Inspire motor failure over ocean... Splashdown

[Nando]

Hi guys,
I had a prop or motor failure over the ocean a few days ago, my inspire spun out of control and splashed down. I spent half a day suba diving trying to recover it (in order to retrieve data) but I failed to find it. I also discovered that in the flight record section of the DJI app (where you view and replay flights) there is no way to toggle on your current smartphone GPS location when viewing historical flights, this would make retreval a lot easier in the event you need to backtrack.
Having failed to locate the inspire, is the flight data captured in the app and sync'd to cloud of any use to DJI for diagnostic purposes?
Looking at the footage cached in the DJO Go app and slowed 8x I can see a prop/motor stuck while the rest spin attempting to regain flight.
The props were genuine DJI 2nd generation twist lock, all fine and secure at pre flight check.
I even kept little cloth bags over the motors when stored in the original foam case so bits of foam that broke loose didn't get into the motors.
Battery was fully charged and only had 6 charge cycles. My inspire had been a rock solid performer until this crash.
Here is the footage of my doomed flight..

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[Mad_angler1]

Hi guys,
I had a prop or motor failure over the ocean a few days ago, my inspire spun out of control and splashed down. I spent half a day suba diving trying to recover it (in order to retrieve data) but I failed to find it. I also discovered that in the flight record section of the DJI app (where you view and replay flights) there is no way to toggle on your current smartphone GPS location when viewing historical flights, this would make retreval a lot easier in the event you need to backtrack.
Having failed to locate the inspire, is the flight data captured in the app and sync'd to cloud of any use to DJI for diagnostic purposes?
Looking at the footage cached in the DJO Go app and slowed 8x I can see a prop/motor stuck while the rest spin attempting to regain flight.
The props were genuine DJI 2nd generation twist lock, all fine and secure at pre flight check.
I even kept little cloth bags over the motors when stored in the original foam case so bits of foam that broke loose didn't get into the motors.
Battery was fully charged and only had 6 charge cycles. My inspire had been a rock solid performer until this crash.
Here is the footage of my doomed flight..

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Sounds like motor or ESC failure.

Sorry for your loss, it's worth contacting DJI and see what they say but not these situations it's difficult, sadly failure will happen regardless of age and make

It's a just the ones over water that hurt the most.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Predator]

Sorry for your loss man. I remember my 1st and only crash (knock on wood) I was lucky enough to find mine 1km away hanging on a fence all busted up bits and pieces all over what a nightmare. Hopefully dji can help you out my crash was pilot error so had to pay from my pockets.

 

[go fast]

How many flights did you have before the crash ?

 

[Nando]

How many flights did you have before the crash ?

It's 11 months old and probably been through 20 charge cycles x 2 batteries (excluding new bat) so assume maybe 10 hours flying max.

 

[fei8820]

It appeare motor obstruted message comeout while falling... on man.. that is scary... i have this message while i am flying 80meter.. but everything still working fine... and there is possible brcause of the props fell off ... are u using the 1345s props ?

 

[SanCap]

Could you have had a bird strike? The black thing in the top middle of the screen shot shows up one more time in a frame of your footage

 

[fei8820]

Sharp eyes you have... that bird is guilty !!! Shall send it to jail...

 

[Nando]

Could you have had a bird strike? The black thing in the top middle of the screen shot shows up one more time in a frame of your footage

View attachment 7373

Yeah I considered the same however I had eyes on the inspire and I didn't see a bird. But yeah possibility for sure.

 

[fei8820]

sometimes i feel the motor obstructed is not a good future....

 

[Chris McCorkel]

Yeah I considered the same however I had eyes on the inspire and I didn't see a bird. But yeah possibility for sure.

Very sorry for your loss!!! Hopefully you can find your card if u search again!!

I agree with SanCap... I saw the black object in two different frames. A bird is way larger than a prop and my opinion is a 20mm lens wouldn't be able to pick up a prop from that distance but maybe I'm wrong! I've had two very close encounters with birds as I assume they think it's a predator. I have 40+ hrs of flight time and just recently had a baby hawk fly torward my inspire getting within 20' and turn away as I ascended and pulled away from the hawk thank goodness!! I panicked to say the least. I trust your preflight check and don't think that is a prop. Again, sorry for your loss!!!

