Lite+ Disconnect and Crash v1.4.64

Oklawolf · Aug 17, 2022

Well, this is not how I envisioned my first post here going, but it is what it is. I'm mainly documenting this here so that others can gather information in case of similar issues. Just to get the pertinent details out of the way first: the drone had been working fine all day and is running firmware v1.4.64 having been updated just before my vacation. The iOS app (current version) had NOT been working fine all day.

I'm a photographer and Youtuber living in Saskatchewan, and was on vacation with all three of the drones I'd bought this year: the Lite+, my Nano+, and my Mini 3 Pro. I did have issues with the Nano+ as well, but mostly involving the app. As another poster has reported, every other time the app has been opened, on both Autel drones, pro controls were missing requiring me to back out and go back in. This was a nuisance but until my final day of the trip there was no indication of anything worse going on with it. On one occasion I did force close the app with the Nano+ because it was reporting no connection to the drone even though it was showing the video feed from it. This turned out to be the SD card needing reseated. But that's not relevant to this post. I think.

So what transpired at the scene of the crash? Well, I had been shooting an abandoned grain elevator in a ghost town. I was on my second battery which had about 30% charge in it after working hard shooting other grain elevators in the area. I'd shot several others with no issues other than the app being persnickety with the pro controls. Anyway, I'd just gotten the low battery alert and had successfully brought in the drone in ludicrous mode, and swapped on the final fully charged battery. I then switched it into standard mode, launched the drone, and flew it forward and east so I could start shooting again with the remains of the town in the foreground. I didn't even get the chance to start. While attempting to move the drone laterally while rotating, which I'd done many other times that day, the app and remote appeared to disconnect from the Lite+. No video feed. It then went down and crashed from a height of 3.7m into a harvested farmer's field. There was absolutely nothing nearby to crash into. No animals, trees, cars, or really tall and weird photographers. I then regained the video feed and immediately knew the gimbal was broken and looking sideways at a 6" stalk of harvested wheat, so the drone was still powered up. Went and got it, and sure enough it was lying right were you see it in the picture. Wish I'd gotten video, but I was tired and just wanted to go home. Battery had 97% charge in it at that point and was fully attached.

I've attached a shot of the crash site: yellow X is my launching position, red X is the crash site. The RMA process with Autel has already been started, so hopefully I'll get some more info on what happened before too long. I'm convinced the app went nuts, so I'm shelving the Nano+ until I know for sure. I'll get by with the Mini 3 Pro, even though they still haven't sent my fly more kit yet.

I could've had a Mavic 3 for the cost of these two Autel units. Maybe I should have done that, but quite frankly I really like the Lite+. The lack of pro controls in LOG video mode may end up being a dealbreaker, but I hadn't even gotten to the point of trying that yet.

GFields · Aug 17, 2022

Oklawolf said:
Well, this is not how I envisioned my first post here going, but it is what it is. I'm mainly documenting this here so that others can gather information in case of similar issues. Just to get the pertinent details out of the way first: the drone had been working fine all day and is running firmware v1.4.64 having been updated just before my vacation. The iOS app (current version) had NOT been working fine all day.

I'm a photographer and Youtuber living in Saskatchewan, and was on vacation with all three of the drones I'd bought this year: the Lite+, my Nano+, and my Mini 3 Pro. I did have issues with the Nano+ as well, but mostly involving the app. As another poster has reported, every other time the app has been opened, on both Autel drones, pro controls were missing requiring me to back out and go back in. This was a nuisance but until my final day of the trip there was no indication of anything worse going on with it. On one occasion I did force close the app with the Nano+ because it was reporting no connection to the drone even though it was showing the video feed from it. This turned out to be the SD card needing reseated. But that's not relevant to this post. I think.

So what transpired at the scene of the crash? Well, I had been shooting an abandoned grain elevator in a ghost town. I was on my second battery which had about 30% charge in it after working hard shooting other grain elevators in the area. I'd shot several others with no issues other than the app being persnickety with the pro controls. Anyway, I'd just gotten the low battery alert and had successfully brought in the drone in ludicrous mode, and swapped on the final fully charged battery. I then switched it into standard mode, launched the drone, and flew it forward and east so I could start shooting again with the remains of the town in the foreground. I didn't even get the chance to start. While attempting to move the drone laterally while rotating, which I'd done many other times that day, the app and remote appeared to disconnect from the Lite+. No video feed. It then went down and crashed from a height of 3.7m into a harvested farmer's field. There was absolutely nothing nearby to crash into. No animals, trees, cars, or really tall and weird photographers. I then regained the video feed and immediately knew the gimbal was broken and looking sideways at a 6" stalk of harvested wheat, so the drone was still powered up. Went and got it, and sure enough it was lying right were you see it in the picture. Wish I'd gotten video, but I was tired and just wanted to go home. Battery had 97% charge in it at that point and was fully attached.

I've attached a shot of the crash site: yellow X is my launching position, red X is the crash site. The RMA process with Autel has already been started, so hopefully I'll get some more info on what happened before too long. I'm convinced the app went nuts, so I'm shelving the Nano+ until I know for sure. I'll get by with the Mini 3 Pro, even though they still haven't sent my fly more kit yet.

I could've had a Mavic 3 for the cost of these two Autel units. Maybe I should have done that, but quite frankly I really like the Lite+. The lack of pro controls in LOG video mode may end up being a dealbreaker, but I hadn't even gotten to the point of trying that yet.

Greetings from Birmingham Alabama, welcome to the forum!

So sorry for your loss. Hope you had insurance or Autel coverage. Have you contacted Autel yet? Please let us know what you find out.

