Complete Power Loss

[JayGrisz]

I was flying my inspire in ideal conditions. warm clear sunny day flying in a open field direct line of sight about 250 yards away at around 120 ft when I lost all control and power. The drone fell right out of the sky and was severely damaged. This was probably my 5th flight with it. I am incredibly thankful I was over a field and not a populated area.

DJI also kept the memory card with the video of the crash on it. I stupidly didn't download it off before sending it out.

I sent it in to DJI and they gave me a replacement unit no hassle. But I am still left with a lot of questions.

Why did this happen? How can I precent this from happening? How can I trust DJI not to drop my drone from the sky again?

 

[brad90631]

Was your flight that lost power using a fresh 100% charged battery when you took off?

 

[turbodronepilot]

I was flying my inspire in ideal conditions. warm clear sunny day flying in a open field direct line of sight about 250 yards away at around 120 ft when I lost all control and power. The drone fell right out of the sky and was severely damaged. This was probably my 5th flight with it. I am incredibly thankful I was over a field and not a populated area.

DJI also kept the memory card with the video of the crash on it. I stupidly didn't download it off before sending it out.

I sent it in to DJI and they gave me a replacement unit no hassle. But I am still left with a lot of questions.

Why did this happen? How can I precent this from happening? How can I trust DJI not to drop my drone from the sky again?

Sorry you had a crash ,but happy nobody got hurt!!
Next time use a screen recoding device so you can see what happened and have a additional video recording. .
I never fly without one..
maybe get a gps tracker too!!
Better luck next time..
turbo. ..

 

[The Editor]

I was flying my inspire in ideal conditions. warm clear sunny day flying in a open field direct line of sight about 250 yards away at around 120 ft when I lost all control and power. The drone fell right out of the sky and was severely damaged. This was probably my 5th flight with it. I am incredibly thankful I was over a field and not a populated area.

DJI also kept the memory card with the video of the crash on it. I stupidly didn't download it off before sending it out.

I sent it in to DJI and they gave me a replacement unit no hassle. But I am still left with a lot of questions.

Why did this happen? How can I precent this from happening? How can I trust DJI not to drop my drone from the sky again?

Were you using the battery that you previously dropped?

 

[FangsCPO]

Wow!! That's an interesting question to ask. "Were you using the battery that you previously dropped?" I'm curious if maybe you weren't paying attention in all the excitement and you just didn't hear the warning "Battery is low". Did you review your flight record? I wonder what the "black box" had in it that they just gave you a new unit without any hassles. I'd be wondering also...why?? I say just keep an eye on your volts throughout your flight and always fly with freshly charged or topped off batteries. Leave nothing to chance!! Good Luck!!

 

[JayGrisz]

The battery was fresh 100 percent and I know for a fact it wasn't the battery which I dropped 10 minutes prior. I kept that one in the car. There were no warning about low battery or anything like that. I was about 3 minutes into the flight when it fell. The only possible thing I can think of is that a new firmware came out the day before and I had yet to update it yet but I do not think that should be a reason for this crash.

What is a good app for screen recording?

 

[turbodronepilot]

The battery was fresh 100 percent and I know for a fact it wasn't the battery which I dropped 10 minutes prior. I kept that one in the car. There were no warning about low battery or anything like that. I was about 3 minutes into the flight when it fell. The only possible thing I can think of is that a new firmware came out the day before and I had yet to update it yet but I do not think that should be a reason for this crash.

What is a good app for screen recording?

Shou for ios and android and Mobizen for android. .
if you have a nvidia shield there's a built in screen recording device. ..

 

[NeilHall]

I was flying my inspire in ideal conditions. warm clear sunny day flying in a open field direct line of sight about 250 yards away at around 120 ft when I lost all control and power. The drone fell right out of the sky and was severely damaged. This was probably my 5th flight with it. I am incredibly thankful I was over a field and not a populated area.

DJI also kept the memory card with the video of the crash on it. I stupidly didn't download it off before sending it out.

I sent it in to DJI and they gave me a replacement unit no hassle. But I am still left with a lot of questions.

Why did this happen? How can I precent this from happening? How can I trust DJI not to drop my drone from the sky again?

