Complete Failure of INSPIRE 1 during flight - Dropped from 400 feet

The Editor · Dec 3, 2015

Tj_ said:
Can we be sure the prop was spinning properly, or improperly? I ask because when I film a prop to an airplane from the cockpit it appears to be spinning improperly. Just as if I film a wheel on a car driving down the road, it appears to be rolling backwards.

Just a point to ponder!

That's a very good point - depending on frame rate the prop could appear to be spinning backwards.
This aircraft was not 'falling from the sky' - it appears to be under some power and yawing, not tumbling uncontrollably. Additionally, the gimbal is still working and correcting for the aircrafts movements.
Since ALL DJI gimbals utilise a closed loop feedback system intrinsically linked to inertial data from the flight controller we can probably say with confidence it is not a shutdown of the FC.
My money is still on a single esc failure with the FC fighting to correct the aircraft's attitude during the inevitable decent.

Kevin Hancox · Dec 3, 2015

I agree perception is one thing, and what the eyes see is not always true to the real world, however, i cannot agree that it is fighting to correct itself, ALL drones will fall roughly flat with 4 blades still in the drone. wether it is upside down of right way up, it is not any different... I would possible agree that there is something amiss. As power is clearly still on, but the motors are not.

Just out of interest, what happens if a motor seizes? Or an ESC fails, does the software see it as a blade strike and shut down ALL motors...? Just curious, because if that is the case, then i would be right that motors can't be running...

James Waugh · Dec 3, 2015

So I just phoned the US DJI office and have started an RMA. I told them my Inspire was the 2nd Inspire I've heard about dropping from the sky this week. He was careful with his words but he did say that sometime things happen. I asked specifically if there was an unusual amount of failures happen. Again, very careful with his words he said there was not an abnormal problem. I've never heard of an inspire just falling to the ground and to have it happen to two in just a few days. Hmmmm. They want me to ship it to them and they will decide what went wrong. Does anyone have any recommendations of what I should do before I ship it. I've taken photos. Someone mentioned downloading data from the USB port. The DJI tech told me the flight data is recorded on the micro SD card. Interesting because they are not asking for the card. I'll keep you posted on what they find.

Scotflieger · Dec 3, 2015

James Waugh said:
So I just phone the US DJI office and have started an RMA. I told them my Inspire was the 2nd Inspire I've heard about dropping from the sky this week. He was careful with his words but he did say that sometime things happen. I asked specifically if there was an unusual amount of failures happen. Again, very careful with his words he said there was not an abnormal problem. I've never heard of an inspire just falling to the ground and to have it happen to two in just a few days. Hmmmm. They want me to ship it to them and they will decide what went wrong. Does anyone have any recommendations of what I should do before I ship it. I've taken photos. Someone mentioned downloading data from the USB port. The DJI tech told me the flight data is recorded on the micro SD card. Interesting because they are not asking for the card. I'll keep you posted on what they find.

It was me who suggested downloading a copy of the .DAT file via the aircraft USB port. I understand it is stored internally on a second MicroSD card and not with your photos. Only DJI can analyse the data but at least you with your own copy.

Kevin Hancox · Dec 3, 2015

Yes the SD card is located in the nose of the craft and is where logs are kept, you can get to it if you dismantle, but no need, pull the logs yourself, so you have a copy, and then just ship it off...

Jimmykjimmy · Dec 3, 2015

Could it be that the antennas were not extended properly. Footage looks similar. This same kind of behavior happened to me but no crash. I missed the antennas on the checkoff list, while showing some folks the drone (big mistake). Fortunately, no crash but had to use RTH. Just a thought.

Kilrah · Dec 4, 2015

James Waugh said:
The DJI tech told me the flight data is recorded on the micro SD card. Interesting because they are not asking for the card. I'll keep you posted on what they find.

It's another card that is built directly onto the FC PCB - i.e. not user-accessible.

Scotflieger said:
It was me who suggested downloading a copy of the .DAT file via the aircraft USB port. I understand it is stored internally on a second MicroSD card and not with your photos. Only DJI can analyse the data but at least you with your own copy.

I would not recommend doing it as every time you power the I1 on it starts logging again, making new files that make it harder to find the problematic flight, and you just need a bit of bad luck for the card to run out of space and the I1 purging it and erasing the useful log.

The machine shouldn't be powered on or as little as wanted before sending.

Phatzo · Dec 4, 2015

sorry for highjacking the thread but i just noticed that one antenna cable is not in place. i have not altered the AC in any way. i used to check it before flight but nver went into the AC and check the connections. did anyone experience this before?

edit: i will sign up and post pics

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Steve is Inspired! · Dec 5, 2015

I agree, I suspect that you had one ESC failure.

Sorry for your loss and how it get's resolved.

Best regards,
Steve

Nicknsquid · Dec 5, 2015

Man that's a pain in the rear,
I'm gettin pretty good at crashing mine and I'm astounded it's even got this far,
As for catastrophics, I had just put on new plastic prop mounts, remembered thinking wow this pissy piece of 20cent jiz is keeping that $3090 of funk junk flying, landed, removed props, and be dogged from the front! 3 cracked complexly in half and dropped on the deck, well I glued em with plastic steel and then threw them in the dump

PDXDave · Dec 5, 2015

Very sorry for your loss. I'm new here...just been lurking a while. Having been a DIY multirotor guy for about six years, I'm not overly familiar with DJI's RTF airframes so there could be some DJI-specific stuff I'm not familiar with. That having been said, whenever I've seen an ESC or motor failure it causes a total loss of thrust from that arm resulting in a tumbling motion, not the tight downward spiral in your video. I've seen these sorts of failures in Naza (first gen), V2, WKM, and A2 FCs -- could the Inspire's FC actually keep it upright with a total thrust loss? I've seen that on hexes and octos but not quads. Thoughts?

