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Strange crash - 4.2.12, OTG, active track

mrcruiser

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Apr 4, 2018
Messages
19
Age
45
I had a wierd crash today morning. I was using the new 4.2.12 app with OTG connection and was in active track mode, following my daughter on the bike.

The Spark stopped because a tree braanch was in front of it, I bypassed it and initiated the activive track further. Suddenly the connection was lost - I was 4-5 meters away from the Spark which turned toward me, started to ascend from approximately 2,5-3 meters to 8-10 meters, cranked up the speed and started to fly away into the nearby tree. It crashed hard and fell on the ground, in the grass. I lost two props and an LED cover. It was still recording, didn't loose the footage. When I turned off and on the battery it still couldn't connect to the RC. Once I disconnected and reconnected my phone to the RC with the OTG cable the connection was established again. I checked the cable and the physical connection was intact. Once we got back home I tested it with a short flight (I was using the 4.1.15 MOD app though) and it seems to be allright.

Once the connection was lost I couldn't do anything to stop the craft. It should have been ascending to 30 meters and return to the home point which was maybe 100 meters away but it behaved very scary. Probably I was lucky it hit the tree beside me because it might had just flew back to China.

- What do you think, what could happen with the Spark (the app, the OTG or the active track might have been the problem)?
- What can the pilot do when something like this happens (the whole story was over in 10-15 sec)?
- It was my first flight with the new app, before this day I was using the 4.1.15 MOD app with OTG and I hadn't experienced any malfunctions like this.

I ordered replacement parts for the Spark already but it will take at least 2-3 weeks to get from China.
Meanwhile can I fly the spark without the LED cover? We are going for a short vacation and I'd like to use it very much.

I am looking forward to your thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks
 
How far away did you walk from the home point when you first took off from. Do you think it was heading towards your take off point or did it head in the totally apposite direction? Would be better if you could upload the flight log as well. That would help to find the problem.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I uploaded the flight record txt of the particular flight, I hope this is the one you were referring to.
I was approximately 100 meters way from the home point, the Spark was just a couple of meters awy from me. There were some tree branches above it which might have been affecting its positioning system. As you can see in the log it was complaining about weak GPS signal right before it lost the connection. Actually it wasn't heading to the opposite direction from the home point but was slightly off, maybe 10-15 degrees but on the long run it could have been a serious gap. The wierd thing with its RTH was that it should have been ascending to 30 meters but it stoped around 8.

I believe I was flying according to the active track tutorial you mentioned, the only problem I can think of is the GPS issue. Although I had seen Spark videos on YT using active track on a trail where GPS signal couldn't been better than mine.

Today morning I did a flight again and had no issues during the 2 battery long session. I tried the 4.2.12 app and the MOD app as well. I like the MOD better because of the added functionalities, especially the cinematic mode. I stayed away from the active track option though. The panoramic shots didn't work in either one of the apps but I will search the forum in that topic (I hadn't tried it before).
 

Attachments

  • DJIFlightRecord_2018-04-28_[07-04-13][1].txt
    674.9 KB · Views: 20

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