 

[Joe R]

I took the liberty of doing a screen capture of the video, then slowed it down to 10% of it's original speed in my editing software.
It does look like there was a bird there (maybe more than one?) but it does not look like you lost a prop. It's still there but it's not spinning.
Some of the frames show another prop that is obviously spinning. It appears to be the left rear motor and prop that's not spinning.
Also, it appears that there may be some sort of a foreign object stuck to the prop? (Just guessing) It could be sun glare but I don't see where a normal prop shape would have a place at that angle where it could have sun glare.

I called DJI tech support to see if I could test my motor by stopping it on purpose but just for a couple of seconds. The tech said that I could do that but not for more than 5 or 6 seconds without worrying about damaging anything. He said that they have tested them that way many times and it always took as many as 10 seconds to cause any damage. He went on to say that doing that is the only way to ensure that the obstructed motor warning worked in the app. He told me that if I stopped it for too long that it could burn up the ESC.
So, I tried stopping one of my motors for a couple of seconds to see how long it takes for the "Obstructed Motor" warning to appear in the app and to see if the motor would go back to normal speed after I released it, it takes about 2 seconds on mine for the warning to appear and the motor does go back to spinning at it's normal speed immediately after I let it go.

It may be possible that a bird got itself wedged between the prop and the arm, then broke free but not before it fried the ESC?

It would be great if someone could make one of those ultrasonic bird repellent devices small and light enough to put on our Inspires.
I may have to so some research to see what frequency they work at and what the db level is and maybe make one myself that would work on batteries.
I have to admit, I've had several encounters with birds with my DJI S800 and S1000. Those birds didn't have much of a chance with those drones cause of the large motors and props. Those motors won't stop like the Inspire motors either. I know it's for safety in case it hits a person but it opens up a new set of problems like this incident.

I was noticing the joystick input levels and it seemed to be pretty excessive but I assume that you noticed something was wrong before you started moving the joysticks that much and was trying anything you could to try to save it. I know I would have done the same thing!

Knock on wood! I've never lost an aerial photography drone yet in three years but all it takes is a bird to change all that! :-(

I did have quite a few crashes a few years ago when I was first learning to fly 3D with single rotor 700 class sport helicopters. They didn't have anything like self level (atti mode) or GPS positioning. They are all just seat of the pants flying with much needed "Quick" reflexes!
Most of my crashes were pure pilot error but a few were due to cheap servos, cheap Lipos or cheap bearings.
I learned the hard way to spend the extra money and buy the good stuff, it's much cheaper in the long run.
On the flight simulator, that red reset button comes in real nice but in the field, that red button changes its color to "Green" (Green for $$$) Lol

I've attached some captured still photos that I pulled out of your video.

I hope this comes close to solving the mystery of what happened to yours.
It appears to be at least a good educated guess anyway.

Sorry for your loss!!!

Best regards,

Joe

 

[slim.slamma]

So, I tried stopping one of my motors for a couple of seconds to see how long it takes for the "Obstructed Motor" warning to appear in the app and to see if the motor would go back to normal speed after I released it, it takes about 2 seconds on mine for the warning to appear and the motor does go back to spinning at it's normal speed immediately after I let it go.

Good to know the motor restarts!


It would be great if someone could make one of those ultrasonic bird repellent devices small and light enough to put on our Inspires.
I may have to so some research to see what frequency they work at and what the db level is and maybe make one myself that would work on batteries.
[/QUOTE]
Bird repellent has become a must have

 

[go fast]

I saw a guy somewhere that mounted those deer whistles on his , don't know if that would work guess the thinking is the noise would scare off birds , really don't know if I want my Inspire making all kinds of weird noises while I'm flying...just fly higher than the birds

 

[Chris McCorkel]

I took the liberty of doing a screen capture of the video, then slowed it down to 10% of it's original speed in my editing software.
It does look like there was a bird there (maybe more than one?) but it does not look like you lost a prop. It's still there but it's not spinning.
Some of the frames show another prop that is obviously spinning. It appears to be the left rear motor and prop that's not spinning.
Also, it appears that there may be some sort of a foreign object stuck to the prop? (Just guessing) It could be sun glare but I don't see where a normal prop shape would have a place at that angle where it could have sun glare.

I called DJI tech support to see if I could test my motor by stopping it on purpose but just for a couple of seconds. The tech said that I could do that but not for more than 5 or 6 seconds without worrying about damaging anything. He said that they have tested them that way many times and it always took as many as 10 seconds to cause any damage. He went on to say that doing that is the only way to ensure that the obstructed motor warning worked in the app. He told me that if I stopped it for too long that it could burn up the ESC.
So, I tried stopping one of my motors for a couple of seconds to see how long it takes for the "Obstructed Motor" warning to appear in the app and to see if the motor would go back to normal speed after I released it, it takes about 2 seconds on mine for the warning to appear and the motor does go back to spinning at it's normal speed immediately after I let it go.

