Official Mavic Pro Range Leaderboard!

[CyberNate]

Did some runs today and tried the single 5200LiHv packs (really have to learn how to make screenshots with the moverio). Took me a bit over 11.300m (37.000') (@50m alt.) out and cause the wind had picked up since last run came 600m short on return
I can also confirm that when the critical battery mode was reached the mavic's yaw became ridiculously sensitive and hard to control. I found a spot between some apple trees and made a nice soft landing. By the time I got there some guy with dog was holding my precious in his hands about to walk off. Although he claimed he didn't, I saw that he must have tried to disconnect the external battery by simply pulling the cables totally deforming the battery adapter leads..

Good thing you got there just in time. I wasn't so lucky when I lost my first Mavic. Long gone when I got there 10 minutes later. 37,000ft is very good. How far did you take it into auto landing mode? Did you take it all the way to 1%? I guess you did if you got the critical landing mode. Well that's not too bad if you only saw sensitive Yaw. On some of ours, we see that at 8% and lower the Mavic starts Yawing on it's own as the motors are not able to maintain stability. Mine basically fell out of the sky at 3%. You have the clip, which has a bit more resistance. With the direct mod, the sub-10% is even worse. Mine used to fly below 3% somewhat, but now it's only good to about 4%. Of course my overall run time is much better with the direct battery mod. It's only the last 10% that is more difficult to deal with.

 

[MacIak]

Good thing you got there just in time. I wasn't so lucky when I lost my first Mavic. Long gone when I got there 10 minutes later. 37,000ft is very good. How far did you take it into auto landing mode? Did you take it all the way to 1%? I guess you did if you got the critical landing mode. Well that's not too bad if you only saw sensitive Yaw. On some of ours, we see that at 8% and lower the Mavic starts Yawing on it's own as the motors are not able to maintain stability. Mine basically fell out of the sky at 3%. You have the clip, which has a bit more resistance. With the direct mod, the sub-10% is even worse. Mine used to fly below 3% somewhat, but now it's only good to about 4%. Of course my overall run time is much better with the direct battery mod. It's only the last 10% that is more difficult to deal with.

Not sure about percentage really. I initiated landing around 6% cause if I had passed this field with an unpredictable mavic I might have ended up in the woods or someones backyard. I would have made it with 4% reliable juice though.. The LiHV cells were at 3.5v when recovered. I charged em to 3.8v before I left for work, have to see if still ok later.

 

[digdat0]

I hear ya Steve. I'll probably never beat my 54,000ft flight. I don't want to risk losing my Mavic again. I've already lost one and my significant other will kill me if I go out and buy a 3rd one. I'm perfectly happy flying mid 40,000ft flights without any drama. I did one last week with Jake's Nanosync antenna. No drama and back with plenty of battery. I'm a bit surprised that you won't even mod the battery. That really had nothing to do with your gimbal issue. I wouldn't want to lose the ability for extra battery capacity. It's nice having an easy 35 minutes of flight time. I was at a party recently and took my Mavic up with my dual 3000s. I hooked up the Goggles and let everyone used them. 35 minutes is a long time and plenty to let all the kids and adults play with the goggles.

i think the camera issues had me a tad dejected to be frank and was at a point where i just dont wanna break anything else. I like being able to record my flights and without the camera, just not as fun without. And 3 darn ribbons, plus i kicked myself for doing the firmware rollback, twice. Rather than fix the gimbal ribbon, I'm thinking of just flying that aircraft with the gimbal lock on. In which case, I suppose i don't have much to lose .. still didn't max out signal, maybe i should take it out again, the bird works fine just the camera. I like your example about letting people try the goggles, my goal was always more than distance, time is important. Cheers nate!

Did some runs today and tried the single 5200LiHv packs (really have to learn how to make screenshots with the moverio). Took me a bit over 11.300m (37.000') (@50m alt.) out and cause the wind had picked up since last run came 600m short on return
I can also confirm that when the critical battery mode was reached the mavic's yaw became ridiculously sensitive and hard to control. I found a spot between some apple trees and made a nice soft landing. By the time I got there some guy with dog was holding my precious in his hands about to walk off. Although he claimed he didn't, I saw that he must have tried to disconnect the external battery by simply pulling the cables totally deforming the battery adapter leads..

man, that sucks, glad you got it though!. Makes me think if i ever find an aircraft, I'm leaving it there. Double sides sword . .i've had mine returned cause it had a phone number on it and wouldn't have gotten back if the dude didn't pick it up. But, if you are just mins away you don't want somone taking it and risking not getting that call.

