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S2 overheated...

kgilbertsen

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Flying the Skydio 2 this morning, temperature was about 83° F. The total flight time was about 11 minutes when the message appeared to land the drone immediately as it was overheating. I brought it down, and it indicated I should remove the battery and let things cool off. OK. Before getting the battery off the drone was hissing and very hot to touch. Hissing stopped when the battery was removed.
I've experienced the hot drone/hissing once before. Never heard back from Skydio about it. I have NOT seen the message before.

Has anyone had this happen?
 
Happened to me the last time out. Pretty hot in Florida but that should not have caused it. I don't recall if it was hissing or not.
 
Sounds like something to watch for! Sadly up north we do not often struggle with that side of the thermometer! As for the Skydio response time. Its like a watched pot! Typically any correspondence with them has taken upwards of 2 weeks before hearing from them. Patience is all I can say, they usually come through. It does sound like an issue they need to know about. I would get a jump on things and send them all your logs this way when you do finally hear from them they will have data to peruse.
 
Mine got a temp error when I was inspecting my roof for lost shingles (big wind storm). When I lowered it close to the ground and was flying (mostly hoovering) out of any wind it got the error. I've gotten them before, usually when it's closer to the ground and not moving. Middle of the summer and mid day its not uncommon for that to happen here, I can usually gain some alt and with a little speed it clears the error.
 
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Mine got a temp error when I was inspecting my roof for lost shingles (big wind storm). When I lowered it close to the ground and was flying (mostly hoovering) out of any wind it got the error. I've gotten them before, usually when it's closer to the ground and not moving. Middle of the summer and mid day its not uncommon for that to happen here, I can usually gain some alt and with a little speed

Sounds like something to watch for! Sadly up north we do not often struggle with that side of the thermometer! As for the Skydio response time. Its like a watched pot! Typically any correspondence with them has taken upwards of 2 weeks before hearing from them. Patience is all I can say, they usually come through. It does sound like an issue they need to know about. I would get a jump on things and send them all your logs this way when you do finally hear from them they will have data to peruse.
I sent them an email 2 months ago after a similar experience - short flight, hot drone, and hissing. There was no overheating warning then. I've never heard back.
I sent them another email regarding this occurrence, so hopefully they get back to me this time.
 
Mine got a temp error when I was inspecting my roof for lost shingles (big wind storm). When I lowered it close to the ground and was flying (mostly hoovering) out of any wind it got the error. I've gotten them before, usually when it's closer to the ground and not moving. Middle of the summer and mid day its not uncommon for that to happen here, I can usually gain some alt and with a little speed it clears the error.
This occurred while flying between 150 and 300 feet up, moving over a wooded area. The drone was hot to touch. Sure doesn't seem like something that should happen. Hopefully the folks at Skydio get back to me this time.
 
Flying the Skydio 2 this morning, temperature was about 83° F. The total flight time was about 11 minutes when the message appeared to land the drone immediately as it was overheating. I brought it down, and it indicated I should remove the battery and let things cool off. OK. Before getting the battery off the drone was hissing and very hot to touch. Hissing stopped when the battery was removed.
I've experienced the hot drone/hissing once before. Never heard back from Skydio about it. I have NOT seen the message before.

Has anyone had this happen?
Hissing is a built-in fan, I'm very sure of it.
 
Hissing is a built-in fan, I'm very sure of it.
That thought occurred to me too. But it almost doesn't make sense then that Skydio instructs you to immediately remove the battery when it's overheated. Although a fan helps while the drone is flying...
 
That thought occurred to me too. But it almost doesn't make sense then that Skydio instructs you to immediately remove the battery when it's overheated. Although a fan helps while the drone is flying...
Removing the overheated battery as soon as possible lets it cool down faster .... better for the battery health.
 
Makes good sense ?
id mark the battery and see if you can isolate the issue as battery or drone. Also, curious if you have the dual battery charger and charge thru it or only thru Drone ?
 
