Panther Beach - battery drop adventure

[MaduroMan]

Hey!! Finally got to Panther beach and was able to get a couple minutes before my fatal battery drop. Almost got it back to me before dropping into the bushes.. 2 days later and 6-1/2 hours of looking with the help of another overhead looking drone I was able to locate my Xstar and retrieve the SD card - After a quick edit here is what I got.

 

[dirtracer7207]

Nice video by the way. Just wondering how far away were you shooting the video. Sucks it went down, but I am glad you were able to recover it.

 

[MaduroMan]

Hi Dirtracer, Thanks for the complement..

I must have been about 200 yards from the top of the cliff where I was standing to the water.

 

[dronechimp]

Hi Dirtracer, Thanks for the complement..

I must have been about 200 yards from the top of the cliff where I was standing to the water.

Very nice.? What were your cell voltages?how long since last battery condition? How many cycles on the battery?glad you got it back.beautiful shot.

 

[MaduroMan]

Cycles on the battery was 14 - I had forgot that I had recently set my battery discharge to 2 days and this was 4 days later so I figured that even though it was flashing at 75 percent battery when I took off it really wasn't 75%. I wont do that again that for sure...

 

[ovrszd]

I missed something after watching twice, didn't see the drone landing.

Explain what happened? Went from good battery percentage to Critical Landing mode instantly??

 

[MaduroMan]

I missed something after watching twice, didn't see the drone landing.

Explain what happened? Went from good battery percentage to Critical Landing mode instantly??

Yes with in seconds - I tried to get it away from the water and bring it home when it started to just slowly drop and I couldn't stop it. It landed in 6 foot high very thick bushes and could only be seen from the air is why I came back a day later with a buddy and his dji Inspire 2 and scanned the bushes and finally found it.. I'm a lucky dog..

 

[KentA]

I saw a lot of salt water, rocks & sand. You were very lucky to get it to 6 foot high very thick bushes & lucky again to find there. You must have smiled bigly.

 

[MaduroMan]

I saw a lot of salt water, rocks & sand. You were very lucky to get it to 6 foot high very thick bushes & lucky again to find there. You must have smiled bigly.

Yep!!! I was a happy camper.. and not a scratch on it.. It all checked out fine... On to the next adventure..

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Glad you were able to recover it.
I don't use a battery unless it is 100%.
I have seen too many issues from flying with a partially charged battery.

 

[dronechimp]

Glad you were able to recover it.
I don't use a battery unless it is 100%.
I have seen too many issues from flying with a partially charged battery.

So far I have not seen a failure with a properly balanced and fully charged battery,and proper operating temp.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

So far I have not seen a failure with a properly balanced and fully charged battery,and proper operating temp.

To bad you where not at my house when it happened to me LOL
It happens. New X-Star used twice 38% to 7% in 3 seconds. Was about 5 feet off the ground so I just landed. I laugh at all these guys that say I take care of my batteries and it never has happened to me. Just wait it will bite you in the ***.

 

[dronechimp]

To bad you where not at my house when it happened to me LOL
It happens. New X-Star used twice 38% to 7% in 3 seconds. Was about 5 feet off the ground so I just landed. I laugh at all these guys that say I take care of my batteries and it never has happened to me. Just w.ait it will bite you in the ***.

Certainly very possible.was the battery balance charged?cell volts?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Oh I can't remember that far back this was 9 months ago when I first got it. Used the supplied charger to charge. The next morning tried to charge and the battery would not even turn on. Took about 5 or 6 tries holding the on\off button for it to start charging. Talked to Autel through emails and sent in pictures they wanted, did the deep cycle charge they wanted but in the end doing the deep charge cycle just dropped the total mAh down below 4500 and they sent me a new battery because of that.

 

[dronechimp]

Oh I can't remember that far back this was 9 months ago when I first got it. Used the supplied charger to charge. The next morning tried to charge and the battery would not even turn on. Took about 5 or 6 tries holding the on\off button for it to start charging. Talked to Autel through emails and sent in pictures they wanted, did the deep cycle charge they wanted but in the end doing the deep charge cycle just dropped the total mAh down below 4500 and they sent me a new battery because of that.

Very good info ,thank you for the reply.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

The only picture I could find from that time. This one is not fully charged but shows just how much the total mAh dropped and the percentage dropped on a fairly new battery after the deep cycle charge that they suggest you do. Makes me wonder just how much good that does.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I decided to go back into my X-Star log files. The ones stored on SDcard inside the X-Star. I had a saved copy on my hard drive. Good thing because the new firmware wipes out all your old log files on the X-Star. So my drop happened in March of 2017. I found all log files for that and ran them through XStarLogViewer. Every log shows normal percentage drop to the end of flight. There should have been one that showed a sharp drop but I did not see any of that graph. So what does this tell us? To me this is a firmware glitch and is reading something that is not really there. :

Normal Drop

 

[MaduroMan]

Looks like I need to know more about storing, accessing nd reviewing log files.. Does Autel have a tutorial on log files? Time to do more homework.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Looks like I need to know more about storing, accessing nd reviewing log files.. Does Autel have a tutorial on log files? Time to do more homework.

LOL Autel helping you out
No tutorial from Autel but if you go here you can learn a few things.
X-Star Log Viewer

 

[Jagerbomb52]

There are two programs. The beta will not read the old log files. It is geared to the new firmware. I have both programs on my computer. We also have a post going here if you are interested in getting your data to be a overlay on your videos.

https://autelxpilots.com/threads/data-overlay-and-how-it-is-done.1429/