 

[MacIak]

Yea, as you said..double sides sword! Depending on the person picking it up.
I think I will keep using these 5200LiHv's though. They are nice size and light, plenty of flighttime.
One thing that surprized me was: I charged the externals to 4.30v/cell. When I plugged into the mavic I got " cannot take off/ battery connection error" . When I unplugged the external with the mavic still on, I got " disconnected" in the app. My main battery had switched off! I did the sequence again and all was ok after that.
Could it be that I had my mavic battery charged and waiting for several days (battery I use since mid December) and the voltage had dropped slightly, and the LiHv had more voltage? Cause when I switched on the mavic it had 98% iso 100?

 

[CyberNate]

Yea, as you said..double sides sword! Depending on the person picking it up.
I think I will keep using these 5200LiHv's though. They are nice size and light, plenty of flighttime.
One thing that surprized me was: I charged the externals to 4.30v/cell. When I plugged into the mavic I got " cannot take off/ battery connection error" . When I unplugged the external with the mavic still on, I got " disconnected" in the app. My main battery had switched off! I did the sequence again and all was ok after that.
Could it be that I had my mavic battery charged and waiting for several days (battery I use since mid December) and the voltage had dropped slightly, and the LiHv had more voltage? Cause when I switched on the mavic it had 98% iso 100?

Yes, sounds like the voltage dropped a bit. 98% from 100% is a considerable drop on the per cell voltage. Better top off the Mavic battery if you are running external LiHV.

 

[MacIak]

Yes, sounds like the voltage dropped a bit. 98% from 100% is a considerable drop on the per cell voltage. Better top off the Mavic battery if you are running external LiHV.

Tried the day before but charger indicated " full", it would not charge.
Im thinking: maybe in your case (new mavic/new batteries?) the batteries were in better condition so it did accept the LiHv charged fully?

 

[CyberNate]

Tried the day before but charger indicated " full", it would not charge.
Im thinking: maybe in your case (new mavic/new batteries?) the batteries were in better condition so it did accept the LiHv charged fully?

This mavic never has that issue. I fully charge the lihv batteries to 4.35v/cell without issue. My previous mavic was very sensitive and was necessary to undercharge LiHV. I use all my mavic batteries, even my really old ones without any problem.

 

[CyberNate]

I think the next place to optimize the Mavic for distance could be with slightly larger carbon fiber propellers. I've been thinking of this for awhile. With the heavy load, my RPMs are a little too high, even seeing "Max Motor Speed Reached" with the slightest cross wind.

I finally came across someone that actually tested 9x3.0 carbon propellers on the Mavic and he got a couple extra minute of hover time with standard battery. 26 minutes hover time. I think this would work really well with loaded Mavic to get motor RPM to the optimal speed for efficiency. I don't have to worry about over current messages, as the extra batteries provide more current divided across the packs. The only remaining question is if the ESCs and motors can handle more load with the slightly larger propellers.

Here's a YouTube clip where he's testing:

In the video he's also testing 18650 li-ion but he states that with stock battery he gets 26 minutes hover time.

Edit: Ok, I see that he only has the larger propeller on the front, as they won't fit on the rear. Well that doesn't do much good unless you fly backwards. It's the rear motors that spin up more for forward flight. I think a 3 blade propeller might be the way to go on Mavic for pure efficiency. Of course you would lose all portability. Anyway, I guess this thread is probably not the appropriate place to discuss propellers.

 

[Ed209]

Edit: Sorry mean't to post in battery mod thread.

Tested 3x 1700mAh
Pretty windy here so the results were not as expected. Almost 24:00 landed at 28%. Plenty of wind warning messages. I just wanted to fly though. Total weight was 352g.

 

[CyberNate]

Edit: Sorry mean't to post in battery mod thread.

Tested 3x 1700mAh
Pretty windy here so the results were not as expected. Almost 24:00 landed at 28%. Plenty of wind warning messages. I just wanted to fly though. Total weight was 352g.

Looks good! Hard to judge how well they're working in the wind. You need a calm day to get more accurate data. I don't see as much benefit from external batteries on windy days. The packs look very compact. I bet it flies well with them.

 

[Ed209]

Looks good! Hard to judge how well they're working in the wind. You need a calm day to get more accurate data. I don't see as much benefit from external batteries on windy days. The packs look very compact. I bet it flies well with them.

Yeah no handling issues whatsoever. I live right at the mouth where the river dumps into the bay. Lots of wind coming down the valley. I'll test them on a calm day at low altitude over the water.

