Welcome to our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to sign up today.
Sign up

Anafi Parrot dropping out of the sky (again) and into a mountain stream.

chochmah

Member
Joined
Apr 27, 2020
Messages
7
Reaction score
5
Hi,

about ten days ago I was flying my drone at ~10m height and 30m distance when it suddenly just dropped without any operator input. Unfortunately it fell into a small but fast flowing mountain stream (less than 2m wide at this point) and I could not retrieve the drone. This is the second time (Old post here: Link) my drone just dropped out of the sky and the first time Parrot send a replacement. If someone could help me with the following two questions I would be very grateful:

  1. I attached the json file of the flight (retrieved from the cell phone). Is there something in there that points to the cause of the crash? Software was updated, there was almost no wind, GPS reception was good and the battery was above 50%.
  2. Given that this is the second time, the drone is lost and I had bought the original drone over two and a half years ago (warranty was two years), assuming it was a technical fault, is there any point in contacting Parrot for a replacement?

Thank you very much!
 

Attachments

  • drohneMontBlancchrash.json
    112.9 KB · Views: 13
Were you using the Modified Free Flight 6 that shows battery voltage?
What was the Battery Capacity (Before you press the Fly button, you press the drone icon and scroll down a bit)?

I would think that this is a possible case of a bad battery showing an incorrect battery voltage and "falling from sky".

I do not think you will get any where with Parrot Support since it is out of warranty and consider yourself lucky that you got a replacement the first time, as it is hit or miss on this forum for getting a replacement due to "fall from sky".

Sorry to hear about your loss, as even with its random faults, the Anafi is a great drone.
 
Were you using the Modified Free Flight 6 that shows battery voltage?
What was the Battery Capacity (Before you press the Fly button, you press the drone icon and scroll down a bit)?

I would think that this is a possible case of a bad battery showing an incorrect battery voltage and "falling from sky".

I do not think you will get any where with Parrot Support since it is out of warranty and consider yourself lucky that you got a replacement the first time, as it is hit or miss on this forum for getting a replacement due to "fall from sky".

Sorry to hear about your loss, as even with its random faults, the Anafi is a great drone.

Thanks for Answering! I was using the updated stock Free Flight 6. The logs say that the Battery Charge Level was 73% and the Voltage was 7,961.

I really like the Anafi, it fits my usecase exactly and there is no other drone that would work as well. Unfortunately my confidence is a bit shaken after the two drops. I only ever fly within sight, and pretty low at very low winds. I do want another Drone but I am not sure I can take the excitement never knowing if today it will drop again.
 
I'm sorry, you say you were using the stock Free Flight 6, how were you getting the battery voltage? Or are you saying you were using the Modded Free Flight 6 FCC version?

If you were at 7961 voltage something else happened. Did you see the drone fall?

Your fall from sky reminds me of my first one with my Anafi Thermal. I was at 70 to 80% battery (No modded Free Flight 6 with voltage at the time) and the drone just cut all power and fell from a hover.
For this case and yours I do not know what the cause is as I have yet to hear something concrete except that maybe there were imbalanced battery cells maybe.

My normal Anafi was a classic case of Battery percentage not matching the true voltage. It fell from the sky at 15 to 20% battery, but the voltage reached the mid 6000 cutoff showing that with batteries with low starting capacities the percentage should not be trusted.


I too am very scared to fly the Anafi over areas like water, parked cars or other inaccessible areas or property as I have a hard time trusting it. As much as this drone could be great, I do not see me buying another one as their Customer Service is horrible and they have moved onto Enterprise customers who I hope they treat better.
 
Thanks for Answering! I was using the updated stock Free Flight 6. The logs say that the Battery Charge Level was 73% and the Voltage was 7,961.

I really like the Anafi, it fits my usecase exactly and there is no other drone that would work as well. Unfortunately my confidence is a bit shaken after the two drops. I only ever fly within sight, and pretty low at very low winds. I do want another Drone but I am not sure I can take the excitement never knowing if today it will drop again.
What is your firmware version number for the Anafi and the SC3
 
I'm sorry, you say you were using the stock Free Flight 6, how were you getting the battery voltage? Or are you saying you were using the Modded Free Flight 6 FCC version?

