Crash without any warning

[rsvibhadaniya]

I had second serious crash with anafi. On 24th oct at about 7pm i was flying Anafi and battery level was about 25% drone height was 15m studenly live stream stoped and drone fall from sky without any warning i found drone some where in grass so there was no any physical damage.
I started drone again all thing was fine i again take off drone , this time i take drone at about 7 m height again drone fall from sky without any warning and one of drone leg was broken ?.
I get to home fixed leg with some epoxy and howered drone in door about 15 min , that was completely fine no any cash . I didn't know what's the problem behind it and one thing noticable that crash flights data are not visible in ff6 app.
(I had same crash on 4th august which broke my mother bord , i send drone to parrot service and they changed motherbord powersupply bord , cooling fan , all props. So i guess there should not be any sensor or bord or connection error )
I m getting mad i had 3 serious crash and even i didn't know what's the reason behind.
Any one having good experience in this type crashes please help me to find reason and solve problem.
I can provide Sd card FDR folder data. (Crash flights are not appeared in FF6 App)

 

[zandoli]

I had something similar happen on 25 October 2019. Battery was at ~32% when it dropped. Luckily I was over the landing pad at the time. I did not take it back up because I knew it would have happened again.
The batteries parrot provided with the Anafi are really failing this awesome quad. Presently, I can't enjoy my Anafi.
Parrot should really introduce better batteries, even if it means losing flight time.
All 3 of my batteries no longer keep a proper charge.

 

[ddaky]

the same thing happened to me but my battery was around 80% so i doubt it was because of battery

 

[zandoli]

It said 80%, but was it really at 80?

 

[ddaky]

yes it was...full battery 3min of flight and than it crashed

 

[zandoli]

What had been the Maximum Battery Capacity?

 

[ddaky]

98%

 

[zandoli]

98%

Have you gotten a response from Parrot stating what caused your drop?

 

[ddaky]

no..i returned the drone to the person i bought it from,and he send me replacment anafi....he will deal with parrot

 

[zandoli]

Ok

 

[mrajic]

Same happened to me on 27. October. My second battery I flew was at ~25% when Anafi just flipped and crashed on its back. Luckily it fell on grass from approximately 2.5 meters height, as I was about to land soon.

As I never experienced this before, I took-off two more times and hovered approximately 30cm above the grass, and sure enough it crashed due motors shutdown again, both times within less than 20 seconds from take-off (this time it crashed on its legs).

After that, I used my third battery to see if the problem can be replicated, but gave up after depleting the battery for more than 20% from full, as it would not crash again.

 

[rsvibhadaniya]

I think this crash is happened due to battery power cut-off , i am not sure about that.
If any one have airdata.com subscription then i want to inspect battery serial of previous crash.

 

[pmh1nic]

Someone that has experienced this needs to get the flight data to Parrot so they can investigate why this is happening.

 

[pgdirtman]

I had a similar experience. Hovering at 8' and simply died, dropped like a rock.

 

[rsvibhadaniya]

Yesterday i fully charged 4 batteries and hovered drone untill it automatically land 3battery behaviour was fine but in 1 battery drone crashed like previous crash at about 35% battery , i got blank screen and that crash flight is not recorded in FF6 app and now after this crash i am sure there is power cut off at about 35% battery levels every time.
And after yesterday crash that battery is only blinking 4red led only and not charging too.
I am not gona use that battery again, i will report this to parrot as well

 

[mrajic]

I did the same experiment today with the battery I suspected to be defective due prior unexpected crash. According to my screen recording, Anafi crashed again on this battery at 28% power left. Just to be sure, I run down another battery down to 14% prior landing normally.

The battery serial number is C8G096982 and it was purchased on 14 December 2018 in BestBuy's store on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. It was used less than 40 times, which is far bellow the 300 times Parrot claims for the battery life expectancy. As Parrot covers the batteries with only 6 month warranty, I am out of luck for replacement.

 

[dronecubic]

We have 2 ANAFI and have seen the same uncontrolled loss of altitudes on both of them, the last one resulting in 2 broken legs and camera gimbal whilst conducting a RTH at 15% battery power. Does the battery hard reset help any?

I have contacted Parrot and await a response and method to send the massive FDR file.

 

[DeWe]

I've had a similar effect with another drone. The reason was one cable, which have had about vibration no contact to one ESC. The contact of the cable in the Anafi are very small too

 

[dronecubic]

WE conducted a battery test yesterday with 6 batteries and 5 of 6 caused the motors to stop and the aircraft to fall to the ground! not overly scientific but fairly conclusive, only 1 battery did as stated and landed the aircraft twice automatically. See attachment for detail

 

[dashSolo]

Oct 27, 2019
repost of my statement from October 27, 2019 was somehow deleted:


Nice write ups on crashes, they fit my three sequences almost exactly. in May, August and Sept I had similar flights. Two of the three flights had battery remaining just under 30% as described and were near home when the screen went black, both were Parrott refurbished replacements. In Sept, my best flyer of 75 flights and 11 months old had the same scenario, but this time I had a new battery purchased a week before. During a shoot to a waterfall with 70% battery remaining, near overhead the screen went black. All three flights did NOT register in flight log and were NOT recovered.

Tapping the Anafi icon in FF6 I screenshot the last known position, this was the only proof I needed for Parrot to replace all three Anafi's. After each loss I sent a detailed sequence of events to Parrot all with positive feedback.

A couple of weeks ago I called Parrot and shared my "lack of confidence" flying Anafi and needed to find out why this is happening. Ethan assured me the developers determined it was a failed sensor, and they would continue to replace my lost Anafi's as needed. I requested more specific info which is pending along with why the flights were NOT recorded.

update November 15 2019:
JoeyS told me replacements are NEW not refurbs, with updated hardware but that's not the case. I just received one today November 23, 2019 from Parrot and it's a refurb. Serial number should be in the 40XXX range. I ended up purchasing a new one back in August 2019 while Parrot sorted these losses out and it was #39XXX.

With my experience of over 15 years of flying drones I continue to learn something every flight. I've been flying Anafi since it was released July 2018 with a couple hundred flights and more than 75 hrs flight time.