Crashing to the Ground again and again

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I've had this happen 3 times now and I'm paranoid to use my Iris+ now and considering selling it for a different drone. The first dive was only the 2nd flight. It was clear skies and no interference. The drone was about 150 feet in the air 20 feet in front of me and it lost signal flipped upside down and crashed into the snow. Fortunately the snow broke the fall and save the copter from damage. 3DR helped troubleshoot and stated it was a compass failure. After 2 hours of working with 3DR we reset and recalibrate the copter and sent it up again. Within seconds the copter launched into the air uncontrollably and crashed into the ceiling and plummeted to the floor. Lesson learned never to turn it on indoors. I sent that entire machine back to 3DR and ordered a new one with the hopes that the first one was a lemon and I would have no issues with a new one.

Months later and many flights later, with the new copter, I was filming the beginning of a community picnic. Already fearful with the memories that I may loose control and it might crash to the ground I steered clear of people and cautiously captured footage. It was doing great as it had many flights before. Then with only an unrecognizable beep from the remote it lost all power, blades stopped and down she came! Scared the SH*T out of me because people were in the area. I ran over, opened it up only to discover the batter had expanded so much that I could barely get it out! It was a warm day and the copter had been flying for about 15 minutes with the gimbal and GoPro.


Now I am faced with the decision to continue working with 3DR or check out the Phantom Pro. After reading this forum I see many 3DR drones drop from the sky. This is so dangerous. What are the options? What are other doing?
 
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I've had this happen 3 times now and I'm paranoid to use my Iris+ now and considering selling it for a different drone. The first dive was only the 2nd flight. It was clear skies and no interference. The drone was about 150 feet in the air 20 feet in front of me and it lost signal flipped upside down and crashed into the snow. Fortunately the snow broke the fall and save the copter from damage. 3DR helped troubleshoot and stated it was a compass failure. After 2 hours of working with 3DR we reset and recalibrate the copter and sent it up again. Within seconds the copter launched into the air uncontrollably and crashed into the ceiling and plummeted to the floor. Lesson learned never to turn it on indoors. I sent that entire machine back to 3DR and ordered a new one with the hopes that the first one was a lemon and I would have no issues with a new one.

Months later and many flights later, with the new copter, I was filming the beginning of a community picnic. Already fearful with the memories that I may loose control and it might crash to the ground I steered clear of people and cautiously captured footage. It was doing great as it had many flights before. Then with only an unrecognizable beep from the remote it lost all power, blades stopped and down she came! Scared the SH*T out of me because people were in the area. I ran over, opened it up only to discover the batter had expanded so much that I could barely get it out! It was a warm day and the copter had been flying for about 15 minutes with the gimbal and GoPro.


Now I am faced with the decision to continue working with 3DR or check out the Phantom Pro. After reading this forum I see many 3DR drones drop from the sky. This is so dangerous. What are the options? What are other doing?
Wow! I'd be real upset. I use mine for home inspection and I've had a few minor problems but I figured out how to get it back into great flying condition. I spent lots of time with 3D also but after I hung up, I sat and thought about it for a few hours. Now, It's a piece of cake to get things right. One main thing is setting the compass completely. Using mission planner to calibrate the compass, I end up going thru it over and over and over until the globe is almost solid with color. I've found doing it just once doesn't do it. If you still have a problem, write me and I'll be happy to help. Worst case, you could send it to me and I'll work on it and send it back. or even call me and we can go over it step by step. I have enough parts to build two of them. Ya might say I really like the Iris+.
 
I've had this happen 3 times now and I'm paranoid to use my Iris+ now and considering selling it for a different drone. The first dive was only the 2nd flight. It was clear skies and no interference. The drone was about 150 feet in the air 20 feet in front of me and it lost signal flipped upside down and crashed into the snow. Fortunately the snow broke the fall and save the copter from damage. 3DR helped troubleshoot and stated it was a compass failure. After 2 hours of working with 3DR we reset and recalibrate the copter and sent it up again. Within seconds the copter launched into the air uncontrollably and crashed into the ceiling and plummeted to the floor. Lesson learned never to turn it on indoors. I sent that entire machine back to 3DR and ordered a new one with the hopes that the first one was a lemon and I would have no issues with a new one.

Months later and many flights later, with the new copter, I was filming the beginning of a community picnic. Already fearful with the memories that I may loose control and it might crash to the ground I steered clear of people and cautiously captured footage. It was doing great as it had many flights before. Then with only an unrecognizable beep from the remote it lost all power, blades stopped and down she came! Scared the SH*T out of me because people were in the area. I ran over, opened it up only to discover the batter had expanded so much that I could barely get it out! It was a warm day and the copter had been flying for about 15 minutes with the gimbal and GoPro.


Now I am faced with the decision to continue working with 3DR or check out the Phantom Pro. After reading this forum I see many 3DR drones drop from the sky. This is so dangerous. What are the options? What are other doing?

The Iris is sensitive to heat gain on its fuselage from strong sunlight and somewhat from ambient air temp. You must let it cool down in shade between flights...and as Tim says...go through the compass calibration via Mission Planner....very much worth the effort.
You should also get the replacement battery door from IMP Concepts.com which let's more air/heat out of the lower fuselage.
 
The Iris is sensitive to heat gain on its fuselage from strong sunlight and somewhat from ambient air temp. You must let it cool down in shade between flights...and as Tim says...go through the compass calibration via Mission Planner....very much worth the effort.
You should also get the replacement battery door from IMP Concepts.com which let's more air/heat out of the lower fuselage.
I'm not an expert on the battery swelling up, but I do know you've got to be careful with them. I'm sure your using the balance charger, right? Anyway, any time you have a hard landing or a crash, you NEED to re-calibrate the compass again. I usually go thru the compass sometimes 4-5 times before I'm happy with it. In mission planner, use the "live calibration" with the cross lines and fill in the colors until it forms a globe thats as full as you can get. I move it vigorously in all directions and upside down also. Don't charge a hot battery ever! oh, and DON'T use one that is swollen. You don't need a fire in the sky or worse yet, in the house.
 
Sounds like the battery went bad. I use many thousands of lipo batteries and sometimes they can just blow up which is a very bad problem with this type of battery. However it is rare as I have only seen a half dozen do this out of 120000 batteries in five years. Two things come to mind. Physical damage from crashing and or heat. I'm not sure about this particular battery but some batteries have a circuit to turn them off in the event of an overheated or over current condition.
 

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