DJI spark drifted side way out of control!

[Hamid]

It happened twice, as soon as flown started to drift side way and little response to control commands! Today I was nearly missed it when it started to drift and got engaged with tree branches! it was almost crashing in a river!

 

[strobing_nyc]

Do a full calibration of IMU and the compass and make sure to watch wind speed. The spark has very little weight so not as stable as the bigger UAV hence more drift in wind. Also make sure you have a good GPS lock.

P.S. - flight log or it never happened
[emoji16]

 

[msinger]

Where did you take off from? Did you see anything in the flight logs that might explain the cause?

 

[Hamid]

Where did you take off from? Did you see anything in the flight logs that might explain the cause?

Hello Spark help,
Is this the file you mentioned?

 

[Hamid]

Do a full calibration of IMU and the compass and make sure to watch wind speed. The spark has very little weight so not as stable as the bigger UAV hence more drift in wind. Also make sure you have a good GPS lock.

P.S. - flight log or it never happened
[emoji16]

No dude!
There was no wind at all!
I suspect that the bird was following the inaccurate GPS position fix which we see sometimes float here and there!
By the way what I think is flight record is attached to above message!

 

[msinger]

Hello Spark help,
Is this the file you mentioned?

Yes.

 

[msinger]

Your flight log shows your Spark was flying without the assistance of GPS. That means it would have been drifting horizontally with the wind if you were not manning the sticks at all times.

 

[strobing_nyc]

Yes low GPS and low battery, great way to loose your spark! Unless you have experience flying non-stablized AC I would not fly with low GPS. It's what known as ATTI mode and AC will drift with the wind if the VS can't lock onto anything.

 

[Hamid]

Yes low GPS and low battery, great way to loose your spark! Unless you have experience flying non-stablized AC I would not fly with low GPS. It's what known as ATTI mode and AC will drift with the wind if the VS can't lock onto anything.

No Buddy!
The AC was in reception of 12-13 satellites which can be regarded as a very strong satellite signal.
The battery at the beginning of the flight was 50% that I guess cannot be regarded as low battery!

 

[msinger]

The AC was in reception of 12-13 satellites which can be regarded as a very strong satellite signal.

Perhaps. But, your flight log shows your Spark was connected to 0 satellites.

 

[Hamid]

Your flight log shows your Spark was flying without the assistance of GPS. That means it would have been drifting horizontally with the wind if you were not manning the sticks at all times.

Sorry that was a wrong flight log file the one here is the correct one!
The previous log file belongs to an indoor flight at home just to check if the AC is functioning right after the incident!

 

[strobing_nyc]

LOL, give us the wrong log and then say we are wrong LOL....

 

[strobing_nyc]

That is still not a lot of GPS lock and there is a large tree might have blocked the GPS. I also wonder if your battery is going bad, I am still going with wind drift due to not enough GPS lock.

 

[The Editor]

No Buddy!
The AC was in reception of 12-13 satellites which can be regarded as a very strong satellite signal.
The battery at the beginning of the flight was 50% that I guess cannot be regarded as low battery!

Wrong - the number of satellites is meaningless.
The only true indicator of GPS positional accuracy is the Horizontal and Vertical Dilution of precision (HDOP/VDOP)
This is indicated by the bar graph display.
People get hung up on the number of satellites and think they have a good fix but the reality is they have no way of telling what constellation the sat number refers to (NAVSTAR or Glonass) and no idea how low on the horizon a cluster maybe.

 

[Sparkz71au]

I have a few problems with (4.2.4) DJI Go 4 on generic android. Lags mostly & corrupt video. Might be firmware/software version &/or the speed of (my) android device? Maybe the video cache should be disabled for slower devices , especially if a sd card is installed? I keep it on beginner mode or manually increase max distance/height as confidence improves. Then double check the home point

Don't forget that only the flight data recorded from DJI Go4 is in the file posted above - DJIFlightRecord*.txt. If the RC disconnects from the AirCraft some data may be missing? I'm new & still learning, so correct me if I am wrong. I believe there are 2 'flight records' - 1 in the DJI Go 4 application (*.txt) & 1 in the (AC) Spark (*dat).

Use DJI Assistant 2 on a PC, plug in the Spark & save the flight data locally.
It's different data stored in the Spark, FLYxyz.dat compared to the DJO Go 4 application data from the remote control. If you have CsvView on a PC, The Spark flight data can be extracted with ExtractDJI.exe (found in C:\Program Files (x86)\CsvView or similar).

Then use CsvView to open the *.txt or *.dat file - select empty (or the other predefined SigPlayers?). Then select Add/Remove Signals as required.

You might be able to load a 2nd instance of CsvView & compare the difference between *txt & *.dat for the same flight. RC vs's AC.

Go from there - that's the best I can suggest within my new knowledge. Trial & error with firmware/software/device.

Good luck...