your battery fully charged for another 10 days.. I wouldn't recommend leaving it full for more than 2-3 weeks. You could/will start damaging the battery.

OP sorry for your crash. I believe what you wanted to do was hit the pause button on the RC and it would have canceled the auto landing. I know this is the case for RTH but not 100% sure if it would have canceled auto land for you because it was landing due to an extremely low battery. Can anyone confirm if it would have canceled? I have never let my battery get below 25%.
You cannot cancel an Auto Land due to critically low battery. You do have some control with stick input, but she's coming down.
 
...Can anyone confirm if it would have canceled? I have never let my battery get below 25%.
I have not tried it myself but I have read that you cannot cancel the auto land but you can stop the decent by applying up stick. It will not rise up, just stops dropping. You can then steer it home or at least to a more recoverable landing spot. The battery will get to a point where the Mavic will land and you cannot stop it. Perhaps someone with actual experience can chime in.
 
Good to know. After thinking about it, it makes sense you can not cancel it. Im sure they dont want mavics falling from the sky from people pushing the limits.
 
Sorry to see that happened to you. I'd be pretty crushed too. Lithium batteries are known to discharge relatively quick once they hit a certain point. I'll learn from this and ensure that I only fly with a mostly charged battery (>75%). And if I have a battery that's been sitting for an extended period, I'll go ahead and charge it up before flying.

I have to say though, I'm surprised to hear you say that after 266 successful flights, and then one mishap that you're admittedly at least partly responsible for, you still express concern or distrust with DJI products and talk about not getting another one. That seems like a pretty good track record to me. Hopefully you change your mind after cooling off a bit and decide to keep flying. Best of luck!
 
Nightowl702 - I’m curious how old you think the batteries was that was on the craft when it crashed. How many charges on it? I was lucky I did not crash but I posted a couple of days ago about the battery that has one low voltage cell after only 16 charges but is 8 months old. Are we all starting to see the batteries starting to die off?
 
Nightowl702 - I’m curious how old you think the batteries was that was on the craft when it crashed. How many charges on it? I was lucky I did not crash but I posted a couple of days ago about the battery that has one low voltage cell after only 16 charges but is 8 months old. Are we all starting to see the batteries starting to die off?
I think when I checked the serial number it was made in March of this year and it has 45 charge cycles in it
 
So I wont be able to upload the DAT file. Im still running XP on my desktop and apparently DJI assistant isn't compatible with it. I have another desktop with Win 7 on it but just haven't set it up yet. But its ok. I think I have a good idea of what happened. It will be a learning experience for me to not panic and just find a suitable landing area if this happens again and to not trust the voltage reading on a self discharged battery. Now I just need to brush this crash off and get my bird repaired and back in the air. Can anyone recommend a decent repair center?
 

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