Oklawolf · Aug 17, 2022

No insurance but the drone should be under warranty yet. Things are already moving with Autel - they got back to me pretty quick. Hope to have more info as things go along, and will go ahead and report back here as I'm able.

I'm going to miss this drone while it's out of action. It was already my go-to unit for everything drone related.

Coleman_A · Aug 20, 2022

Yes, I had a weird disconnection with my Lite+ around the same time you did. I barely got flying about 40ft away, lost connection and it went down. No idea why. Spent $150 to ship it to Autel and $150 to replace it. Now I'm over $2000 spent on this drone that I don't trust.

Oklawolf · Aug 20, 2022

I'll trust mine until it crashes for no reason again. Then I'll probably put it on blast on Youtube, go buy a Mavic 3, and call the Autel experiment over for good. I don't particularly like DJI much more, especially when I'm still waiting for a fly more kit I paid for months ago, but at least I've never had one of theirs pull this on me.

The Mini 3 Pro also had more functionality out of the box than the Nano+ does, so there's that too.

Coleman_A · Aug 20, 2022

True, since I had gigs while I was waiting for mine to come back I decided to get the Mavic3 and use the Lite+ as a backup.
After flying it I do like the Auto image settings on the M3 more and it flys smoother so maybe I need to adjust some settings on the Lite controller. It seems like the Lite has a hard time doing small increments of two different directions. It tends to want to go one way stronger then another. I don't know if that made sense

Borealis · Aug 20, 2022

I'm very happy with the Lite + . I adjusted the settings for the control sticks a while back and can fly it smooth as butter. A friend was just over visiting with his Mavic 3 and I saw little reason to switch. The 500 meter ceiling on the Mavic is not doing it for me here in our mountains but this would be not an issue for most users.

sandcrawler · Aug 25, 2022

Gee.. I come over from EXO because I had a similar experience with their new Blackhawk 2 Pro. Fell out of the air at a few feet just hovering. It's currently been with EXO for over a month while I wait for a replacement. Decided I don't trust it enough and will sell it once they send the new one.

Hopefully this Lite+ doesn't suffer from a similar problem. Also reaffirms the idea that I need a hat cam or something to catch this if it does happen. Would have saved me a week of fighting with EXO over the warranty.

Coleman_A · Aug 25, 2022

sandcrawler said:
Gee.. I come over from EXO because I had a similar experience with their new Blackhawk 2 Pro. Fell out of the air at a few feet just hovering. It's currently been with EXO for over a month while I wait for a replacement. Decided I don't trust it enough and will sell it once they send the new one.

Hopefully this Lite+ doesn't suffer from a similar problem. Also reaffirms the idea that I need a hat cam or something to catch this if it does happen. Would have saved me a week of fighting with EXO over the warranty.

Isn't EXO the guys who smash their own drone with a baseball bat in their advertisement? After that I knew I would never buy one.

sandcrawler · Aug 25, 2022

Coleman_A said:
Isn't EXO the guys who smash their own drone with a baseball bat in their advertisement? After that I knew I would never buy one.

I don't know if I ever saw that but they did a heck of a marketing campaign for the BH2 series and I fell for it. It's probably not a bad drone, but I didn't realize at the time that EXO was just three or four different brands of drones that they essentially bought the support and distribution for in the US. The support was good, knowledgeable, and responsive, but not enough to make up for most of the line-ups shortcomings. The BH2Pro really did all I needed it to, but at the price, I could have bought 2 of the Hubsans Ace Pro drones and had a spare.

As far as this Lite+ goes, I'm tickled with it so far. Only about 1 battery worth into flight and photos and about to pull that and see how it looks.

lukappaseidue · Aug 27, 2022

Exo blackbawk 2 Pro should be a Hubsan Ace Pro rebranded

flyingfool · Aug 28, 2022

yeah that sucks, I had a similar crash with my DJI mini2, all the manufactuers have glitch issues, no matter what they say, jumping ship never solves the problems of that perfect flying bird

Oklawolf · Sep 7, 2022

Finally got the official word today - they're replacing the drone. There are some issues with getting their automated invoicing system to recognize my address in Canada to ship it back (keeps saying invalid address), but after reviewing the logs they're covering everything under warranty. No word yet on what caused the crash - I've asked for further info on that, along with clarification on how I can get the return shipping obstacles out of the way.

flyingfool · Sep 7, 2022

woo hoo, go team Autel, support your customers!

Oklawolf · Sep 7, 2022

And just another quick follow-up, they told me to ignore the shipping issue thing because they've already shipped it. Woohoo!

However, there is still no word on what made it crash so with the absence of that info we'll see how far I feel like trusting the new unit.

Oklawolf · Sep 13, 2022

Autel did indeed send a new drone. Standard package, so it also came with one new battery, charger, a couple new props, and cables.

I've still not heard what caused the crash. Either they don't know what happened or they don't want to say. I'm not sure I'm thrilled with either possibility. But I'll be recycling the battery involved in the crash and everything else here is new so I'll give the new guy a chance. This really is the best drone I have, so I need it to work. I did a low light shootout video between the Nano+ and Mini 3 Pro for my YT channel on Sunday, and out of that evening one thing was perfectly clear... neither one of those units can replace the Lite+.

House Forasken · Oct 13, 2022

Borealis said:
I'm very happy with the Lite + . I adjusted the settings for the control sticks a while back and can fly it smooth as butter. A friend was just over visiting with his Mavic 3 and I saw little reason to switch. The 500 meter ceiling on the Mavic is not doing it for me here in our mountains but this would be not an issue for most users.

Hi, what settings are you using for the control sticks for smoother flight? Where can I change these? The twitchiness of this drone is my only gripe.

TIA!!!