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Almost Lost My Spark - Not Sure What Happened

Verminator

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Mar 4, 2018
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10
Loc
Vancouver Island, BC CANADA
Yesterday I had researched everything I could find on RTH. Then I went out to test it all out.

Admittedly I started what I thought was going to be a very short flight with 26% battery. I purposely flew it in a field, not far from me until it reached the 20% mark and forced a RTH. I was in Beginner Mode, with the RTH max height set for 30m and I was just under 30m from the drone when the forced RTH triggered and it was only at about 4m high in the air at the time.

Instead of returning and landing, or just landing where it was it rocketed straight up. I know what 30m looks like as I've taken it to that height before in Beginner Mode (which is the maximum height). This time it just kept going and going. After about 40 seconds I panicked and shut down RTH and tried to manually bring it down with the left stick down. Another minute or so went by and I'm at LOW, LOW battery and nothing. It went so high I couldn't see it nor even hear it. As the battery went to about 3% and no sign of it I thought I had lost it and suddenly I could hear it and it was coming down fast. I hit the left stick up and that slowed it considerably but it hit the ground without stopping, and hopped and kept flying. Luckily there was no damage as it landed on a grassy area. I reviewed the video and according to the face page of my Flight Record on the DJI GO 4 App, it went to 700 FEET!! The video seems to support this....it was incredibly high, almost in some clouds.

When I viewed the log later there are clearly some very strange readings including it showing a max IMU height of 60.7 feet but at the same time a VPS height of 10.5 feet. ???? There is no way it was only at 60.7 feet as the trees around me are all at least 100+ feet tall.

Then when I brought it down manually, it shows it finally stopped (hit the ground at a height of -90.2 feet (yes NEGATIVE 90.2 feet), which of course is impossible.

The flight log shows 2 "Speed Errors" and several "GPS Position NoMatch".

I checked Compass and IMU before launch and both were in the green.

The flight log and details are here: Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Another view with perhaps more information is here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I'm pretty new to all this so I'd be grateful if anyone can explain how this happened. I was with my son at the time and we both nearly had heart attacks during that last 2 minutes or so.

Thank you to anyone who can perhaps tell me what went wrong here, as I'm pretty afraid to take it out again after this. The log shows it went from Beginner Mode to Go Home Mode once the forced RTH kicked in but what happened to the 30m ceiling? And what's with the 700 feet by itself and then landing -90 feet below the ground???
 
Last edited:
Yesterday I had researched everything I could find on RTH. Then I went out to test it all out.

Admittedly I started what I thought was going to be a very short flight with 26% battery. I purposely flew it in a field, not far from me until it reached the 20% mark and forced a RTH. I was in Beginner Mode, with the RTH max height set for 30m and I was just under 30m from the drone when the forced RTH triggered and it was only at about 4m high in the air at the time.

Instead of returning and landing, or just landing where it was it rocketed straight up. I know what 30m looks like as I've taken it to that height before in Beginner Mode (which is the maximum height). This time it just kept going and going. After about 40 seconds I panicked and shut down RTH and tried to manually bring it down with the left stick down. Another minute or so went by and I'm at LOW, LOW battery and nothing. It went so high I couldn't see it nor even hear it. As the battery went to about 3% and no sign of it I thought I had lost it and suddenly I could hear it and it was coming down fast. I hit the left stick up and that slowed it considerably but it hit the ground without stopping, and hopped and kept flying. Luckily there was no damage as it landed on a grassy area. I reviewed the video and according to the face page of my Flight Record on the DJI GO 4 App, it went to 700 FEET!! The video seems to support this....it was incredibly high, almost in some clouds.

When I viewed the log later there are clearly some very strange readings including it showing a max IMU height of 60.7 feet but at the same time a VPS height of 10.5 feet. ???? There is no way it was only at 60.7 feet as the trees around me are all at least 100+ feet tall.

Then when I brought it down manually, it shows it finally stopped (hit the ground at a height of -90.2 feet (yes NEGATIVE 90.2 feet), which of course is impossible.

The flight log shows 2 "Speed Errors" and several "GPS Position NoMatch".

I checked Compass and IMU before launch and both were in the green.

The flight log and details are here: Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Another view with perhaps more information is here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I'm pretty new to all this so I'd be grateful if anyone can explain how this happened. I was with my son at the time and we both nearly had heart attacks during that last 2 minutes or so.

