I’ve got a few issues

[maigesheng]

hi all. A couple of things are happening to me.
1. Losing connection while in mid flight.
2. Return to home issue.

1. At random points during flight, pretty much every time I fly, it loses video transmission. So, I will still be able to control it fine but, can no longer see on my phone. I can only fly in line of sight otherwise it would be lost. One time, I was not very far off but couldn’t see exactly where it was at. Lost signal and tried backing up to where I was standing. (Scared to practice RTH)
Suddenyl, the image reconnected and I could see that I was WAY off from where I thought I was. I was able to land it only because the image came back. Otherwise it would have been lost in the desert.

Today, I was flying in a friends back yard. Lost image. No problem, I kept flying around because I was well within line of sight so I just kept playing. I brought it back down, within 30’ of take off point. Suddenly I thought this would be a good time to practice RTH.

2. RTH problem.
I hit return to home, expecting it to fly toward me and land. Instead, it went straight up. I thought this was fine because it was just going to RTH altitude before landing. But instead, it went up over a tree and began heading away from home. I tried manually taking control to fly it back down and found that my only available controls were down and backward. No forward, left or right, or pan. I tried to cancel return to home but it would not cancel. So I tried to back it up, while lowering it. But every time I let go of the handles, it would go back up and forward again. Finally after a minute or two of this struggle, I flew into some branches where it surprisingly fought its way out of the tree. Until it flipped over and flew straight at the ground. It hit the ground upside down and continued to spin it’s motors until I grabbed it and removed the battery.

What is going on? Is my fun over?

 

[Lake_Flyer]

IOS or Android? What phone or tablet?
Tried a fresh install of GO app already?
Tried different USB cable already?

 

[maigesheng]

iOS.
Nope haven’t tried anything. I’ll give both this ideas a shot.

 

[maigesheng]

So I ordered a new cable. Hopefully that helps. Reinstalled app.
But whats up with RTH?
I never played around with return to home yet because im just nervous to lose manual control like that.
Yesterday, I figured it was a good, safe time to take a look.
I brought the plane down about 10' off the ground but far enough away that it should be able to determine its position from home. When I hit RTH, it went straight up. Probably cause set RTH alt. But then it started flying away from home. I could not get control back, other than backward and down. And while I was backing up and coming down, every time I let go of handles, it would go back up and forward again. There was simply no option to cancel RTH.
When it finally crashed, a cancel button popped up but wouldnt do anything when I hit it.
The only way from stopping the plane from spinning its props into the ground was to grab it and pull out the battery.

Pretty scary stuff for someone that likes taking long flights.

 

[daasmangi]

Firstly make sure your compass is calibrated
Secondly make sure your phone has enough RAM.. if you run out of RAM then you will have all those symptoms you’ve talking about..
That flying off by itself sounds like an uncalibrated compass
And I doubt it has anything to do with your cable

 

[maigesheng]

Firstly make sure your compass is calibrated
Secondly make sure your phone has enough RAM.. if you run out of RAM then you will have all those symptoms you’ve talking about..
That flying off by itself sounds like an uncalibrated compass

Thanks! I dont calibrate often enough. Ill start doing that each flight.

 

[Lake_Flyer]

Don't calibrate every flight. If it's good, you can leave it for months, unless you travel hundreds of miles. Or after your next firmware update. If the compass was off that much that it would also show during normal flying. It would not even fly straight line.
Did you fly in the same spot as the other flight?

 

[maigesheng]

No this was my first time flying in this spot. All I really know is that, it recorded the home spot as it does with each take off but, it was going to a wildly different place when I pressed RTH.
I’m trying to figure out how to share flight record from my phone but can’t figure it out.

 

[daisy-girl]

Don't calibrate every flight. If it's good, you can leave it for months, unless you travel hundreds of miles. Or after your next firmware update. If the compass was off that much that it would also show during normal flying. It would not even fly straight line. id you fly in the same spot as the other flight?

No need to recalibrate when launching from a point 10km away from previous, as stated in the manual?

