Lost my Spark. Disconnected/Fly Away

brycep · Jun 7, 2018

Jeffrey Journey said:
I have viewed the end of your posted video several times and there is a lot going on there. At one point I think you achieved slightly over 10K feet in horizontal distance which is impressive where as I usually start to loose image transmission signal around 2500 ft but I realize it's all in the particular area you are flying. I do have to give you props (drone pun intended...Ha Ha) to ride your flight out that far. I would have hit RTH way earlier. Although you were taking a great risk running it out to such limits you should have been able to cancel the "low battery" RTH safe mode and flowned it back manually. The compass and GPS errors were several and it's had to tell if you actually lost connection with the drone and the RC. The video gets choppy and then goes black a few times then comes back. Does image transmission guarantee you have control connectivity of the drone? Guess not in this scenario. Also I'm sure the compass and GPS errors did not help the already depleting battery level.
Thanks for sharing your painful experience so that we all can learn from it...Jeff

Pushing the limits is all part of the fun. But I didn’t expect this to happen.

savage 3006 · Jun 8, 2018

I see in your video where it say' you entered a warning zone class D and you went up to 7000ft do you live in USA I only say this is I live near a yellow zone and can only go up to 400ft.

brycep · Jun 8, 2018

savage 3006 said:
I see in your video where it say' you entered a warning zone class D and you went up to 7000ft do you live in USA I only say this is I live near a yellow zone and can only go up to 400ft.

I didn’t go up to 7,000 feet. That was the distance. Altitude was much lower and it is recommend you stay below 400ft.

savage 3006 · Jun 8, 2018

brycep said:
This evening I took my Spark out for a short flight. Beautiful night, little to no wind, nice sunset, etc. All was going well, strong connection, enough satellites connected, good distance, then it went into ATTI mode...which isn't a problem. I attempted to fly it back home when all went to hell. Before I knew it the Spark had lost signal and the screen went blank.

I used the "Find My Drone" locator and walked through a knee deep marsh, over a barbed wire fence and into a newly plowed field. No luck. I can't find it.

I don't think I am at fault here. I'm always careful when I fly. Was I far away from home? Yes. But that isn't the issue. It is the furthest the Spark has gone, but up until that point my signal was oddly strong. Before I made it to around 7,000 feet before the Spark needed to come back. My intention was to test without and then with the range extender on my remote. The little $8 things. I usually use it for long flights, but this time I was trying without....and WAS having better results. Before the end.

Thanks for any and all help!

I'm just going by what you wrote not starting anything with you hope you get it worked out.
DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

brycep · Jun 8, 2018

Yeah, in my first post I said I went out 7,000 feet. Going that high would be insane!

I got my new Spark from DJI yesterday. It’s now for sale in the classified section.

Kylie · Jul 23, 2018

This is why we need trackers for our drone guys. I know there's flight logs and all those other stuffs but investing into something like trackers might be able to help

brycep · Jul 26, 2018

On my mavic I have a Marco Polo.

ariF · Aug 10, 2018

brycep said:
On my mavic I have a Marco Polo.

I'm in a similar situation. My spark went into auto land because the battery got too low, however I had it above the home marker, yet I couldn't see it, and I didn't recognize any of the houses below. Turns out it didn't register the home point until it was like 30 seconds into the flight. So it landed and it looks like it's in a tree. I went to the location on the app but didn't find it and couldn't see it in the tree, even though it's not a very big tree. What I'm wondering is....
1. Does anyone have any ideas?
2. Do you think I might be able to get a replacement drone like you were able to? I mean it's technically a malfunction, right?

Thanks!

Kylie · Aug 10, 2018

ariF said:
I'm in a similar situation. My spark went into auto land because the battery got too low, however I had it above the home marker, yet I couldn't see it, and I didn't recognize any of the houses below. Turns out it didn't register the home point until it was like 30 seconds into the flight. So it landed and it looks like it's in a tree. I went to the location on the app but didn't find it and couldn't see it in the tree, even though it's not a very big tree. What I'm wondering is....
1. Does anyone have any ideas?
2. Do you think I might be able to get a replacement drone like you were able to? I mean it's technically a malfunction, right?

Thanks!

1.Someone probably got to the location before you and saw a drone and took it for him/herself
2.You should try contacting DJI's customer support.

Mark Brandon · Aug 13, 2018

This is very similar to what happened to me last week, I lost connection to the drone, the return to home failed (operation time out), then I lost site of the drone and was unable to recover it.

Looking back at my recording / log, it just seemed to stop logging anything.

I contacted DJI who said they dont know what happened as nothing was logged (hardly my fault) and the best they can do is 30% off a new one.

Northwood Mediaworks · Aug 13, 2018

DJI Flight Log Viewer - Phantom Help

Post your log in there and then copy and paste the URL into a reply here. That might help someone here assist you in finding it.

notime4fun · Aug 15, 2018

ariF said:
I'm in a similar situation. My spark went into auto land because the battery got too low, however I had it above the home marker, yet I couldn't see it, and I didn't recognize any of the houses below. Turns out it didn't register the home point until it was like 30 seconds into the flight. So it landed and it looks like it's in a tree. I went to the location on the app but didn't find it and couldn't see it in the tree, even though it's not a very big tree. What I'm wondering is....
1. Does anyone have any ideas?
2. Do you think I might be able to get a replacement drone like you were able to? I mean it's technically a malfunction, right?

Thanks!

When you set your home point did you hear the voice saying 'home point recorded please check it on the map'?