Thank you to anyone who can perhaps tell me what went wrong here, as I'm pretty afraid to take it out again after this. The log shows it went from Beginner Mode to Go Home Mode once the forced RTH kicked in but what happened to the 30m ceiling? And what's with the 700 feet by itself and then landing -90 feet below the ground???
Can't help with answers, but I would never launch with anything but full battery..
 
Did you have any 3rd party accessories installed below your Spark (e.g. landing gear)?
 
No I did not. The only thing that I had was a round landing pad that I used to launch it from. Other than that it was fully stock.

I'm hoping with the logs that I supplied that someone who has more knowledge than me will be able to tell me that this was user error and figure out what I might have done wrong. At least if it's user error it is something that I can prevent from occurring again. But I'm more concerned that it's something more deep. Especially with the landing showing that I'm almost 100 feet below ground level, also saying that I was only 65 feet up when I think I was actually at 700 feet, and that sort of thing.
 
Msinger can you tell from my flight logs what happened or what might have gone wrong?
I'm not sure you did anything wrong. It's also interesting that the downward sensors detected your Spark was only about 10 feet from the ground for the majority of the flight. This might be one to run by DJI Support if you're concerned about it.
 
Yesterday I had researched everything I could find on RTH. Then I went out to test it all out.

Admittedly I started what I thought was going to be a very short flight with 26% battery. I purposely flew it in a field, not far from me until it reached the 20% mark and forced a RTH. I was in Beginner Mode, with the RTH max height set for 30m and I was just under 30m from the drone when the forced RTH triggered and it was only at about 4m high in the air at the time.

Instead of returning and landing, or just landing where it was it rocketed straight up. I know what 30m looks like as I've taken it to that height before in Beginner Mode (which is the maximum height). This time it just kept going and going. After about 40 seconds I panicked and shut down RTH and tried to manually bring it down with the left stick down. Another minute or so went by and I'm at LOW, LOW battery and nothing. It went so high I couldn't see it nor even hear it. As the battery went to about 3% and no sign of it I thought I had lost it and suddenly I could hear it and it was coming down fast. I hit the left stick up and that slowed it considerably but it hit the ground without stopping, and hopped and kept flying. Luckily there was no damage as it landed on a grassy area. I reviewed the video and according to the face page of my Flight Record on the DJI GO 4 App, it went to 700 FEET!! The video seems to support this....it was incredibly high, almost in some clouds.

When I viewed the log later there are clearly some very strange readings including it showing a max IMU height of 60.7 feet but at the same time a VPS height of 10.5 feet. ???? There is no way it was only at 60.7 feet as the trees around me are all at least 100+ feet tall.

Then when I brought it down manually, it shows it finally stopped (hit the ground at a height of -90.2 feet (yes NEGATIVE 90.2 feet), which of course is impossible.

The flight log shows 2 "Speed Errors" and several "GPS Position NoMatch".

I checked Compass and IMU before launch and both were in the green.

The flight log and details are here: Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Another view with perhaps more information is here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I'm pretty new to all this so I'd be grateful if anyone can explain how this happened. I was with my son at the time and we both nearly had heart attacks during that last 2 minutes or so.

Thank you to anyone who can perhaps tell me what went wrong here, as I'm pretty afraid to take it out again after this. The log shows it went from Beginner Mode to Go Home Mode once the forced RTH kicked in but what happened to the 30m ceiling? And what's with the 700 feet by itself and then landing -90 feet below the ground???
One observation is being further than the 20 meter mark in distance. This is where the aircraft when going into RTH will not respond to any settings except for the PRESET altitude made. The default 30 meters of couse. But just under 30 meters in distance but still between the 20 meters and 30 meters, the Spark acted normally shooting up to reach the 30 meter height.
That explains the why it did not land right there or hover at 1 ft. From the ground, depending on whether the RTH at current altitude was on. but we’re still not sure on why it did not give accurate reading.
So before your last flight. Was it also giving false information. You didn’t cover that.
 
One observation is being further than the 20 meter mark in distance. This is where the aircraft when going into RTH will not respond to any settings except for the PRESET altitude made. The default 30 meters of couse. But just under 30 meters in distance but still between the 20 meters and 30 meters, the Spark acted normally shooting up to reach the 30 meter height.
That explains the why it did not land right there or hover at 1 ft. From the ground, depending on whether the RTH at current altitude was on. but we’re still not sure on why it did not give accurate reading.
So before your last flight. Was it also giving false information. You didn’t cover that.

