how to avoid losing it again

[Swordfish]

I lost my drone about a month ago. I finally found it! So that's awesome. But I want to make sure I don't lose it again so trying to proactively get some advice. I did update my last thread with these questions but thought to make a new post about it since it'd be more productive here.

Now the reason I lost it was because I was giving my brother a demo near my apartment building. My previous Holy Stone drone wasn't able to connect to GPS's here so I'll assume this is a poor GPS area. Anyway I flew the drone just fine, but at the end I pressed Home. And rather than returning to me it went in the exact opposite direction.

So.... what can I do to avoid losing it in the future?

1. The problem happened because I pressed the Home button, and rather than coming back to me it went away. Since this crash happened two others have said a similar thing, that they pressed Home and theirs lost control or crashed. And even someone in this forum has said if you don't have a good GPS lock the last thing you want to do is press Home. So the question for future is, how do I know when I can or cannot press Home?

2. I saw a mention of Insurance or DJI Refresh. Never heard of those. What are they?

3. Is there anything else I can do to avoid this from happening? For example I saw someone on Reddit mentioning they put lights on theirs to make it more visible. I also had the idea of putting a Tile on it. Tile is something that is typically attached to a phone. I believe it's bluetooth driven and is only good for 100-200 feet. But that might be good enough. And my GPS wasn't functioning properly when it crashed (it said the drone is across the street when it was much closer) so that may be a good idea. Not to mention once the drone is dead I want to still be able to find it.

4. Has anyone put their contact details on the drone? That may be a good idea. Just not sure how to make it big enough that it be visible yet small enough to get all the important information. eg "IF FOUND PLEASE CONTACT ME AT XXX.XXX.XXXX".

5. I just tried a test flight for the first time since finding it. But when I turned on the drone I couldn't find it anywhere under wifi. Not sure what that's all about. When I turned on the app I could still see through the camera, and after hesitating a while I flew it for a few seconds just to test it. But I'm a bit uneasy that I couldn't see it mentioned under wifi. Every drone I've ever had (equipped with camera) would show up under wifi. And I could be remembering incorrectly but I thought this one did as well. Doesn't it?

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Addressing #1, I never start the motors and launch until the minimum GPS satellites has been acquired (at least 9 to 10) and home point has been reported by the app. I keep an eye on the number of satellites during the flight such that the count is maintained or increased. If I experience a “compass error” or GPS is lost resulting in ATTI mode (rare), I never activate RTH. In over 2000 flights, never had a problem. However, I rarely manually activate RTH (maybe less than 1% of the time) and do so primarily as a test of system accuracy and reliability.

 

[Chrislaf]

See my post in your other thread.

Best thing to do is get the log file from the phone your brother used and post it here otherwise it is just speculation as to what happened.

Chris

 

[MA2 317]

#2) DJI Care Refresh - Support - DJI

#3) I have strobes on mine and I don't fly BVLOS. I had a tracker on my Spark but never had to use it.

#4) All of my accessories have my contact information attached as well as the drone. Another great place is the SD card itself. Save the information as a text file in a folder. Just don't format the card in the aircraft or you'll lose the file.

#5)

.

 

[JfromMichigan]

MA2 317" data-source="post: 1319609" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

All of my accessories have my contact information attached as well as the drone.

How do you do that? Im scared ( Mod Removed Language)to add anything to mine, in the first place

 

[MA2 317]

How do you do that? Im scared shitless to add anything to mine, in the first place

Little stickers with a cell phone number.

Some people are nice and may return the item.

.

 

[Cobra193]

The best way to avoid issues is to learn to fly without having to depend on automated systems. Automated systems tend to fail or be misunderstood/used. That’s why a lot of people get into trouble if they don’t actually know how to fly without the automation. I don’t even use the various shooting modes like poi etc. I do it all manually because I have 20+ years flying RC planes and helis so it’s easy for me, but to someone without the experience, you need those systems.

So it would be better to practice without them. Practice flying a straight line while yawing and also while tilting camera and even ascending/descending. And don’t ever use RTH unless you’ve lost sight of the drone, and even then, once you regain visual, take back manual control.

Double and triple checking your gps signal and home points will help, but not totally eliminate risk.

Remember, while gps is a very accurate system, we are using consumer level gps satellites. We‘re not using more reliable military stats. How these satellites can glitch causing temporary loss of signal or even bad data. There’s been a number of times when I’ve launched Google maos for directions and the first few seconds I’m showing on the map 50 miles from where I actually was. Then the screen refreshed and showed my correct position.

Noe imagine that happening right when you hit RTH. Drone thinks your home point is one location but is really a different location.

 

[dirkclod]

I lost my drone about a month ago. I finally found it! So that's awesome. But I want to make sure I don't lose it again so trying to proactively get some advice. I did update my last thread with these questions but thought to make a new post about it since it'd be more productive here.

Now the reason I lost it was because I was giving my brother a demo near my apartment building. My previous Holy Stone drone wasn't able to connect to GPS's here so I'll assume this is a poor GPS area. Anyway I flew the drone just fine, but at the end I pressed Home. And rather than returning to me it went in the exact opposite direction.

So.... what can I do to avoid losing it in the future?

1. The problem happened because I pressed the Home button, and rather than coming back to me it went away. Since this crash happened two others have said a similar thing, that they pressed Home and theirs lost control or crashed. And even someone in this forum has said if you don't have a good GPS lock the last thing you want to do is press Home. So the question for future is, how do I know when I can or cannot press Home?

2. I saw a mention of Insurance or DJI Refresh. Never heard of those. What are they?

3. Is there anything else I can do to avoid this from happening? For example I saw someone on Reddit mentioning they put lights on theirs to make it more visible. I also had the idea of putting a Tile on it. Tile is something that is typically attached to a phone. I believe it's bluetooth driven and is only good for 100-200 feet. But that might be good enough. And my GPS wasn't functioning properly when it crashed (it said the drone is across the street when it was much closer) so that may be a good idea. Not to mention once the drone is dead I want to still be able to find it.

4. Has anyone put their contact details on the drone? That may be a good idea. Just not sure how to make it big enough that it be visible yet small enough to get all the important information. eg "IF FOUND PLEASE CONTACT ME AT XXX.XXX.XXXX".

5. I just tried a test flight for the first time since finding it. But when I turned on the drone I couldn't find it anywhere under wifi. Not sure what that's all about. When I turned on the app I could still see through the camera, and after hesitating a while I flew it for a few seconds just to test it. But I'm a bit uneasy that I couldn't see it mentioned under wifi. Every drone I've ever had (equipped with camera) would show up under wifi. And I could be remembering incorrectly but I thought this one did as well. Doesn't it?

Please stay in your original thread. lost my drone though i know it's general area. what are my options?
Thanks.