Motor obstruction at 250 feet?

[LvlUp]

First post here - sorry that its this topic.

Yesterday I'm cruising along at 250 feet in a sparse area. Trees are maxxed out at about 60-75 feet. Heading back to my home point under manual control - sport mode. Look down at the camera because trees close to be obstruct the view for a few seconds. The next thing I know is the camera image is spinning and the "Motor Obstruction" warning pops up. I immediately let go of the sticks. Image blanks out.

Luckily I was able to use the last GPS lock in the app to geo-locate the last known spot and find whats left of my spark in some bushes. Not that it mattered because it was toast. Bits everywhere, a real horror show. I put the battery back in and it at least powered up (missing two motors, arms, etc..) and I reviewed the flight. 250 feet, 20MPH heading in a straight line then just starts spinning out of control and boom.

So my question: What causes a motor obstruction at 250 feet? There is nothing around. No wires, trees anywhere near that height, etc.. (Thats why i fly in this spot) Current working theory is that one of the many large hawks we have in the area attacked it or possibly a random bird? Any ideas?

 

[Spark 317]

Sounds like a bird strike.

The bird got the props and gravity took over.

The Spark broke apart on impact. (86mph at free fall)

 

[Locutus40]

or your escs on the copter are going bad id not fly and replace all 4 motor escs then refly no more than 20 feet up run a battery though the copter before you fly high and far out..

sometimes the escs mosfets fail dont want that to happen

 

[matty4]

Hey there. I actually had this problem on take off though. After a close inspection everything was spinning freely so i took off and after about 30 seconds of hovering, it did it again. I ended up taking the props off and found that one of the props had a locking tab missing, normally there are 2. I could imagine that if i went flat stick that i could have actually lost the prop. Had you checked your props at all?

 

[Locutus40]

props have nothing to do with it.. its probably a esc... when the signal gets interrupted for 1 second the ecu says oh theres a problem... tear down your drone.. replace all 4 escs solderer the wires good.. theres 3 of them also might as well replace the motors its all cheap you can get a motor for 8 bucks and a esc for 10 a piece on ebay....i would not risk it for less than 100 dollars you can be safe... it could be the ecu too the main board then thats about 90 to 150 bucks so id start at the cheap end seeing how escs on dji tend to burn out phantoms have a esc problem look it up if you dont believe me and you have to replace the whole board at a cost of 100-200 dollars because its integrated... dji loves making things dificult ...the spark gets so freaking hot and they claim its normal.. any electronics dont get that hot just working... they put the transmitter to close to the brain... the cooling is a joke on these sparks its just at the point when stuff almost fails.... look at the mavic pro 2 camera what does it do over heat.. the remote what does it do get hot.. no fan installed so dji is making these escs just at the point where its cheap and they get hot .. youd need a 10 amp esc or 6 amp one for these drones but no its like a 3 amp esc on the spark..... just look how tiny they are.. with no heat dissipation like a normal esc with heat sink... dji does not care about us they say oh well fix the issue then release another drone lol...

 

[matty4]

props have nothing to do with it.. its probably a esc... when the signal gets interrupted for 1 second the ecu says oh theres a problem... tear down your drone.. replace all 4 escs solderer the wires good.. theres 3 of them also might as well replace the motors its all cheap you can get a motor for 8 bucks and a esc for 10 a piece on ebay....i would not risk it for less than 100 dollars you can be safe... it could be the ecu too the main board then thats about 90 to 150 bucks so id start at the cheap end seeing how escs on dji tend to burn out phantoms have a esc problem look it up if you dont believe me and you have to replace the whole board at a cost of 100-200 dollars because its integrated... dji loves making things dificult ...the spark gets so freaking hot and they claim its normal.. any electronics dont get that hot just working... they put the transmitter to close to the brain... the cooling is a joke on these sparks its just at the point when stuff almost fails.... look at the mavic pro 2 camera what does it do over heat.. the remote what does it do get hot.. no fan installed so dji is making these escs just at the point where its cheap and they get hot .. youd need a 10 amp esc or 6 amp one for these drones but no its like a 3 amp esc on the spark..... just look how tiny they are.. with no heat dissipation like a normal esc with heat sink... dji does not care about us they say oh well fix the issue then release another drone lol...

Lol yeah sounds about right to me. Yeah I'll go through everything mate and see how it pulls up. Cheers for the info