Inspire 2 fallen out of sky... please help

[Jacky Poon]

Hi all,
My i2 has just fallen out of the sky... really bad times
I am not sure what went wrong there, did everything I supposed to do including pre-flight checks etc.
Taken off fine, hovered fine, then when I start to ascend to around 40m the app shows me warning motor overloaded and the i2 began to swing side to side, plummeted straight down onto the snow 10m away from me. Did anyone experience anything similar?
It was pretty cold around -18c maybe that is the reason...?
It really sucks as the bird is just 8 days out of DJI Care as well as the warranty
J

 

[Lesmess]

Hi all,
My i2 has just fallen out of the sky... really bad times
I am not sure what went wrong there, did everything I supposed to do including pre-flight checks etc.
Taken off fine, hovered fine, then when I start to ascend to around 40m the app shows me warning motor overloaded and the i2 began to swing side to side, plummeted straight down onto the snow 10m away from me. Did anyone experience anything similar?
It was pretty cold around -18c maybe that is the reason...?
It really sucks as the bird is just 8 days out of DJI Care as well as the warranty
J

Hi Jacky,

Not good, hope your Inspire was not badly damaged. I stick my batteries in a bag with a covered hot water bottle when i fly in cold weather, the batteries are usually around 30 degrees on start up. Drawing too much power from cold batteries on the accent can cause failures. Assuming your batteries were fine, I had an incident with my props icing up at -7 (flying over water) I noticed she was sluggish on control inputs and was slowly dropping altitude. I quickly brought her back and could not believe how much ice had formed on the leading edge of the props. Hard to believe I know but this seriously effected the performance of my inspire. Not sure what could have caused the motor overload indication, were you using DJI props?

Regards

Les

 

[Jacky Poon]

Hi Les,

Thanks for your reply mate, appreciated.
Yeah that's what I've done, with an electric hot water bottle and kept the set of batteries warm before the flight. From the way it fell I reckon it is more likely due to the icing on the props than batteries... seems to me that the aerodynamic was wayyyy off hence the swinging and eventually plummeted.
I was using the DJI high altitude props flew at just below 3000m, and it looks that some icing starts to build on the edge of the props...
Quite a painful experiance as I am on a job for the next three weeks and had to purchase another i2 and X5s on the spot to cover the rest of the shoot. Luckily it was fallen on snow and one of the arms took most of the hit, although the x5s gimble was bent and would not calibrate again on startup. Sending off to DJI on Monday, hopefully just minor repairs and calibrations as I need her back in the air asap!

Best,

J

 

[ukaleq]

Well, for the record, the Inspire is supposed to have self-heating batteries and is rated for temperatures as cold as -20°C.
It might be icing but it might as well be yet another case of DJI products' unreliability where the operator and external conditions have very little to do with the incident...

 

[Ace423]

Hi all,
My i2 has just fallen out of the sky... really bad times
I am not sure what went wrong there, did everything I supposed to do including pre-flight checks etc.
Taken off fine, hovered fine, then when I start to ascend to around 40m the app shows me warning motor overloaded and the i2 began to swing side to side, plummeted straight down onto the snow 10m away from me. Did anyone experience anything similar?
It was pretty cold around -18c maybe that is the reason...?
It really sucks as the bird is just 8 days out of DJI Care as well as the warranty
J

That is my worst fear a lot of money sorryh

 

[Ace423]

That is my worst fear a lot of money sorry.

 

[FlyaDrone]

JP,

Very unfortunate and my sympathies. You may feel fortunate that going forward you will have a back up system.

Icing issues? Perhaps you will look at Dew Point and Humidity % measurements prior to cold weather missions. It might be possible to predict severe icing prior to flight when looking at these data points. One other post mortem observation, plan shorter cold weather missions and incorporate longer low level initial time in the air before filming. This will allow you to observe any deterioration in flight control before gaining altitude. It is probable that if you get low level icing conditions the situation will rapidly deteriorate with increased altitude.

 

[Steve@AerialImagesPro]

Well, for the record, the Inspire is supposed to have self-heating batteries and is rated for temperatures as cold as -20°C.
It might be icing but it might as well be yet another case of DJI products' unreliability where the operator and external conditions have very little to do with the incident...

Really? WAYYY More likely to be operator/external conditions. ESPECIALLY in this case. People are WAY too quick to blame the equipment. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I'd be willing to bet that 80% of incidents that people think were equipment failure was due to either lack of pre-flight inspection, lack of understanding flying conditions, lack of experience etc..

We're talking about an extraordinarily complicated piece of equipment that essentially should eat itself and one wrong move can result in disaster. And when it happens people blame the manufacturer first instead of taking a step back and evaluating the situation.

 

[ianwood]

Well, the "motor obstructed" message that immediately preceded the loss of control may be a clue. You should pull the log files so that they can be evaluated. Could be some debris got into the motor or possibly and ESC or motor problem.

 

[Mad_angler1]

Yea as Ian Says would need to see the logs on that one.

 

[Jacky Poon]

Thanks guys for getting back to me on this. Yes I’ve pulled the log and asked for evaluation, even though it’s out of warranty but still good to know what had happened.
As the turn around time will overlap the Chinese New Year holiday I’ll probably be drone-less for the month ffs.... anyway will let you know how it goes with the evaluation.
Cheers!

 

[nabarbieri]

Well, the "motor obstructed" message that immediately preceded the loss of control may be a clue. You should pull the log files so that they can be evaluated. Could be some debris got into the motor or possibly and ESC or motor problem.

See my thread on the DJI forum. I went to go fly some real estate one afternoon, during the pre-flight checks one of the motors was locked up. Went home, took motor apart and found a random screw jammed in-between the magnet and coils. Never did find out where it came from. Luckily it got lodged in there during transport, and not while in the air, it would have been catastrophic.

Nik

 

[AK Vet]

Well, for the record, the Inspire is supposed to have self-heating batteries and is rated for temperatures as cold as -20°C.
It might be icing but it might as well be yet another case of DJI products' unreliability where the operator and external conditions have very little to do with the incident...

Yeah, its more likely that the icing on the props caused the problem.

 

[SteveFPV]

-18C is really cold!! That low temp is really pushing it IMHO, not to mention at 3000M.
I know it is claimed to be rated for this, but that low temp definitely does not help anything. Moisture in the bearings perhaps could seize things up a bit also??
But....I do fly at -12C and my fingers freeze before the inspire2 does