Just thought I would share this experience with the group.
Recently (september) I was booked to shoot a sailing championships, still images on the water and aerial of the event to compile daily clips and a compilation video for the event. Link is at the end.
Motored across on the RIB I wass using as a base for the event (and have done many times before), did safety checks and took off, hovered for 20 seconds checked controls were all good. Then flew across to where the dinghies were starting to sail out from the beach, battery was at 95% ish on take off, (not the newest battery I own).
Started to film the sailing after approx 50 seconds the battery goes from 86% to 0% with a critical battery error warning! and the mavic gently turns from a nice flying machine to a useless submarine.
I was 100 metres away and the height was about 25 feet so no time to get under it or fly back. so just swore and waved bye bye.
2 reasons for posting.
has anyone else had the same issue happen to them, I had once before but over land that was with a different battery and 2 years ago.
I had used coverdrone and this is to praise them as after some correspondance including flight log, certs etc. they are paying the full amount i had insured drone for -Ā£100 excess.
I wasnāt 100% sure they would but flight logs are pretty clear about timeline and what happened.
So I would definitely reccomend coverdrone!
if anyone wants to to see the flight log it is attached and the link to the event is:
no particular signs but havenāt spent long looking.
Iāve retrained as a driving instructor so busy with that as well!
Just thought I would share the experience and see if anyone has seen before
Glad you got some form of recompense for your unfortunate dunking..
Some small irony, you training as a dive instructor
Iāve not had that happen to me with a drone but i have had similar battery issues cross my desk at work. Old batteries with many cycles on them.
Those boatsā¦ do they tour the uk or are they a popular type? I was at Hayling island a little while ago and fun filming similar craft for an hour or 2.
Although Iāve never had a Critical Battery Error before, I have had it where my drone couldnāt communicate with the battery, and for around 10 loooong seconds wouldnāt respond to the controls. All whilst flying out over a reservoir. Thankfully I was able to get it to fly back to me. I knew straight away this was the batteries issue because it was one I had retrieved from a drone that plopped into a village pond. Never used that battery again. Sorry you lost your drone.
Thanks for your post. I havenāt had exactly that happen to me but I did have a somewhat similar experience over water where the battery was at about 75% then pretty much dropped to 37%, I got a ādrone landingā message. Given I was 600m out over water this was not what I wanted. I spent the next minutes keeping the drone aloft (it was continuously trying to land) and I got it back over the beach with 3% on the battery. I keep logs of the battery condition and there was nothing to indicate prior (or subsequent) to this there was a problem. The battery was a year old at the time.
Apart from the rapid drop of the battery, what I still donāt understand is why the drone kept trying land when the battery was >20%
Fortunately a rare occurrence but when a LiPO separator within a cell goes high IR, that cell dies QED the battery dies. In our large RC planes, we have Optiguard units to manage the RX and Servos if the main battery fails and kills the BEC - hope the insurance kicks in okš
I had the same happen to a phantom 4 pro, fortunately for me it was only a few feet off the ground. When I examined the battery contacts (aircraft side) I could see the contacts had become pitted resulting in an unreliable battery connection
Quite possibly, in āSettingsā, either by default or otherwise you have a setting that means the drone understands it needs to land when the battery reaches 20%. In my Mini 4 Pro, in the case of an emergency, one can set it to hover (at a height you can set), RTH or descend (why one would ever use descend I donāt know). But there isnāt, as far as I am aware, a setting to set the battlery %
