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Mavic mini fly away -20C

Frozen-tires

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Age
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So I was flying my mini on the weekend while on a ski doo trip. The temp was -20 and all of a sudden it just started climbing and I couldn’t recover it. I am not sure what I did wrong other than flying it in the cold which it advised me it didn’t like. I appreciate battery life would be diminished but the lack of control I did not expect. What should I have done differently (other than not fly in the cold).


in the end I never found the thing so now have all the peripheries and no drone :( .Hard lesson to learn but figured I should at least learn Something from it.

Also does anyone actually sell just a drone or do I have to buy a drone and all the peripheries as well.

thanks
 
I am no expert but It appears you lost GPS signal while encountering very strong winds at a high altitude. You would have had to control it fully manually in this situation I believe. Did it drop from the sky or fly away out of range??log-.jpg
 
While I was under control it was only operating at 10-20 m In height. It then started climbing and would not respond to manual commands to lower in height. It just kept rising.

I did watch it drop through the screen and it was doing lazy horizontal spins until it thundered in. The problem was it lost gps so I was unable to find it using the app. We spent hours doing expanding circles but with the snow conditions we couldn’t find it. The app says it was only ever a max distance of 590m away from me before gps loss.
 
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My guess is it was caught in a strong updraft without GPS and basically blew away. That would be a very difficult situation to handle with only manual control.

I do not know what "Exiting GPS mode: Unknown Error" means.

I can't wait for the experts to get here and explain what happened here. Why did it lose GPS? Mountains?
 
My guess is it was caught in a strong updraft without GPS and basically blew away. That would be a very difficult situation to handle with only manual control.

I do not know what "Exiting GPS mode: Unknown Error" means.

I can't wait for the experts to get here and explain what happened here. Why did it lose GPS? Mountains?
There were no mountains, it was flying over a open lake, line of site.
 
So I was flying my mini on the weekend while on a ski doo trip. The temp was -20 and all of a sudden it just started climbing and I couldn’t recover it. I am not sure what I did wrong other than flying it in the cold which it advised me it didn’t like. I appreciate battery life would be diminished but the lack of control I did not expect. What should I have done differently (other than not fly in the cold).

This is an unusual incident and the actual cause of the problems you encountered isn't immediately obvious to me.
Here's what I see in the data.

It looks like there were a few problems affecting this flight.
The first one is obvious from this warning that showed up at the start:
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly.

The drone was showing altitude instability .
At 52 seconds it started climbing with out any throttle input and rose from 37 ft to 60 ft and then started sinking again after these warnings appeared:
Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error. Aircraft max power load reached. Decrease altitude and fly with caution
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly

A little later it starts climbing and descending again without corresponding joystick input.
More warnings followed.

At 139.6 you gave full down throttle and the drone climbed.
A little later, it was ignoring down throttle and climbing and kept climbing.
In RTH, the climbing contnused past your Max altitude limit and the drone was being blown backwards while trying to fly home.
It was failing to hold the proper pitch angle necessary to fly fast and deal with fighting against the wind.

At 301 seconds it started to descend from 1224 ft, without corresponding joystick input.
Shortly after, this message appeared:
Exiting GPS mode: Unknown Error. GPS signal weak. Switched to Attitude mode. Aircraft unable to hover. Fly with caution

The reason for this is a mystery.
The drone is still receiving GPS data from 18 satellites and calculating its position, but the flight controller is rejecting the data.

At 326.8 seconds the drone starts to pitch and roll much more (up to 40 degrees), but not rotating.
The flight controller is alternately rejecting and accepting GPS data again.

At 389 seconds the drone had descended to 505 ft and starts again to climb without joystick input and later, ignoring full down throttle.
It climbs to 984 ft and starts to come down again.

At 509 seconds, a new problem develops and the drone starts to rotate slowly anti-clockwise without rudder input.
The pitch angle increases to 70 degrees and roll to more than 100 degrees.
Data stops with the drone 202 ft higher than the launch point and about 1900 feet away.


The last recorded location was 62.32544 -111.93367 and it's likely that it kept falling and should be somewhere around this point.
i-MW83dDh-L.jpg


The messages about cold are no mystery.
The warnings of Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error, indicate that the props were spinning fast but the drone wasn't getting the performance it should have.
This can be caused by icing of the propellers changing their aerodynamic properties.
Icing occurs in cold and moist conditions.
Uncommanded climbing has been reported several times lately as a result of reflections from snow affecting the obstacle avoidance sensors or misting of the OA sensors.
I can't tell if that happened here.

The GPS dropping in an out is a real mystery and I can only offer a guess that might be completely wrong.
If icing was happening and a thin layer of ice covered the GPS antenna area of teh shell, that might restrict GPS signal enough to cause the flight controller to reject GPS data?
I don't know. What happened with GPS always there but data being alternately rejected/accepted is something I haven't seen before.