If you were at 7961 voltage something else happened. Did you see the drone fall?

Your fall from sky reminds me of my first one with my Anafi Thermal. I was at 70 to 80% battery (No modded Free Flight 6 with voltage at the time) and the drone just cut all power and fell from a hover.
For this case and yours I do not know what the cause is as I have yet to hear something concrete except that maybe there were imbalanced battery cells maybe.

My normal Anafi was a classic case of Battery percentage not matching the true voltage. It fell from the sky at 15 to 20% battery, but the voltage reached the mid 6000 cutoff showing that with batteries with low starting capacities the percentage should not be trusted.


I too am very scared to fly the Anafi over areas like water, parked cars or other inaccessible areas or property as I have a hard time trusting it. As much as this drone could be great, I do not see me buying another one as their Customer Service is horrible and they have moved onto Enterprise customers who I hope they treat better.
I got the battery voltage from the log file that was saved by the App on the cell phone and that I have appended in the OP. It has a column labeled Voltage: 1631438246864.png

I saw the drone fall (like the first time since I actually always keep it within visual range). It just suddently dropped straight down while slightly rotating.

Sorry for the loss of your drone. It sucks especially when your not responsible. The drone dropping into the water was pure bad luck as well, the stream was narrow and if the drone had dropped half a meter further towards me it would have missed it but the way it is it's gone together with a 256GB card half full with videos of my vacation in the alps. I had hoped that the "dropping from the sky"-issue had been resolved since it happened to me first last year but it appears that's not the case.

The way things are the Anafi is exactly the Drone I want for hiking but because of this one rather important issue I will not be getting another one. Which sucks! I am still looking but the DJI Mini 2 looks closest to the Anafi so it's probably going to be the Mini 2. :-(
 

Attachments

  • 1631438173362.png
    1631438173362.png
    70.4 KB · Views: 10
I am truly sorry for your loss of aircraft, as I too as mentioned had a very similar experience. As I said I do not have any definitive reason for my fall from sky, as there was no flight log created and the drone would not turn on due to being destroyed.
I have no doubt that Parrot engineers most likely know the causes for these accidents, but I do not seeing Parrot taking responsibility for all incidents as they are hit or miss with warranty replacements on this forum by numerous members.

Good luck, and let us know if you get another Anafi or get your Mavic Mini.
 
If the file "drohneMontBlancchrash.json" that you provided in #1 is the one that shows the crash then it is different from that you have shown in the table in #6. Do you know which one is the relevant file?

What I can see from the file in #1 is that there was a voltage drop shortly before there is a gap in altitude. It's not really clear if this is the reason or the result of the crash. Voltage came from 1Hz data, means only once per second.

br HE
 
If the file "drohneMontBlancchrash.json" that you provided in #1 is the one that shows the crash then it is different from that you have shown in the table in #6. Do you know which one is the relevant file?

What I can see from the file in #1 is that there was a voltage drop shortly before there is a gap in altitude. It's not really clear if this is the reason or the result of the crash. Voltage came from 1Hz data, means only once per second.

br HE
The Screenshot is from the beginning of the log file not the end. Here's a screenshot from the end: 1631566941173.png

When the drone drops the voltage seems to stay the same but the battery level suddentely jumps from 70% to 100%. Maybe I am reading the file wrong.
 
Sorry, but the file you sent with #1 started with 65% Battery level and the first timestamp is 13:18:40.149.
What you show in pictures is a later file we don't have. That's why I asked.

This is from begin:
Screen_Log data_1.png
And this is most important part:
Screen_Log data_2.png
Here we can see the voltage drop I'm talking about (down to 7,446V = 3,723V per cell) followed by emergency state.

br HE
 

New Posts

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
5,290
Messages
45,023
Members
7,951
Latest member
Davecat44