- Joined
- Sep 18, 2021
- Messages
- 58
- Reaction score
- 13
- Age
- 60
I am on two separate Autel drones. My recently lost drone was a Autel 2 Evo pro version one with a battery that was no more than four months old with 30 properly cycled charges on it.
I left it off after confirming fully charged battery and the version one remote controller connected to my iPhone 13 showed 31 1/2 minutes of charge/full charge when I left it off. I took off and sent it to approximate 200 feet AGL and Was flying over a small in the lake coming off of Lake Michigan to get some great pictures of both traffic and beautiful lake Michigan vistas. Unfortunately with less than 3 1/2 minutes of flight time gone by, I got a initial warning of “return home“ due to sudden decline in battery charge(???), followed literally one second later with the “forced landing cycle “while I was approximately at that 150 feet AGL but actually “ALL’ (above LAKE Level!) and desperately trying to get the drone over land. Unfortunately with zero battery showing I had no control of the aircraft and the aircraft “landed“ into 40 feet of water and has lost forever. This was last week August 27, 2022. I am mediately notified Autel with a customer service ticket and the first response was “retrieve your drone and if you can find it and get it back to us we’ll see what we can do“. I told them there’s no way I’m going to risk my life trying to find a drone in at least 40 feet of water on a navigable lake. I then got a response from a second person who apologize for the first hotel employees “disrespectful“ response, she asked me for my sign in a password so that they could look at my flight logs. I complied. Then a few days later I got a response from “Tom W.“ Who said that there’s nothing they can do, the drone was “out of warranty“. They may offer me a “small discount“ and well that’s quite helpful, the drone with my six batteries certainly was well over $3500 new not counting the enterprise hotel you go to pro 640T that I own with another six batteries and that’s I’m obviously A customer who has done business with this company!
I would understand if this was pilot ever. But it wasn’t. There’s something not right with batteries suddenly showing no charge when I confirmed all cells equally charged before this flight and a force landing cycle within three minutes of me taking off over a lake. I’m just glad it didn’t land on anyone or anything! This is a problem that other people are having and frankly they are choosing to ignore it or hoping I’ll go away!? But I do enjoy the hobby and need a drone and I dare not use my 640T especially given these possible firmware or software issues! I also am hesitant to buy Alltel because of these issues. I asked him if they could at least tell me what happened and there’s nothing but crickets. Finally I do often use drones on a lot of indoor office space work and there are at least two places in a NFZ where I can’t even fly my DJI equipment on an inside location of a warehouse for warehouse control inventory and insurance reasons. That’s a went with Autel because of the Geofencing if she would like me.
Does anyone have any advice as to why properly charged and essentially new batteries with less than 30 charges on them which suddenly go into force landing and suddenly lose all of their charge barely after taking off? The batteries as far as the cells in them are all balanced when I look at them under the explorer app or with my smart controller which is a version two controller for my 640T drone. I’m afraid to fly the damn thing because I can’t trust it especially this $8000 drone that I have left!
I told him that I frankly think that at the least 50% off of a new drone would be reasonable given that this was a no pilot error situation and a problem that is obviously firmware or software!? I don’t really think that they give a poop, but maybe that’s because there’s not that many people on this forum? I don’t know? I know that I visit this form often find it very helpful! Thank you all!
I left it off after confirming fully charged battery and the version one remote controller connected to my iPhone 13 showed 31 1/2 minutes of charge/full charge when I left it off. I took off and sent it to approximate 200 feet AGL and Was flying over a small in the lake coming off of Lake Michigan to get some great pictures of both traffic and beautiful lake Michigan vistas. Unfortunately with less than 3 1/2 minutes of flight time gone by, I got a initial warning of “return home“ due to sudden decline in battery charge(???), followed literally one second later with the “forced landing cycle “while I was approximately at that 150 feet AGL but actually “ALL’ (above LAKE Level!) and desperately trying to get the drone over land. Unfortunately with zero battery showing I had no control of the aircraft and the aircraft “landed“ into 40 feet of water and has lost forever. This was last week August 27, 2022. I am mediately notified Autel with a customer service ticket and the first response was “retrieve your drone and if you can find it and get it back to us we’ll see what we can do“. I told them there’s no way I’m going to risk my life trying to find a drone in at least 40 feet of water on a navigable lake. I then got a response from a second person who apologize for the first hotel employees “disrespectful“ response, she asked me for my sign in a password so that they could look at my flight logs. I complied. Then a few days later I got a response from “Tom W.“ Who said that there’s nothing they can do, the drone was “out of warranty“. They may offer me a “small discount“ and well that’s quite helpful, the drone with my six batteries certainly was well over $3500 new not counting the enterprise hotel you go to pro 640T that I own with another six batteries and that’s I’m obviously A customer who has done business with this company!
I would understand if this was pilot ever. But it wasn’t. There’s something not right with batteries suddenly showing no charge when I confirmed all cells equally charged before this flight and a force landing cycle within three minutes of me taking off over a lake. I’m just glad it didn’t land on anyone or anything! This is a problem that other people are having and frankly they are choosing to ignore it or hoping I’ll go away!? But I do enjoy the hobby and need a drone and I dare not use my 640T especially given these possible firmware or software issues! I also am hesitant to buy Alltel because of these issues. I asked him if they could at least tell me what happened and there’s nothing but crickets. Finally I do often use drones on a lot of indoor office space work and there are at least two places in a NFZ where I can’t even fly my DJI equipment on an inside location of a warehouse for warehouse control inventory and insurance reasons. That’s a went with Autel because of the Geofencing if she would like me.
Does anyone have any advice as to why properly charged and essentially new batteries with less than 30 charges on them which suddenly go into force landing and suddenly lose all of their charge barely after taking off? The batteries as far as the cells in them are all balanced when I look at them under the explorer app or with my smart controller which is a version two controller for my 640T drone. I’m afraid to fly the damn thing because I can’t trust it especially this $8000 drone that I have left!
I told him that I frankly think that at the least 50% off of a new drone would be reasonable given that this was a no pilot error situation and a problem that is obviously firmware or software!? I don’t really think that they give a poop, but maybe that’s because there’s not that many people on this forum? I don’t know? I know that I visit this form often find it very helpful! Thank you all!