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id mark the battery and see if you can isolate the issue as battery or drone. Also, curious if you have the dual battery charger and charge thru it or only thru Drone ?

It happens with both batteries - i flew the drone the next morning with the other battery and the drone was hot to touch and hissing afterwards. I do believe now that the hissing IS the sound of a fan, but it's incredible to me how hot the drone gets in such a short period of time, with ambient temps only in the mid 80's.

I do use the dual charger to charge batteries.
 
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It was about 100 degrees here this weekend with a light breeze, the other day it overheated flying low and slow at about the same temps. This weekend it was up flying with a bit of altitude and some speed but easily as hot as the last flight when it overheated. I didn't experience any temp issues but it did clip a branch causing it to do a mid air flip to recover. I didn't know it happened until I was reviewing the video. I'll post the video when I have a chance, its self recovery was quite impressive.
 
Got an almost comical response from Skydio today...

---- We haven't heard from you in a few days and wanted to check in. Are you still experiencing the issues you contacted us about on Jun 11?

If so, we'd love to hear from you so we can get everything resolved and get you back to flying as soon as possible. ----

Duh. I replied that the point of my email was to hear from THEM & get their help. It may not be a major issue from the responses here, but I'd expect to hear that and a bit more from the horses mouth.
 
Got an almost comical response from Skydio today...

---- We haven't heard from you in a few days and wanted to check in. Are you still experiencing the issues you contacted us about on Jun 11?

If so, we'd love to hear from you so we can get everything resolved and get you back to flying as soon as possible. ----

Duh. I replied that the point of my email was to hear from THEM & get their help. It may not be a major issue from the responses here, but I'd expect to hear that and a bit more from the horses mouth.
rather insulting to get a cheeky response when they know full well that you are getting crap customer service. sounds like they are STILL just buying time....threw a short low-res clip onto the media forum. i dont own a computer. early Beacon tracking at 90 F @ 7700 FT thru the Woods. left audio uncut as well. it did Fine.
 
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It was 118° in Vegas and 109° on the mountain. Most of you know getting the footage is more important than my drone so I flew my S2 in the heat.

I was able to get about 8 minutes before I got the heat warning, then I landed immediately. I placed my S2 in the Jeep with the air conditioning blowing on it until it was cold to the touch. I alternated batteries for each successive flight and was able to get four 8 minute flights in on two batteries and gather about 30 minutes of footage.

I'll post the footage next week.
 
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It was 118° in Vegas and 109° on the mountain. Most of you know getting the footage is more important than my drone so I flew my S2 in the heat.

I was able to get about 8 minutes before I got the heat warning, then I landed immediately. I placed my S2 in the Jeep with the air conditioning blowing on it until it was cold to the touch. I alternated batteries for each successive flight and was able to get four 8 minute flights in on two batteries and gather about 30 minutes of footage.

I'll post the footage next week.
It's a scorcher out west right now. I'm surprised it'd fly at all in those temps. My suggestion for V2 would be to incorporate a finned heatsink into the design of the upper chassis.
 
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It was 118* in Vegas and 109* where I was filming. My S2 flew about 8 minutes between cooldowns and got the footage.

A few days later I took the same trail and it was 97* out, I did not get the heat warning. I don't remember the recommended operation range form Skydio but I would say it's about 100*

 
Update to my email to Skydio... This is their 2nd response to my email asking for an explanation and/or suggestions on the overheating.


"Hi Ken,
We haven't heard from you in a while so we're closing out your ticket 80495 from Jun 11. If you're still having issues with your products, please let us know so we can get you back up and running!"

And my response to Skydio ---

"I've been waiting to hear from YOU at Skydio about the issue since June 11, and all I've seen is emails from you telling me you haven't heard from ME.
Do you respond to issues with answers anymore, like you used to do? Or do you now just ask if customers are still having the problems we originally contacted you about?
You can and SHOULD do better!"

Whether this is an issue that happens occasionally or not, I think they are doing a poor job of it when it comes to support, as shown above.

 

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