Dexter Harvey · Dec 5, 2015

The Editor said:
Hmmm... That's not dropping like a stone - You still have power to your rotors and obviously power to the gimbal as it is correcting itself on the way down.
The aircraft is in an uncontrollable yaw which implies to me prop failure or possibly esc failure.

Were all your props attached when you recovered it?

Agreed with you assessment of the situation, this might be an ESC related issue!

Dexter Harvey · Dec 5, 2015

James Waugh said:
My INSPIRE also had a complete failure yesterday... Dropped from 400 feet!. With no warning it just dropped from the sky. The battery was over 60% at the time of the incident. I happened to be doing a shot the required me going straight up from my location. I have tried to create a new thread about my failure but for some reason I am no being allowed. I have flown 177 flights, traveled a distance of 945,364 feet, for a total of 21 hours with this Inspire 1 all with the latest updates I say this because this was not operator error. I immediately emailed DJI support. I have not heard anything yet but will keep you posted. I noticed that the DJI forum also showed thread for the exact same thing happening. DJI Forum|Inspire1 Completely Died and Fell From the Sky! I tried to post and comment about my failure but I DJI will not allow me to post. Interestingly my flight data recorder stopped logging information just as the failure happened. I was recording at the time but my file is damaged. I was able to export the proxy file from my iPhone. You can see this failure happen for yourself here: [/url]

I also noticed that there's quite a bit of conspiracy theories going around in respect to the all powerful DJI evil empire. I'm not at all convinced, unless I see hard irrefutable proof I will continue to think that this is nothing but opinions and anecdotal tales.

Dexter Harvey · Dec 5, 2015

Figbar said:
Sorry to be ignorant...what is esc failure? Speaking of props, when is it a good time to trade out props? I'm using self-tightening props with the locks. I bought a couple extra sets from DJI and have them available, but the props I have now seem to be OK, but this kind of stuff makes me nervous. I've had my current set on for about 4 months now...I'm not flying much now with crummy weather, no leaves, etc. Any recommendations? Don't mean to go off on a tangent, but seems like this prop issue is somewhat related. Thanks.

ESC - Electronic Speed Controller.
Regulates the flow a power (electricity) to the motors.

Dexter Harvey · Dec 5, 2015

Jimmykjimmy said:
So, is their any relationship between any type of prop attachment and esc failure?
This is the first time I've heard of an esc failure..but there always is a first.

The thing about an ESC failure is sudden and immediate.

Dexter Harvey · Dec 5, 2015

ringolong said:
There are many conditions that can cause an esc to fail. This particular craft could have been exposed to moister, abnormal stress, or something unknown that caused something to fail. I do not think that a dji prop adapter would have been something that would cause an esc to fail.

Agreed, Moisture is deadly for all electronics.

Photo Jim · Dec 5, 2015

slim.slamma said:
Straight up full speed for 34 secs is asking for failure of some sort

That's exactly what I was thinking. It looks like he was gunning the accelerator during ascent. Why do this? That's a LOT of force being applied to the motors and props for such a duration of time.

ringolong · Dec 5, 2015

Photo Jim said:
That's exactly what I was thinking. It looks like he was gunning the accelerator during ascent. Why do this? That's a LOT of force being applied to the motors and props for such a duration of time.

These are limited on the ascending speed aren't they? I do not think you could count it as a true full throttle could you?

Photo Jim · Dec 5, 2015

ringolong said:
These are limited on the ascending speed aren't they? I do not think you could count it as a true full throttle could you?

Look, I'm not an electrical/hardware expert on these aircraft. I do have basic common sense though, which tells me it's best to be a little more cautious when handling something with so much power - and weight. I have been flying my Inspire 1 since January and every time I ascend, I don't "gun it" in the way it appears in this video. I'm not saying that lead to the failure. I'm just saying it's possible the motor(s) suffered too much stress. Just throwing my two cents out there.

Kev Bourne · Dec 5, 2015

James Waugh said:
My INSPIRE also had a complete failure yesterday... Dropped from 400 feet!. With no warning it just dropped from the sky. The battery was over 60% at the time of the incident. I happened to be doing a shot the required me going straight up from my location. I have tried to create a new thread about my failure but for some reason I am no being allowed. I have flown 177 flights, traveled a distance of 945,364 feet, for a total of 21 hours with this Inspire 1 all with the latest updates I say this because this was not operator error. I immediately emailed DJI support. I have not heard anything yet but will keep you posted. I noticed that the DJI forum also showed thread for the exact same thing happening. DJI Forum|Inspire1 Completely Died and Fell From the Sky! I tried to post and comment about my failure but I DJI will not allow me to post. Interestingly my flight data recorder stopped logging information just as the failure happened. I was recording at the time but my file is damaged. I was able to export the proxy file from my iPhone. You can see this failure happen for yourself here: [/url]

If you stopped and turned at the top of the climb you could have possibly induced a Vortex Ring State, also known as settling with power, this is a dangerous condition that may arise in helicopter/multi rotor flight, when a vortex ring system engulfs the rotor causing severe loss of lift.

Complete Failure of INSPIRE 1 during flight - Dropped from 400 feet

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