At Home in March

[KentA]

 

[xspwhite]

Nice.. Mine crashed yesterday, and tumbled through a patch of trees.

 

[KentA]

Nice.. Mine crashed yesterday, and tumbled through a patch of trees.

Is it OK?

 

[xspwhite]

Yesterday, I was at about 15 minutes on a flight, and just came off the water. I was flying over a wooded area at a park where I work as a Park Ranger.

The battery suddenly dropped to 6%. Landing now said the drone. I started running to the area about 1500 feet. Half way there, I heard a loud cracking/smacking noise so I thought it hit the ground somewhere. After searching the area for about 2-hours. I looked at the app, and it said the drone was at a 90-foot altitude. So I started scanning the tree tops with no luck.

Just as I was getting ready to leave. I heard a little faint squeal/scream form the drone. I ran to the area, and thankfully it let out one more little squeal, and there it was hanging sideways off an oak tree branch about 30-feet up surrounded by a patch of tall pines.

I dragged a tall heavy dead sapling from the forest, and after standing it up, I was able to slide it in between the drone's legs. As it started to slide down the sapling, I turned it sideways so it would not smash to the ground. The only damage was to the gimble pins, and props. I popped in another battery and did a small test flight, and everything seemed fine. There are some minor scratches. I have the crash recording.

It seems like it started making a slow landing, and then a sudden drop when it tumbled through many tree branches before finally getting tangled/stuck in one.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Sounds like you got lucky. Glad it was OK. Those battery drops really need to be addressed but as we all know Autel probably will not bother with any kind of update.

Looking forward to the video.

 

[xspwhite]

Sounds like you got lucky. Glad it was OK. Those battery drops really need to be addressed but as we all know Autel probably will not bother with any kind of update.

Looking forward to the video.

,

Well, one minute earlier it would have landed in the Muskegon river. If it would have tried to land 6-feet over it would probably be at the top of a 100-foot pine tree. Where it would have become a little squrral house I suppose. I'm guessing that the crash started at about 90-feet. The oak tree probably saved it's life by not letting it smash to the ground. It would have been a sickening feeling driving home with a remote, a battery, and an empty case.

Nevertheless, there should have been a warning from the remote at 25%.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

So your drop went from 15% to 6%?
How old is that battery? I would check to make sure one cell is not weak. It don't take much to get a bad reading with one bad cell. It might just act up on load and when its resting it might look just fine.

 

[KentA]

I was at 15 on a flight, and just came off the water. I was flying over a wooded area at the park I work at when the battery suddenly dropped to 6%.

Landing now said the drone. I started running to the area about 1500 feet. Half way there, I heard a loud cracking/smacking noise so I thought it hit the ground somewhere.

After scanning the area for about 2-hours. I looked at the app, and it said the drone was at a 90-foot altitude. So I started scanning the tree tops with no luck. Just as I was getting ready to leave. I heard a little faint squeal/scream form the drone. I ran to the area, thankfully she let out one more little squeal, and there she was hanging sideways off an oak tree branch about 30-feet up surrounded by a patch of tall pines.

I dragged a tall heavy dead sapling from the forest, and after standing it up, I was able to slide it in between the drone's legs. As she started to slide down the sapling, I turned it sideway so she would smash to the ground.

The only damage was to the gimble pins, and props. I popped in another battery and did a small test flight, and everything seem fine. There are some minor scratches.

I have the crash recording, but can't upload it until I get to a library. It seem as she started making a slow landing the was a sudden drop, and she tumbled through many tree branches before finally getting tangled in one.

You got lucky on an unlucky day.

 

[xspwhite]

Here is raw footage of the crash.

 

[xspwhite]

This video has the crash in slow motion.

 

[xspwhite]

I

So your drop went from 15% to 6%?
How old is that battery? I would check to make sure one cell is not weak. It don't take much to get a bad reading with one bad cell. It might just act up on load and when its resting it might look just fine.

I don't know where it was at when it dropped to 6%, I just know it never gave a 25% warning.

I recharged the battery, and the drone has been sitting on my coffee table for about 10 minutes with lights on.

This is what it reads:

 

[arto.inetco]

Were you ignoring the battery temperature warning?

 

[xspwhite]

Were you ignoring the battery temperature warning?

No. I hovered for about 3-minutes till it said safe to fly.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

From the picture the battery looks fine. The one cell reading 4.06 being the lowest but not low enough to cause a problem. Assuming that screengrab is after the 10 minutes idling it looks OK. Your total capacity is a tad low and if you send off that picture to Autel CS they just might replace that battery just because of that. Explain to them what happened and give them a link to your video. Chances are they will send you a new battery.
Good luck

 

[xspwhite]

From the picture the battery looks fine. The one cell reading 4.06 being the lowest but not low enough to cause a problem. Assuming that screengrab is after the 10 minutes idling it looks OK. Your total capacity is a tad low and if you send off that picture to Autel CS they just might replace that battery just because of that. Explain to them what happened and give them a link to your video. Chances are they will send you a new battery.
Good luck

I will send them another email. They wanted me to send the whole drone in,but I dont feel like doing that. All I really wanted was a couple of gimble pins, and a new bat. I dont feel like being droneless for 2-weeks when I know the drone is fine. Even the scratches buffed right out.

 

[xspwhite]

One thing I thought was strange thow. When I put that battery in, all the app settings were messed up. Like the return home altitude said 98-feet instead of 180 like my other bats. Everything was different even the discharge time.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

One thing I thought was strange thow. When I put that battery in, all the app settings were messed up. Like the return home altitude said 98-feet instead of 180 like my other bats. Everything was different even the discharge time.

Hmm, that is strange. From what Autel has told me all those settings are stored in the X-Star so if you happen to use a different tablet\phone nothing gets changed in the swap

 

[xspwhite]

Well. The night before I had it on and everything looked normal, but the next day when I put the offending battery everything was strangely all messed up. I will a different battery when I get home.

I would really like to get to the bottom of this because one minute earlier my drone would have landed in the river, and the remote should have notified me at 25%. Autel brags of this all over their website. So frankly I'm little disgusted. Maybe they want to look at the whole drone, because of that, but I'm still using the old FW. The battery should not have been at 6% after a 15-minute flight. It wasn't a very cold day either 45 and sunny. My first flight was 10 minutes, and the battery had 68% when it landed.

 

[xspwhite]

Also, the drone crashes with 6%, but stil blinking and skauking two hours later when I found it.

 

[KentA]

Xspwhite, when did you acquire that particular battery? Was it from the new lot?

I ask because one I recently bought provoked a warning that my outfit needed updating even though I was content with the firmware I have become accustomed to.