The pitch angle data suggests the winds were not particularly strong and the suggestion of a strong updraft taking the drone higher aren't credible.
 
The pitch angle data suggests the winds were not particularly strong and the suggestion of a strong updraft taking the drone higher aren't credible.

My reasoning is that the props must have been icing and the body was sufficiently covered with ice to block GPS signal, leading to a condition where wind took it where it wanted, which happened to be up and down randomly. I felt the ice would have prevented the drone from ascending so quickly by itself.
I am unclear if the pilot commanded the uturn that almost brought it home.

I have no idea how extreme cold affects the electronics on these drones though and never plan to find out.

The OP is a hero for flying in these conditions, that would kill me in under a minute!!
 
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I can't believe no one has said this, so I will: you are flying so far out of the temperature spec for this drone (and I think all the DJI drones) that I'm not sure analyzing the data is the problem (and to your credit you implied that).
 
I can't believe no one has said this, so I will: you are flying so far out of the temperature spec for this drone (and I think all the DJI drones) that I'm not sure analyzing the data is the problem (and to your credit you implied that).
This ^

@Frozen-tires - there no great mystery here. If you’d read the manual, you’d have known the operating temperature is
  • 0° to 40°C (32° to 104°F)
So, that’s where you went wrong.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. Where I live it’s 0 Celsius or colder for 6 months of the year so if I stuck with that I would never use it. In the end it bite me this time. I want to thank Meta4 for figuring out it’s last position. That is not where we were doing the search as it had been drifting West and he located it East of its last position I had.

now I just have to figure out if it’s worth driving 130kms on an ice road and ski doing another 60kms to look again.
 
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...The temp was -20C and all of a sudden it just started climbing and I couldn’t recover it.

I am not sure what I did wrong...
The root cause for this was most probably what most & you have already guessed ... it was way to cold.

According to the forecast at that time & location it was actually more like:

1616875145940.png
The dew point temp compared to the actual temp might hint that it at least was a risk for prop icing up on the highest altitude ... but as you already had "Not enough force" messages just after take-off at ground level those messages most probably were connected with the "Too cold battery temp" messages you got ... the battery couldn't plain & simple deliver as it should.

The wind speed that you eventually ended up in was also over the top for a Mini 1:

1616875336204.png
If looking into the sparse data that Airdata.com provides & focus on the time period from when the AC started to ascend uncommanded until it started to loose height (when ATTI mode started) ...

Below I've compiled some relevant data groups in a chart ...

The barometric height above HP (Blue)

The vertical speed (Grey) (negative values=Ascend, positive values=Descend)

And your throttle commands (Orange) (value 364=full stick descend, value 1024=neutral stick, value 1684=full stick ascend)

(Click on the chart to make it larger)

1616877836917.png

... we immediately see that something isn't as it should. First of all, you mostly held your stick (orange) for descend & neutral ... just one short instance for ascend by mistake... this while the barometric sensor (blue) indicate a constant ascending ...

But during this constant uncommanded ascend, the vertical speed (grey) mostly moves between 0mph to positive speed ... which is the direction for descend.

Later when the flight controller gives up & goes to ATTI mode (from the red line) the AC start to lose height when you command it & the vertical speed agrees with showing a positive value.

All this indicate a failing IMU ... as soon as the ATTI switch happens & the flight controller leaves all over to you the AC start to obey your commands.

My guess is that the reason for the IMU failure, is the way too cold ambient temp.
 
The root cause for this was most probably what most & you have already guessed ... it was way to cold.

According to the forecast at that time & location it was actually more like:

View attachment 126332
The dew point temp compared to the actual temp might hint that it at least was a risk for prop icing up on the highest altitude ... but as you already had "Not enough force" messages just after take-off at ground level those messages most probably were connected with the "Too cold battery temp" messages you got ... the battery couldn't plain & simple deliver as it should.

The wind speed that you eventually ended up in was also over the top for a Mini 1:

View attachment 126333
If looking into the sparse data that Airdata.com provides & focus on the time period from when the AC started to ascend uncommanded until it started to loose height (when ATTI mode started) ...

Below I've compiled some relevant data groups in a chart ...

The barometric height above HP (Blue)

The vertical speed (Grey) (negative values=Ascend, positive values=Descend)

And your throttle commands (Orange) (value 364=full stick descend, value 1024=neutral stick, value 1684=full stick ascend)

(Click on the chart to make it larger)

View attachment 126335

... we immediately see that something isn't as it should. First of all, you mostly held your stick (orange) for descend & neutral ... just one short instance for ascend by mistake... this while the barometric sensor (blue) indicate a constant ascending ...

