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Lessons from an idiot about flying indoors

Dronebow

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The obstacle avoidance may seem like a friend but it can jack you up too... For example, going through a passage into the next room and it senses something in front of it so it won't maneuver at all but your trying to make it do something will encourage drift... yes drift into a wall..

You will panic when those blades start hitting the wall too and you will do something stupid because the controller isn't helping. Yes you will reach out with your hand to stop the madness encouraging contact with the blades to your fingers.... let me tell you.. this hurts. It hurts a lot.

Now impressed with the Mavic's ability to stay upright. But the price paid here are 3 fingers with cuts and hurting bad and 3 blades in need of replacement. Glad I had spares...

So what went wrong? I was in tripod mode, so that was good.. But I think the object avoidance is a liability in doors.. tripod mode goes slow enough you can stop before problems happen but that object avoidance means it will not respond as you expect.

o_O
 
I crashed inside as well. My situation was I wanted to test a few camera settings and rather than taking off the blades and playing with the settings, I decided to hover it in the living room. I have done it in the past and had no issues, but, this time, the lights were dim and the sensors could not see the floor to know where it was visually. It did the slow drift, I tried to land but was still 1 ft off the ground when it hit. It broke one blade and I had the cover on the camera so nothing major.

I will not be flying indoors again. Almost wrecked a thousand dollar piece of equipment being stupid. Key is, if you fly indoors for any reason, make sure all your lights are on.
 
I agree that indoor flying is a little tricky with sensors not liking certain situations. I will say it again but rear flying is not good to have if u think about flying indoors. I had it take off and immediately fly backwards breaking a lamp when the lights weren't as bright as it needed to be I guess.

It isn't worth flying indoors in my opinion. I know it can but I will rather just fly it outdoors only now.


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Why not just turn OA off when indoors?
The trouble with drifting is, it goes into ATTI mode and that makes it REALLY drift. Cancels Tripod mode too, on top of which OA only works in Opti Mode, which requires light.
 
I crashed inside as well. My situation was I wanted to test a few camera settings and rather than taking off the blades and playing with the settings, I decided to hover it in the living room. I have done it in the past and had no issues, but, this time, the lights were dim and the sensors could not see the floor to know where it was visually. It did the slow drift, I tried to land but was still 1 ft off the ground when it hit. It broke one blade and I had the cover on the camera so nothing major.

I will not be flying indoors again. Almost wrecked a thousand dollar piece of equipment being stupid. Key is, if you fly indoors for any reason, make sure all your lights are on.

Great tip Syphon!
 
The obstacle avoidance may seem like a friend but it can jack you up too... For example, going through a passage into the next room and it senses something in front of it so it won't maneuver at all but your trying to make it do something will encourage drift... yes drift into a wall..

You will panic when those blades start hitting the wall too and you will do something stupid because the controller isn't helping. Yes you will reach out with your hand to stop the madness encouraging contact with the blades to your fingers.... let me tell you.. this hurts. It hurts a lot.

Now impressed with the Mavic's ability to stay upright. But the price paid here are 3 fingers with cuts and hurting bad and 3 blades in need of replacement. Glad I had spares...

So what went wrong? I was in tripod mode, so that was good.. But I think the object avoidance is a liability in doors.. tripod mode goes slow enough you can stop before problems happen but that object avoidance means it will not respond as you expect.

o_O

Thanks for sharing this - hopefully it will save someone else their 3 fingers!!!
 
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I crashed inside as well. My situation was I wanted to test a few camera settings and rather than taking off the blades and playing with the settings, I decided to hover it in the living room. I have done it in the past and had no issues, but, this time, the lights were dim and the sensors could not see the floor to know where it was visually. It did the slow drift, I tried to land but was still 1 ft off the ground when it hit. It broke one blade and I had the cover on the camera so nothing major.

I will not be flying indoors again. Almost wrecked a thousand dollar piece of equipment being stupid. Key is, if you fly indoors for any reason, make sure all your lights are on.
Hi !
I did some sharpness & color profiing shots and simply left it folded on the table "looking" at the charts in a distance. Worked well, why did you feel you have to do that in-flight ? Am i missing something ?
(Of course compass is not happy but thats normal).

Ender
 
Hi !
I did some sharpness & color profiing shots and simply left it folded on the table "looking" at the charts in a distance. Worked well, why did you feel you have to do that in-flight ? Am i missing something ?
(Of course compass is not happy but thats normal).

Ender
Because I was being stupid lol.
 
I too have crashed indoors. I took off, hovered for a moment, then tried to land. It wouldn't land and started to drift. It drifted right into my coffee table and took out two blades and scratched the hell out of my coffee table. It was quite the sight, after which I just sat there in shock of what just happened. My contraption capable of going miles away, 100's of feet in the air is now a tangled mess on the floor!

I really don't like how it prevents you from landing quickly. My P2 would let me drop it like a rock right where I wanted it and I miss having that control. The Mavic introduces a delay during landing which totally throws off a smooth decent in tight quarters.

I was also fairly intoxicated which didn't help, but at least I saved it from drifting into the Christmas tree :)
 
So if it does not say Opti Mode on the controller don't try it inside?? Also, where in Settings is the Disable Backward flight, or is it defaulted OFF? How do Trade Shows Fly Indoors?

My brand-new Mavic has backward flight and horizontal obstacle avoidance both disabled by default. If it detects an obstacle, it will refuse to fly closer to that direction unless you turn its obstacle sensors to face away from the obstacle (which is pretty much an acknowledgement to yourself that whatever happens is on you next, and you're confident anyway.)

Any time mine doesn't say OPTI MODE indoors I wouldn't fly it in there. As far as I can tell, the one and crucial difference between Opti and Atti is that Opti uses the forward obstacle sensors and can use the downward vision system to keep it steady hovering in place, whereas Atti is what happens when those systems are either manually all disabled or it's too dark for them to work. Atti is when it'll drift, and frankly drifting is way more fun and less nerve-wracking outdoors than indoors, when we're talking $1000 quads.
 
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Still reading this post, but I thought Tripod mode only works with GPS, and if you get GPS inside it's probably not reliable...
No. Tripod mode works with fine with no GPS but it may need Opti.
 
Been there done that. I've been through two sets of propellers now. I'm now only flying outdoors.
I've noticed that the stabilization turns off indoors. I was hovering and the Mavic decided to kick out of the auto stabilization and it took a hard right into my wall.

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