I just had the exact same thing happen to me with the Inspire 1 pro. Flying for 5 mins or so, and the power seemed to cut to all motors but the lights stayed on. Ripped of the camera and broke part of the landing gear. Its now back with DJI for repair/replacement. The odd thing was, its was a fully charged battery, and my log showed it was 53% when it dropped out of the sky. The video I was running at the time just 'stopped' and didn't record the fall so I assume power went out on the camera as well

Very odd - I don't have any answers at this point

 

[The Editor]

I just had the exact same thing happen to me with the Inspire 1 pro. Flying for 5 mins or so, and the power seemed to cut to all motors but the lights stayed on. Ripped of the camera and broke part of the landing gear. Its now back with DJI for repair/replacement. The odd thing was, its was a fully charged battery, and my log showed it was 53% when it dropped out of the sky. The video I was running at the time just 'stopped' and didn't record the fall so I assume power went out on the camera as well

Very odd - I don't have any answers at this point

What firmware/app versions.

 

[NeilHall]

What firmware/app versions.

Go app - 2.4.2
FW - v1.1.0.40 (the latest at the time)

 

[The Editor]

Go app - 2.4.2
FW - v1.1.0.40 (the latest at the time)

Do you have the flight on your tablet?
If so can you post the video of it up on here?
Have the stick position graphic turned on so we can see stick movements.

 

[Ferdi]

I've read a few similar reports in the DJI Inspire 1 Owners Group on facebook. Very disturbing. All reported dropping out of the sky for no apparent reason. All on latest firmware with batteries re-calibrated etc. as far as I recall...

 

[lake_flyer]

so we can see stick movements.

We have a more than remote possibility we might find a perfect explanation there.

 

[MichaelRev1412]

Did anyone find out why these drones are dropping out of the sky? This happened to us last week. Drone was totaled.

 

[Stygmatah]

Anyone ever find out what the cause of this is? I went to do a job today and have had my Inspire 1 Pro for 3 years with zero issues. Took off, checked the drone was responsive and flew to about 3m to move to the filming location and it just stopped.....dead. Plummeted on to a concrete surface and smashed to pieces. I'm left with a piece of scrap. I'm heartbroken.

 

[niki]

Anyone ever find out what the cause of this is? I went to do a job today and have had my Inspire 1 Pro for 3 years with zero issues. Took off, checked the drone was responsive and flew to about 3m to move to the filming location and it just stopped.....dead. Plummeted on to a concrete surface and smashed to pieces. I'm left with a piece of scrap. I'm heartbroken.

I'm sorry for your lost.
Wondering what firmware version? Do you have the logs or airdata link to check it out? How many cycles on the battery and what was the ambient temperature you where flying in?

 

[Stygmatah]

I'm sorry for your lost.
Wondering what firmware version? Do you have the logs or airdata link to check it out? How many cycles on the battery and what was the ambient temperature you where flying in?

I haven't had time yet to grab the logs (will do it in the next day or so). The very basics of the flight were Landing Gear Raised then within 1 second Motor Overloaded. Aircraft will decelerate to ensure safety. It decelerated alright, it cut all power.

The weather was find and mild and very little wind. The battery when I tested it afterwards was fine, still full power. It will be interesting to know what the cause was.

 

[niki]

I haven't had time yet to grab the logs (will do it in the next day or so). The very basics of the flight were Landing Gear Raised then within 1 second Motor Overloaded. Aircraft will decelerate to ensure safety. It decelerated alright, it cut all power.

The weather was find and mild and very little wind. The battery when I tested it afterwards was fine, still full power. It will be interesting to know what the cause was.

I'm still suspicious about the battery. Having some voltage doesn't guarantee there is enough W/h power. An old battery could very quickly drop it's voltage and after resting a few minutes to self restore and show good but not useful voltage level. I've had a batteries that could output only 10% of it's rated Mah and then the voltage rapidly drops to 3.3v under load. A few minutes later the same battery was showing 3.9v per cell. That is how very old battery acts. How many cycles on that particular battery?
Without the log file we can only speculate about the problem.

 

[RBP]

I can't speak for the Inspire 1, I fly the Inspire 2. Some time back shortly after taking off I lost the #1 battery, returned and landed. Reset the #1 battery and power came back on.
On the 50 hour preventive maintenance DJI says to clean all the battery contacts with an eraser. I fly it a minimum of twice a week and have never had another issue with battery dropping power.

 

[Stygmatah]

Regardless. The crash hit the back end HARD and split the lower airframe in half and tore the tail light assembly cable clean in half (which is only the start of my issues) so I can't even get the tail light assembly to power on to grab the logs.

A tear down and exam has found:

2 x new landing gear assemblies
1 x airframe lower cover
1 x gimbal cables
1 x X5 vibration board/gimbal
1 x new stickers
1 x airframe tag
1 x tail light and cable

$310 AUD

As the dude in Chernobyl would say.... $310, not good but not terrible. Now I just have to wait for it all to arrive and hopefully work out how to reassemble it all. Luckily I took LOADS of photos.