But during this constant uncommanded ascend, the vertical speed (grey) mostly moves between 0mph to positive speed ... which is the direction for descend.

Later when the flight controller gives up & goes to ATTI mode (from the red line) the AC start to lose height when you command it & the vertical speed agrees with showing a positive value.

All this indicate a failing IMU ... as soon as the ATTI switch happens & the flight controller leaves all over to you the AC start to obey your commands.

My guess is that the reason for the IMU failure, is the way too cold ambient temp.
I have to say what you guys can pull together in 19 hours after posting this is impressive!
 
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So I was flying my mini on the weekend while on a ski doo trip. The temp was -20 and all of a sudden it just started climbing and I couldn’t recover it. I am not sure what I did wrong other than flying it in the cold which it advised me it didn’t like. I appreciate battery life would be diminished but the lack of control I did not expect. What should I have done differently (other than not fly in the cold).


in the end I never found the thing so now have all the peripheries and no drone :( .Hard lesson to learn but figured I should at least learn Something from it.

Also does anyone actually sell just a drone or do I have to buy a drone and all the peripheries as well.

thanks
I just purchased a mavic mini for 300$ on amazon. You get the drone only, I just got mine yesterday and paired it to my old controller an hour ago.
 
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This is an unusual incident and the actual cause of the problems you encountered isn't immediately obvious to me.
Here's what I see in the data.

It looks like there were a few problems affecting this flight.
The first one is obvious from this warning that showed up at the start:
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly.

The drone was showing altitude instability .
At 52 seconds it started climbing with out any throttle input and rose from 37 ft to 60 ft and then started sinking again after these warnings appeared:
Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error. Aircraft max power load reached. Decrease altitude and fly with caution
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly

A little later it starts climbing and descending again without corresponding joystick input.
More warnings followed.

At 139.6 you gave full down throttle and the drone climbed.
A little later, it was ignoring down throttle and climbing and kept climbing.
In RTH, the climbing contnused past your Max altitude limit and the drone was being blown backwards while trying to fly home.
It was failing to hold the proper pitch angle necessary to fly fast and deal with fighting against the wind.

At 301 seconds it started to descend from 1224 ft, without corresponding joystick input.
Shortly after, this message appeared:
Exiting GPS mode: Unknown Error. GPS signal weak. Switched to Attitude mode. Aircraft unable to hover. Fly with caution

The reason for this is a mystery.
The drone is still receiving GPS data from 18 satellites and calculating its position, but the flight controller is rejecting the data.

At 326.8 seconds the drone starts to pitch and roll much more (up to 40 degrees), but not rotating.
The flight controller is alternately rejecting and accepting GPS data again.

At 389 seconds the drone had descended to 505 ft and starts again to climb without joystick input and later, ignoring full down throttle.
It climbs to 984 ft and starts to come down again.

At 509 seconds, a new problem develops and the drone starts to rotate slowly anti-clockwise without rudder input.
The pitch angle increases to 70 degrees and roll to more than 100 degrees.
Data stops with the drone 202 ft higher than the launch point and about 1900 feet away.


The last recorded location was 62.32544 -111.93367 and it's likely that it kept falling and should be somewhere around this point.
i-MW83dDh-L.jpg


The messages about cold are no mystery.
The warnings of Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error, indicate that the props were spinning fast but the drone wasn't getting the performance it should have.
This can be caused by icing of the propellers changing their aerodynamic properties.
Icing occurs in cold and moist conditions.
Uncommanded climbing has been reported several times lately as a result of reflections from snow affecting the obstacle avoidance sensors or misting of the OA sensors.
I can't tell if that happened here.

The GPS dropping in an out is a real mystery and I can only offer a guess that might be completely wrong.
If icing was happening and a thin layer of ice covered the GPS antenna area of teh shell, that might restrict GPS signal enough to cause the flight controller to reject GPS data?
I don't know. What happened with GPS always there but data being alternately rejected/accepted is something I haven't seen before.

The pitch angle data suggests the winds were not particularly strong and the suggestion of a strong updraft taking the drone higher aren't credible.
0
This is an unusual incident and the actual cause of the problems you encountered isn't immediately obvious to me.
Here's what I see in the data.

It looks like there were a few problems affecting this flight.
The first one is obvious from this warning that showed up at the start:
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly.

The drone was showing altitude instability .
At 52 seconds it started climbing with out any throttle input and rose from 37 ft to 60 ft and then started sinking again after these warnings appeared:
Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error. Aircraft max power load reached. Decrease altitude and fly with caution
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly

A little later it starts climbing and descending again without corresponding joystick input.
More warnings followed.