It may be possible that a bird got itself wedged between the prop and the arm, then broke free but not before it fried the ESC?

It would be great if someone could make one of those ultrasonic bird repellent devices small and light enough to put on our Inspires.
I may have to so some research to see what frequency they work at and what the db level is and maybe make one myself that would work on batteries.
I have to admit, I've had several encounters with birds with my DJI S800 and S1000. Those birds didn't have much of a chance with those drones cause of the large motors and props. Those motors won't stop like the Inspire motors either. I know it's for safety in case it hits a person but it opens up a new set of problems like this incident.

I was noticing the joystick input levels and it seemed to be pretty excessive but I assume that you noticed something was wrong before you started moving the joysticks that much and was trying anything you could to try to save it. I know I would have done the same thing!

Knock on wood! I've never lost an aerial photography drone yet in three years but all it takes is a bird to change all that! :-(

I did have quite a few crashes a few years ago when I was first learning to fly 3D with single rotor 700 class sport helicopters. They didn't have anything like self level (atti mode) or GPS positioning. They are all just seat of the pants flying with much needed "Quick" reflexes!
Most of my crashes were pure pilot error but a few were due to cheap servos, cheap Lipos or cheap bearings.
I learned the hard way to spend the extra money and buy the good stuff, it's much cheaper in the long run.
On the flight simulator, that red reset button comes in real nice but in the field, that red button changes its color to "Green" (Green for $$$) Lol

I've attached some captured still photos that I pulled out of your video.

I hope this comes close to solving the mystery of what happened to yours.
It appears to be at least a good educated guess anyway.

Sorry for your loss!!!

Best regards,

Joe

Awesome breakdown!!!! Thx!!

 

[Joe R]

I was thinking about this a little more this evening and was just wondering if you happened to takeoff from the beach? If so, did you take off with the I1 on the sand?

I always make sure there is no sand or loose dirt at the launch site that could swirl around and get sucked up into the motors and cause it them jam.
Pavement is bad about that too so I always carry a leaf blower with me to blow away any fine, loose particles that could cause problems with obstructing the motor.

Just a thought.

Joe

 

[Nando]

Joe thanks for the post, apologies I took so long to reply I was in Fiji and we had a couple of cyclones roll through knocking out the Internet. I became acutely aware of take-off dust after one flight early on where I took off on a dusty road, the inspire had fine grit all over it afterwards. Since then I pretty much take off from the roof of my car whenever possible and hand land if need be. This flight was from a clean concrete pier / wharf structure, no dust however very difficult to take off due to magnetic interference from the steel. I became so paranoid about motor obstruction that I put socks over the motors before putting the inspire back into it's foam case because the foam was known to break into small bits and come loose. I have since purchased a Phantom 4 (to get me through a couple of jobs while I decide if I get another inspire 1 or await number 2). The P4 is pleasantly very capable.

 

[Joe R]

Good to know you already had accounted for possible failures due to small particles getting sucked into the motor.
Many have not figured that on3 out just yet.

I can only assume that a bird was wedged in-between the prop and arm long enough to burn the ESC out.

I will be investigating the possibility of some sort of portable and light weight ultrasonic bird deterrent. Probably would have to make one based on known reliable electronic designs.

Thanks and again, sorry for your loss!!
The Phantom is a good alternative for now but beware, birfs are more likely to attack a phantom that an I1. This was determined after watching a bunch of YouTube videos about Phantom bird attacks.

Good luck!!!

Joe

 

[Skynet1]

Good to know you already had accounted for possible failures due to small particles getting sucked into the motor.
Many have not figured that on3 out just yet.

I can only assume that a bird was wedged in-between the prop and arm long enough to burn the ESC out.

I will be investigating the possibility of some sort of portable and light weight ultrasonic bird deterrent. Probably would have to make one based on known reliable electronic designs.

Thanks and again, sorry for your loss!!
The Phantom is a good alternative for now but beware, birfs are more likely to attack a phantom that an I1. This was determined after watching a bunch of YouTube videos about Phantom bird attacks.

Good luck!!!

Joe

Hey Joe, just one project at a time, you remember, the "QR Prop Balancer" lol, No, I'm just kidding with ya. It's all good!

 

[Joe R]

Hey Joe, just one project at a time, you remember, the "QR Prop Balancer" lol, No, I'm just kidding with ya. It's all good!

I've been known to multitask