 

[maigesheng]

you Know.... when people’s only advice is to refer to the manual (the manual doesn’t offer why the plane would fly away from home on RTH) I wonder. Wouldn’t it be easier to just not reply at all?

“As suggested in the manual” is a useless piece of advice and makes you look arrogant and condescending.

I’m coming here for help. If you don’t have any, please just ignore me.

 

[msinger]

I’m trying to figure out how to share flight record from my phone but can’t figure it out.

You can find instructions for locating your TXT flight log here.

 

[JoostGT3]

I had the same disconnect issues since the last app update.
First day of flying after updating was terrible with numerous disconnects. This weekend, I haven’t had any spontaneous disconnects anymore, but only when I take off; start everything up, no problems. Push the sticks back amd together to start the engines, no problem. Push left stick fwd... disconnect.
Go to the ipad homescreen, close the app, disconnect the cable from the ipad. Fire up the app again, and wait untill it opens the flight screen, then goes back to the splash screen. Connect the cable again amd wait for the app to connect. If it doesn’t connect, repeat... Hopefully another update will fix this

 

[BossBob]

Had the home point been set correctly? Did you check it on the map? Had the drone acquired enough satellites to fly in gps mode?
There are threads where people have taken off prematurely and the home point from a previous flight has still been in the drones memory. RTH then leads to a fly away.

 

[maigesheng]

Had the home point been set correctly? Did you check it on the map? Had the drone acquired enough satellites to fly in gps mode?
There are threads where people have taken off prematurely and the home point from a previous flight has still been in the drones memory. RTH then leads to a fly away.

Hmm possible. Seems like I could have been anything. A lot of variables.

 

[laurens23]

Hmm possible. Seems like I could have been anything. A lot of variables.

the logs will tell. There are a lot of people who will and can help if you post the txt from your phone.

 

[iride4u]

I seem to remember that you need to take off straight up for 30 feet and hoover for a few seconds to set the RTH point. This was in some obscure part of a manual.

 

[maigesheng]

I seem to remember that you need to take off straight up for 30 feet and hoover for a few seconds to set the RTH point. This was in some obscure part of a manual.

Yeah this happens with each flight. It flies up, hovers, and announces home point established.

 

[MavicCF]

Yeah this happens with each flight. It flies up, hovers, and announces home point established.

Follow @msinger link and post you logs and I'm sure we can come up with the reason for why it tried to fly away. How exactly did you enter RTH mode?

 

[maigesheng]

Hi Ya'll. I finally figured out how to dowload flight records to my pc. (I HATE apple!!)

Here it is.

I manually selected RTH by hitting the RTH button.

 

[laurens23]

ok I had a look at the log

1: when your phone disconnects, no data is recorded in the .txt log. So there is a gap in the data. so you did not just lose the video, you lost all connection i.e. the map display, distance etc. on the phone screen also don't work anymore correct?

iPhones usually work fine some common causes of phone disconnects are:
cable issue: (try different cable and try both side port of bottom USB port)
phone too slow: make sure to close unnecessary stuff on your phone
DJI Go 4 app issue: reinstall the app and try again

2: The following is just speculation on my part based on the log file. it looks like it did record the homepoint correctly. when you press RTH you were within a 5-20 meter (16-66ft) radius. in that case, when below 10m altitude, the drone will climb to 10m and then go home. You were flying very low, so it would have gone up. When the drone goes up it will appear to also go further away because it will appear to be smaller. Maybe this visual caused you to think it was flying away. Because of missing data we cannot see what happens next for 170 seconds. Then there are some jerky control inputs and finally some motor and speed warnings when it hits the tree.

here is the relevant part in the manual:

Assuming the remote is connected to the drone, pressing the pause button on the remote should stop the drone form RTH and make it hover, but in the log I did not see an indication this was done.

3: as a general tip: your flying is very "jerky". (A lot of quickly jamming the stick to one direction or another). I would try to fly more smooth, the sticks are not on/off switches, use more proportional control and use more aileron (roll).