New karma owner...

Medic_Kidd · Dec 9, 2017

Hey everybody,
My name is Kelli, from North Carolina. Bought a Karma a few weeks ago. Day 2 it took a hard landing and broke all 4 blades and the right rear arm. It has been repaired, but I have to admit, it's going to take me a while to gain the nerve to lift again. The last words I heard were "lost connection" in which I thought it was supposed to return to me, but obviously it did not. It is obviously still powered with the blades visible in the shot, but what would the free swinging arm indicate? I'm just new to the drone life and ready to learn from the professionals (you)! Thank you! ~Kelli

(Footage prior to the crash + crash footage)

gm82au · Dec 14, 2017

Interesting video, but not really helpful in diagnosing what happened. One minute it's flying well, then the next you've cut to the fall. I'd prefer to see an unedited video before, during and after the fall event. I think it would also be worth including the drone audio in this case - it's generally found on the SD card as a separate audio track if you have the audio muted from the controller.

From the limited information available, it looks like either a spontaneous power loss (can't tell without drone audio and because of your slow-mo footage if the props are freewheeling or powered), or the stabilizer has lost power (unlikely given the apparent fall).

So if the assumption is that it's lost power in flight, that's rather strange and reminiscent of the recall.

A few questions...

Did you buy it second-hand or new?

Which version of the firmware are you running across all of the components (drone/controller/stabilizer/camera)?

When you heard the "lost connection" from the controller, was that immediately prior to the fall? How long before?

You didn't by chance press and hold the power and autoland buttons at the same time, did you?