At 139.6 you gave full down throttle and the drone climbed.
A little later, it was ignoring down throttle and climbing and kept climbing.
In RTH, the climbing contnused past your Max altitude limit and the drone was being blown backwards while trying to fly home.
It was failing to hold the proper pitch angle necessary to fly fast and deal with fighting against the wind.

At 301 seconds it started to descend from 1224 ft, without corresponding joystick input.
Shortly after, this message appeared:
Exiting GPS mode: Unknown Error. GPS signal weak. Switched to Attitude mode. Aircraft unable to hover. Fly with caution

The reason for this is a mystery.
The drone is still receiving GPS data from 18 satellites and calculating its position, but the flight controller is rejecting the data.

At 326.8 seconds the drone starts to pitch and roll much more (up to 40 degrees), but not rotating.
The flight controller is alternately rejecting and accepting GPS data again.

At 389 seconds the drone had descended to 505 ft and starts again to climb without joystick input and later, ignoring full down throttle.
It climbs to 984 ft and starts to come down again.

At 509 seconds, a new problem develops and the drone starts to rotate slowly anti-clockwise without rudder input.
The pitch angle increases to 70 degrees and roll to more than 100 degrees.
Data stops with the drone 202 ft higher


The last recorded location was 62.32544 -111.93367 and it's likely that it
I don't know. What happened with GPS always there but data being alternately rejected/accepted is something I haven't seen before.
This is an unusual incident and the actual cause of the problems you encountered isn't immediately obvious to me.
Here's what I see in the data.

It looks like there were a few problems affecting this flight.
The first one is obvious from this warning that showed up at the start:
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly.

The drone was showing altitude instability .
At 52 seconds it started climbing with out any throttle input and rose from 37 ft to 60 ft and then started sinking again after these warnings appeared:
Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error. Aircraft max power load reached. Decrease altitude and fly with caution
Aircraft temperature too low. Power errors may occur. Return to home promptly

A little later it starts climbing and descending again without corresponding joystick input.
More warnings followed.

At 139.6 you gave full down throttle and the drone climbed.
A little later, it was ignoring down throttle and climbing and kept climbing.
In RTH, the climbing contnused past your Max altitude limit and the drone was being blown backwards while trying to fly home.
It was failing to hold the proper pitch angle necessary to fly fast and deal with fighting against the wind.

At 301 seconds it started to descend from 1224 ft, without corresponding joystick input.
Shortly after, this message appeared:
Exiting GPS mode: Unknown Error. GPS signal weak. Switched to Attitude mode. Aircraft unable to hover. Fly with caution

The reason for this is a mystery.
The drone is still receiving GPS data from 18 satellites and calculating its position, but the flight controller is rejecting the data.

At 326.8 seconds the drone starts to pitch and roll much more (up to 40 degrees), but not rotating.
The flight controller is alternately rejecting and accepting GPS data again.

At 389 seconds the drone had descended to 505 ft and starts again to climb without joystick input and later, ignoring full down throttle.
It climbs to 984 ft and starts to come down again.

At 509 seconds, a new problem develops and the drone starts to rotate slowly anti-clockwise without rudder input.
The pitch angle increases to 70 degrees and roll to more than 100 degrees.
Data stops with the drone 202 ft higher than the launch point and about 1900 feet away.


The last recorded location was 62.32544 -111.93367 and it's likely that it kept falling and should be somewhere around this point.
i-MW83dDh-L.jpg


The messages about cold are no mystery.
The warnings of Max power load reached. Fly with caution Not Enough Force/ESC Error, indicate that the props were spinning fast but the drone wasn't getting the performance it should have.
This can be caused by icing of the propellers changing their aerodynamic properties.
Icing occurs in cold and moist conditions.
Uncommanded climbing has been reported several times lately as a result of reflections from snow affecting the obstacle avoidance sensors or misting of the OA sensors.
I can't tell if that happened here.

The GPS dropping in an out is a real mystery and I can only offer a guess that might be completely wrong.
If icing was happening and a thin layer of ice covered the GPS antenna area of teh shell, that might restrict GPS signal enough to cause the flight controller to reject GPS data?
I don't know. What happened with GPS always there but data being alternately rejected/accepted is something I haven't seen before.

The pitch angle data suggests the winds were not particularly strong and the suggestion of a strong updraft taking the drone higher aren't credible.
I live in Australia, and in the last three days, I have had UAVForcast app warn me of solar storm/cosmic radiation type interference. Could the GPS be glitched periodically from this sort of thing, and then the Flight controller attempts and fails a sanity check with the GPS data, hence rejecting it and the aircraft going rogue?

Also.. does the flight controller rely 100% on barometer for altitude data or does it blend that with less accurate gps estimates too?
 
Also.. does the flight controller rely 100% on barometer for altitude data or does it blend that with less accurate gps estimates too?
DJI drones get their altitude data from the barometric sensor.
 
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