 

[digdat0]

Alright so got the distance bug again, took the modded Mavic out (which has a working cam, but the gimbal ribbon is jacked) with the 2x3000mah MS lihv batteries. I'm pretty sure 46k is the mathematical limit to these bats 46,128 feet is what air data shows. I came in at a hard zero and when i went to land, battery cut and it fell 10 feet to the ground. I used the new iOS 11 beta and it worked great, will pull the screen recording later today.

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

 

[CyberNate]

Alright so got the distance bug again, took the modded Mavic out (which has a working cam, but the gimbal ribbon is jacked) with the 2x3000mah MS lihv batteries. I'm pretty sure 46k is the mathematical limit to these bats 46,128 feet is what air data shows. I came in at a hard zero and when i went to land, battery cut and it fell 10 feet to the ground. I used the new iOS 11 beta and it worked great, will pull the screen recording later today.

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Awesome flight! Very impressive for running dual 3000s! Is that your old Mavic, or the new one? Sounds like it didn't have the issues plaguing some of us. Mine falls out of the sky at 3%.

 

[digdat0]

Awesome flight! Very impressive for running dual 3000s! Is that your old Mavic, or the new one? Sounds like it didn't have the issues plaguing some of us. Mine falls out of the sky at 3%.

thanks man!! I used your 80% throttle sport mode trick, without that no way i was getting back, had a nice little wind and was going 36/37mph. Turned at 57%, i wasn't expecting it to be that close! This is the old one .. I flew with the gimbal clamp on. The video feed works, just not functional gimbal .. figured, at this point i cant really break the camera worse so why not?! When it flopped, the gimbal clamp popped off and it took me a good 10 mins to find it. I found that the control was sensitive, but i didn't use the left stick to turn left/right. Instead, I used the right stick to move it laterally and that worked really well (kinda like strafing in a fps). I was way nervous when it hit 3%, but at that point i was all in ..

 

[MacIak]

thanks man!! I used your 80% throttle sport mode trick, without that no way i was getting back, had a nice little wind and was going 36/37mph. Turned at 57%, i wasn't expecting it to be that close! This is the old one .. I flew with the gimbal clamp on. The video feed works, just not functional gimbal .. figured, at this point i cant really break the camera worse so why not?! When it flopped, the gimbal clamp popped off and it took me a good 10 mins to find it. I found that the control was sensitive, but i didn't use the left stick to turn left/right. Instead, I used the right stick to move it laterally and that worked really well (kinda like strafing in a fps). I was way nervous when it hit 3%, but at that point i was all in ..

That sure is sweet! Explain the 80% thing again? Im sure I do not see a tach in percentage in S mode..just a colored arc around the radar?

 

[CyberNate]

That sure is sweet! Explain the 80% thing again? Im sure I do not see a tach in percentage in S mode..just a colored arc around the radar?

Well, in sport mode the tachometer should normally have the arc around the radar with a percentage of max rpm/thrustt value. In older versions it used to be an actual rpm value. I mostly fly with Ipad, so not sure how it looks in Android based devices these days.

 

[MacIak]

Well, in sport mode the tachometer should normally have the arc around the radar with a percentage of max rpm/thrustt value. In older versions it used to be an actual rpm value. I mostly fly with Ipad, so not sure how it looks in Android based devices these days.

That's it. I use an old version of everything and do not update anymore cause all works great. Seeing the actual revs with the arc in my version.

 

[digdat0]

Here's the screen recording, i did not speed it up .. the last 3 mins are the most exciting. Again, gimbal is dead so i had gimbal lock on so that's why the camera is all bumpy, it seriously looks like a bad fpv camera.

 

[Ed209]

Here's the screen recording, i did not speed it up .. the last 3 mins are the most exciting. Again, gimbal is dead so i had gimbal lock on so that's why the camera is all bumpy, it seriously looks like a bad fpv camera.

**** what a ride. Is the going off course due to critical low battery? That's really hairy. What about the tach disappearing at that point? Does it automatically switch off sport mode?

 

[digdat0]

**** what a ride. Is the going off course due to critical low battery? That's really hairy. What about the tach disappearing at that point? Does it automatically switch off sport mode?

yeah going off course and the floating was from critically low, it felt like it was in ATTI mode with a wind. Didn't realize it was that off till i rewatched. The one adjustment i tried to make with the left stick is when it did the long turn right after landing started, after that i kept thinking of nate and DB and it going crazy, so i just held the left stick for altitude and used the right stick to move the bird left/right laterally to turn, that seemed to help alot. Now that i rewatch this, i think im super lucky .. not sure how it willed the last 500 feet of the flight. i havent checked but i bet the externals may have cell issues, they were the only thing powering it when i picked it up, the DJI battery was completely dead.

edit: i think it does turn off sport mode, i didnt do that myself