Yes, you are correct. I reviewed the RTH parameters and it did do what it was supposed to do at the distance it was. I wasn't surprised it shot up, just that it went to 213m (700 feet) where I couldn't see, nor hear it. I'm also using a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge as a device and it seems to lag considerably in the data I get from it so it's hard to say if the readings on the screen were accurate or not given the lag. The 700 feet came from the front screen of the DJI Flight Log that shows your maximum altitude and is shows 213m (700 feet) and that is the ONLY flight I had where it went out of sight.
 
I'm not sure you did anything wrong. It's also interesting that the downward sensors detected your Spark was only about 10 feet from the ground for the majority of the flight. This might be one to run by DJI Support if you're concerned about it.

Thank you. So I did contact DJI Support today about this and asked to send them my Flight Log to analyse. They told me they won't analyse anything unless I physically send them the drone!! I guess this is part of bad service I've heard about from DJI but have not experienced myself up until now. I tried to explain it's ridiculous for me to send my drone to China for them to look at when they could look at the log first to determine what may have gone wrong and then if they think there is a problem with the drone to send it back. I guess they prefer it to crash and break first? Or be lost entirely? It's just pure insanity.

Is there anywhere else you can suggest I could upload it to, to have someone review it that would know what the possible cause of this hard landing/crash was with the weird data?
 
No, can’t think of any off hand. Sorry for the issues. As far as DJI, I bet they are getting flooded with flight data uploads. This forum and youtube are our best bet for now.
What I can suggest is try flying in a different location. First to see if the readings are accurate and then iniciate a RTH from beyond 30 meters.
Weren’t you getting bad telemetry earlier when flying? Or was it just the last flight?
 
Was the weather foggy by chance? That can mess with VPS. Other than that....this isn't good.

Yeah, DJI support for whatever reason wants the entire drone. Not sure the point of sending logs when they will just pull them off the drone itself. It would save much time and effort to review the logs first, I agree.

Note, if you send it and they don't warranty it, the cost is on you for return shipping.
 
Is there anywhere else you can suggest I could upload it to, to have someone review it that would know what the possible cause of this hard landing/crash was with the weird data?
Unless someone else here sees this thread and is aware of a similar case, you'll likely have to go through DJI support if you're determined to get to the bottom of it. Sending in your drone is probably not worth it if this is only a one-time occurrence.
 
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Yesterday I had researched everything I could find on RTH. Then I went out to test it all out.

Admittedly I started what I thought was going to be a very short flight with 26% battery. I purposely flew it in a field, not far from me until it reached the 20% mark and forced a RTH. I was in Beginner Mode, with the RTH max height set for 30m and I was just under 30m from the drone when the forced RTH triggered and it was only at about 4m high in the air at the time.

Instead of returning and landing, or just landing where it was it rocketed straight up. I know what 30m looks like as I've taken it to that height before in Beginner Mode (which is the maximum height). This time it just kept going and going. After about 40 seconds I panicked and shut down RTH and tried to manually bring it down with the left stick down. Another minute or so went by and I'm at LOW, LOW battery and nothing. It went so high I couldn't see it nor even hear it. As the battery went to about 3% and no sign of it I thought I had lost it and suddenly I could hear it and it was coming down fast. I hit the left stick up and that slowed it considerably but it hit the ground without stopping, and hopped and kept flying. Luckily there was no damage as it landed on a grassy area. I reviewed the video and according to the face page of my Flight Record on the DJI GO 4 App, it went to 700 FEET!! The video seems to support this....it was incredibly high, almost in some clouds.

When I viewed the log later there are clearly some very strange readings including it showing a max IMU height of 60.7 feet but at the same time a VPS height of 10.5 feet. ???? There is no way it was only at 60.7 feet as the trees around me are all at least 100+ feet tall.

Then when I brought it down manually, it shows it finally stopped (hit the ground at a height of -90.2 feet (yes NEGATIVE 90.2 feet), which of course is impossible.

The flight log shows 2 "Speed Errors" and several "GPS Position NoMatch".

I checked Compass and IMU before launch and both were in the green.

The flight log and details are here: Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Another view with perhaps more information is here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I'm pretty new to all this so I'd be grateful if anyone can explain how this happened. I was with my son at the time and we both nearly had heart attacks during that last 2 minutes or so.

Thank you to anyone who can perhaps tell me what went wrong here, as I'm pretty afraid to take it out again after this. The log shows it went from Beginner Mode to Go Home Mode once the forced RTH kicked in but what happened to the 30m ceiling? And what's with the 700 feet by itself and then landing -90 feet below the ground???
Did you take off from a hill. Because I took off mine from a hill and was flying about near the bottom and noticed it was giving me negative readouts like minus 50 feet so if I would of pressed rth I don't no what it would of done.
 
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