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Mavic Mini aircraft interference then dissapeard

SteCee

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Hi, hope sometime can help.

I used the Mavic Mini for the first time yesterday (25th Dec) after reading and looking over many docs and literature.

I set up and used in wide are (local park) without issues for around 2 full charges around what is believed to be 10m high and well within range. Both times returned to home.

On the third flight, full charge on battery and remote things went strange, Aircraft interference was retorted, channels and drone became uncontrollable, the drone lost brief connection then took its own course including height.

The drone proceeded to cross a further park with no return to home available, it had risen above trees and lost contact. The GPS last location pinpointed the location on Google Maps and out side a garden, all sorounding areas including trees were also checked.

I have the flight details on maps. I believe the Done had 20 percent battery and I followed the route by foot. It has shows as I was right on the last spot.

Can someone please advise if its possible to move from this zone after leaving the GPS stored. Its nowhere to been seen, trees, bushes, garden or police stations. I assumed that the ruturn home worked as it did prevously but not in this occasion.

Does anyone have any idea on exact gps before battery loss without the controller.

Any questions please ask

Regards and thanks in advance
Stephen
 
Hi, hope sometime can help.

I used the Mavic Mini for the first time yesterday (25th Dec) after reading and looking over many docs and literature.

I set up and used in wide are (local park) without issues for around 2 full charges around what is believed to be 10m high and well within range. Both times returned to home.

On the third flight, full charge on battery and remote things went strange, Aircraft interference was retorted, channels and drone became uncontrollable, the drone lost brief connection then took its own course including height.

The drone proceeded to cross a further park with no return to home available, it had risen above trees and lost contact. The GPS last location pinpointed the location on Google Maps and out side a garden, all sorounding areas including trees were also checked.

I have the flight details on maps. I believe the Done had 20 percent battery and I followed the route by foot. It has shows as I was right on the last spot.

Can someone please advise if its possible to move from this zone after leaving the GPS stored. Its nowhere to been seen, trees, bushes, garden or police stations. I assumed that the ruturn home worked as it did prevously but not in this occasion.

Does anyone have any idea on exact gps before battery loss without the controller.

Any questions please ask




Regards and thanks in advance
Stephen
Hi,
I have checked again over the last few days, and to last GPS location on the dot. Chapped doors checked surrounding areas and nothing to be found. I would expext for the drone to land as it eventually losses power, what concerns me as to why its is not at the location shown.

A small CR2032 battery with intermittent Gps signal works be great even after loss of power.

Any comments appreciated. I've flown remote Helicopters without lost or screen so this is rather frustrating.

Regards

Regards

Stephen
 
Radio interference is usually a real issue, not hardware related. All DJI drones use WiFi as a base frequency range whether occupancy or lightbridge. The result is interference from any and all WiFi signals between the drone and controller. Radio signal strength declines as the square of the distance from the source, so that a 2x distance results in a signal that has lost 75% of it’s strength.

The strongest signal at a given point in space will try to dominate all others.
 
Thanks Kilrah. Will the drone continue to fly random, continue on that trajectory, or attepmt to land with 20 percent remaining.
Radio interference is usually a real issue, not hardware related. All DJI drones use WiFi as a base frequency range whether occupancy or lightbridge. The result is interference from any and all WiFi signals between the drone and controller. Radio signal strength declines as the square of the distance from the source, so that a 2x distance results in a signal that has lost 75% of it’s strength.

The strongest signal at a given point in space will try to dominate all others.
Thanks Dave. I think the mini 2 may have been better as i belive this uses different communication?

I'm just a bit miffed why the drone moved from a local open area, the aircraft interference then went off on its own. I have the recording of the flight, if there any further data that may help?
 
Will the drone continue to fly random, continue on that trajectory, or attepmt to land with 20 percent remaining.
If it loses connection to the controller it will come back home unless you changed the default settings or something like high winds or a navigation/GPS/compass issue prevents it from doing so. If it runs out of battery on the way it'll land where it is at that point.

think the mini 2 may have been better as i belive this uses different communication?
Yes communication on the mini2 is way better.
 
All DJI drone types use wifi radio frequencies. They encode their messages differently in attempts to extend range (Occusync, Lightbridge, etc) They still are all running at WiFi frequencies and subject to all of the same basic radio wave interference.
 
Logs might help, as the drone should have remained motionless unless it lost connection with the gps satellites and shifted into ATTI mode, where there is no attempt to maintain location, and the drone drifts with the wind.
 
Logs might help, as the drone should have remained motionless unless it lost connection with the gps satellites and shifted into ATTI mode, where there is no attempt to maintain location, and the drone drifts with the wind.
Thanks again to all. I searched for several hours today and tonight so i guess it's now gone for good. I covered the area it appeared to travel which is listed on my phone on the DJI app. If only they have a small CR2032 or smaller battery that could transmit GPS to the website or via DJI app.

Gutted as it was the first drone away from small helicopters. I read up on it and got the full pack, Extra batteries, case etc. Maybe i shouldn't have added the protection onto the drone props. Will DJI know what went wrong if i sent them the flight path details?, i dont see raw logs. All your advice is much appreciated. I will definitely have to save for another or pay more for the mini 2, will the accessories such as batteries and charger work with the mini 2, i don't think the controller will.

Thanks and regards

Stephen
 
 
A CR2032 wouldn't have the energy to transmit.
But even with the main battery you lost signal. A smaller battery won't improve that.

SAR is pretty good at analyzing logs and predicting where an AC might have landed. It depends though on how much flight time it had left before it lost contact.
 
Thanks DanMan32

What a fantastic detailed explanation and a great read. Thanks for taking the time to write this up and answer the question. I have seen many help out with issues and this explains a lot.

I had my son put a post of Facebook and someone replied to say he had heard of 3 going missing in this way on the same day. The area was wide open so i have absolutely no idea what went wrong and the return to home failed to work. Even though it worked previously.
 
Thanks again all.

I have uploaded the log. If anyone has the time to view this and give me your thoughts it would be much appreciated.

Unresponsive and failed to return to home, its been 15 days of searching, don't even know if the drone would follow the trajectory or stop at the point of lost signal. No where to be found though.

Thanks and regards
 

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