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Camera Questions

HugoStiglitz

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Still awaiting delivery of my 1st drone, a pre-owned Mavic 2 Zoom with Smart Controller.

Question is;

Can this drone be flown to a location, land, shut down rotors , ... but still continue transmitting images to controller, re-start and return to home ???

Thanks in advance !
 
Don’t have ether but I say yes as long as long as you are in LOS. Anotherwards as long as there is nothing between your controller
and bird.
 
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In theory yes it can, in practice it depends on what lies between the drone and the controller and also what the drone lands on and or lands IN.

Lets start with the simple stuff, if you can get it to land, stop the motors and still have signal, then you may NOT be able to restart the motors if the drone is at too great an angle of tilt.
Similarily vegetation etc. that was of no consequence in the landing may be stiff enough or intrusive enough to prevent the motors from starting.
That is not a joke, grass blades could get into a motor and jam it, grass stems or shrubbery that was blown out of the way by the down draught from running props during the landing may spring back when the motors are stopped etc. and prevent the motors from restarting.
And that's not even considering what vegitation etc. would do the camera and gimbal.

How do you get it to land in the first place?
A manually commanded landing, caused by holding the throttle closed, is the obvious way to do it, but once the drone gets below 50cm above the ground ( AGL ) there is a semi or completely automatic procedure that tales over.
It can be over ridden providing you still have a connection but I have NO IDEA what will happen if you lost connection in those final 50cm. It may continue to land in which case you are "up the creek" or it may trigger the failsafe behaviour. But I do not know what it will do with regards to failsafe behaviour in those unusual cirucnstances.

As an alternative to the manually controlled landing, there is a "land" button on the screen of a normal phone running the Go4 app, so I assume the smart controller has one too.
If you choose to land the drone via that method then I have no idea whether or not a disconnection at ANY AGL will cause the failsafe behaviour to override the previously issued land instruction.
If failsafe does override the land instruction then what happens depends on what failsafe option is chosen. There are three options.
a) RTH, the explanation of which is fairly obvious, but read up on the actual faisafe RTH it is quite complicated and time consuming.
b) Hover, which again seems obvious but may/will end up in a low battery RTH if the connection is not reestablished.
c) Land, which agains seem obvious but the drone may judge the ground unsuitable for a landing and abort the landing, in which case it will hover and that in turn may end up as a low battery RTH.


Would I try it where the proposed landing site was distant and or inaccessible? NO.
Have I done it, yes in my back garden 15 to 20 ft away from where I was stood.

As a newbie would I try it, NOT A CHANCE.
 
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I would also suggest adding "remote landing" to the thread's title.
 
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TAKEOFF in capitals lol......oh for got two three other points
1) the take off from a remote place will set the homepoint to that place so you need to know how to reset the holepoint to somewhere appropriate.
2) the takeoff point becomes the zero of height.
3) be sure the landing place is not in GPS shadow etc.
 
Still awaiting delivery of my 1st drone, a pre-owned Mavic 2 Zoom with Smart Controller.

Question is;

Can this drone be flown to a location, land, shut down rotors , ... but still continue transmitting images to controller, re-start and return to home ???

Thanks in advance !
My recommendation would be to use one of autonomous flight apps such as Maven, Litchi, or DroneLink to plan and create a mission of the type you described to fly to the destination, descend the drone to height very low to the ground, have it remain for a few seconds, ascend, and return to home. Once the drone lands and the propellers stop, you will require a signal from the RC to return the drone to your launch location using a mission plan that would allow it to land at your original home point. The type of thing discussed in this thread is well beyond the typical skills of most new drone pilots. For that reason, I recommend that you avoid the type of mission you described until you have a had substantial experience with drone flight and the autonomous flight and mission planning with whichever one of the various apps you acquire.
 
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Still awaiting delivery of my 1st drone, a pre-owned Mavic 2 Zoom with Smart Controller.

Question is;

Can this drone be flown to a location, land, shut down rotors , ... but still continue transmitting images to controller, re-start and return to home ???

Thanks in advance !
Yeah, it works great. I did it 200 ft away, landing on a concrete surface. You can make sure of your landing location by pointing the camera down. I did this on my 15 acre private property, within VLOS.
I then restarted and took off.
The whole affair was simply an experiment. Not sure what purpose it serves. I’d advise caution and reconsideration if you’re thinking beyond line of sight and in the public arena.
 
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Thanks RFM !

My main reason for this drone is as an aid in off-roading some really treacherous trails I used to wheel on a decade ago. Too narrow/steep to reliably get out of if rock slides or fallen trees are now present. A sciatica attack last Oct has left me with some lingering mobility issues. The reason I chose the Zoom over the Pro was so that I could fly higher to maintain VLOS, yet still look closer to assess details on the ground.

The rational for the remote shutdown is to allow it to be used for a sort of security camera, perched on a high ledge, depending on the situation, it could alert to trouble ahead or behind without the rotors buzzing. Sort of like that scene in the movie "Act Of Valor" when the river boat launches the camera drone to view the hostage takers compound. During my decade or so of wheeling in the Sonoran Desert, I've out maneuvered 3 carjacking/robbery attempts. 2 were particularly hairy. Would have been great to have those events on video.

Out there, ... just because you don't see a rattle snake, doesn't mean they aren't lurking under the next rock. All the Old Timers I know have at least one such tale.
 
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