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First time in Sport mode with interesting results

MadProphet

Active Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2017
Messages
32
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Location
In them thar hills
Flown my Mavic now ten times. I wanted to get some experience in before trying Sport mode.
I'm using, just to set the stage, an iPad Pro 9.7, new cable (side output on the controller) sitting in a MavMount. The iPad itself is in a thin case that leaves the screen open. Conditions were 73f, light wind. Large open field (1 mile by half mile) where I've flown several times before.
OK, so do my preflight, answer some onlooker questions and do a precision liftoff. Set it back down to make sure all is working. All this in P mode. Take off again, once it completed liftoff I switched to Sport. Took off across the little lake in front of me and got some video stuttering. First time ever. I've read it happens, so I wasn't concerned. Since I could see props on the screen while flying, I pan the gimble down. Nothing happens. At least, nothing visual. I thought, OK, that's weird. Switched from video to stills and tried to take a couple shots. Nothing. Then all at once, gimble pivots to the position I had moved it to and a couple still pictures are taken. I don't know if it's video delay or if the Mavic is responding late. I should have brought it in close so I could watch it and determine whether the delay was on screen or the Mavic, but I didn't think of it.
Things start working right and I fly around for a bit, switching back and forth between video and stills. There's still some video glitches occasionally. Like freezing up, then suddenly live again.
I switched to P and it all ends. No glitches, no delays. I switch back and forth to verify that the problem is isolated to Sport and it does seem that way. Fly out the battery. Return and swap out battery.
Basically the same behavior continues but after about five minutes, I get a CPU warning about the iPad. Within a minute, the iPad reports it's over temp and shuts down. RTH from the remote and the Mavic lands fine.
The first time I used the iPad, it worked fine, connecting to the Mavic when I fire up the app, but following that first day, I've had to restart the iPad after firing up the remote and Mavic to get it to connect. Except for today. Today it connected just fine.
I also don't go into airplane mode or do anything else to prep the iPad.
I know this was long but I wanted to answer as many questions as I could right off.
Do you experience a difference in video response between P and Sport? Does anyone know - other than the flight characteristics - what changes when you switch to Sport? Is there a change in what is transmitted that could account for the issues? I realize that unless the issues can be duplicated, it just could be some one-off event. One day of flying proves nothing.
I'm thinking that not rebooting the iPad (despite the memory management it uses) is the culprit here. But I would be interested to know if this has happened to anyone else. I'd also like to know if you do anything pre-flight to get your device ready. If you have any comments or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
 
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I had an iPad overheat myself just a few days ago, not related to sport mode, I had the protective case on and the iPad was in almost direct sunlight. I think the combination of the protective cover and the sun was the problem and not the software.
 
I was in the sun and did have the cover on. I won't do that again but it doesn't explain the video and control glitches when switching modes. I'll go out again Wednesday and see what happens.
 
I had a very similar instance on my MP. I was out in Lake Tahoe and flew the drone about a half a mile out in regular mode. Wanted to do a video of it flying back while in sport mode. I started to record and flew back to me. Same thing as you experienced. The gimbal went craxy and had to switch to photos to get back to respond. I was using a Nvidia Shiled with my drone so don't know of its hardware related but more software. I will try and post a video of what happened.

Also I am going to try and record soon using a different app to see if I get the same results.

Update: I must have deleted the video from my MP as well as on my computer.
 
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