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Mavic Mini seems to have a lot of issues to work out.

Knight4444

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Joined
Jan 9, 2020
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Age
35
Location
cape cod, MA
Hey all, just had my mini for over a month now. have put about 25km on her so far and 2.5 hours flight time. My history is phantom 3, 4 pro (recently sold) and now the mini. Something very curious happened the other day and almost lost the drone. waited till all gps was locked on, usually I wait until I have at least 15 satellites. Wind was maybe 10mph, not bad and I've flown in much much worse with the little mini. Flew about 200' in distance and then suddenly I went to return home in sport mode and forward inputs resulted in sideways travel and then backwards travel. I immediately hovered to about 40' of height and was just hovering over someone's roof. I charged through a few neighbors yard and got right under the mini. It would fly away from me further but would not return towards the home point (wind was not the issue). I was fortunate to have been able to land in their outdoor shower. I knocked on their door before retrieval out of respect.


I have been getting 'max power load reached' warnings recently so everything including ICU and compass was re-calibrated outside on a large wooden table that I've used to calibrate all my drones. Here is what I was able to find when viewing my flight logs. When traveling forward looking on the mini map, there is a green cursor in front of the aircraft on normal flights. This flight that cursor was moving all around the aircraft. Any ideas? I've brought this drone over the bay many times at my house going 2-3000' out, this has destroyed all confidence in this thing. updated firm ware and all is good. Tried a little flight yesterday and all was well then I noticed while I was flying forwards the aircraft was not going perfectly straight but was curving to the right I believe. I immediately brought her home and all good. any thoughts on what could be wrong?
 
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any thoughts on what could be wrong?
First, welcome aboard. I too have been flying Phantoms for years. To answer you question we will need to see the flight log from a flight that exhibits the issue. You can upload the mini .txt log here: DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Share a link back to the uploaded file. Alternatively if you are synced with Airdata you can share the link to that.
 
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this was about the time where it was really bad, full speed forward and it just was not reacting. Almost like my rates where turned way down.
 
I just don't believe wind to have been the issue here. When I was under it, it would sit just fine locked in to gps. Then with any forward thumb input it would retreat from the home point. I was right there watching it. It wasn't responding what so ever to anything. It was not even trying to apply ailerons when I was giving those inputs. Even if it was fighting the wind you would still see one side of the quad drop.
 
also if you look on there, the wind direction was blowing TO the home point which should have helped in this instance, that wasn't the case. The quad was unable to come towards me going with the wind.
 
It';s always possible.

I'm very new and could be wrong.

Just looking at the wind profile it looks like pretty strong winds for the mini.
 
@Knight4444 ...In looking at this data, it does appear that it "could" be a wind issue, but I am not convinced of that fact a of yet.
Can you supply the mobile .dat for this flight? It should be in the MCDatFlightRecords folder. You will be looking for FLY034.DAT.
You can upload that directly here.
 
This is what the flight looks to me.

You started and went straight up to about 400 ft
At about 1:17 you started getting blown backwards with zero stick input.
AVG wind speed at this altitude was 23 MPH.
You turned the aircraft around and gave forward input and it was still blowing you ackwards at about 3 MPH.
You then started lowering your altitude down to 200 ft (20 MPH wind)
You turned the craft towards you again and gave forward input. It was still blowing you backwards at about 5 MPH.
You lowered another 50 feet and it continued to blow you backwards (23.62 MPH wind).
This pattern continued until you got down under 100 ft and it was over the house. The wind speed dropped to 15 MPH average at this height.

All of the flight that happened over 100 ft AGL was above the published limits for a Mavic Mini.

I really feel like this was a wind issue.
 
ok I'll be back in the office in a little bit and will do just that. I have extended time flying rc planes, 3d helicopters, this is probably my 15th drone of some sort. It just was not responding. Forward direction was making it go backwards, side ways flight. I was watching it right there at 40ft. It would not fly any closer to me and wasn't even trying. That being said at no time ever in this flight or any flight i've had with the mini was it unable to keep its lat/longitude and was always locked in at hovering from where it should. I was flying and then it just stopped responding all together.
 
This is what the flight looks to me.

You started and went straight up to about 400 ft
At about 1:17 you started getting blown backwards with zero stick input.
AVG wind speed at this altitude was 23 MPH.
You turned the aircraft around and gave forward input and it was still blowing you ackwards at about 3 MPH.
You then started lowering your altitude down to 200 ft (20 MPH wind)
You turned the craft towards you again and gave forward input. It was still blowing you backwards at about 5 MPH.
You lowered another 50 feet and it continued to blow you backwards (23.62 MPH wind).
This pattern continued until you got down under 100 ft and it was over the house. The wind speed dropped to 15 MPH average at this height.

All of the flight that happened over 100 ft AGL was above the published limits for a Mavic Mini.

I really feel like this was a wind issue.


I think just about everyone has had zero issues with the mini at 15 mph wind. I was watching in disbelief as it was just not responding to any input. I have enough time in this hobby to 100% know that the wind was not the culprit at this particular altitude. Sure maybe at 400', then maybe at 200', but once I was around 40' the wind was well below what the mini's top speed is.
 
Even when I was landing the aircraft I had zero ability to fly forward at all. Even at 10' off the ground forward flight was muted. All inputs (elevator, ailerons) were totally muted like my rates just got cut by 80%
 
I agree from looking at the stats and wind profiles that this looks to by a wind related issue. Its just that once I was landing it was totally unable to do anything even when there were momentary pauses in wind all together.
 
Sport mode is whacky with the Mini. I don't use it unless I really have a reason to.
 
I agree from looking at the stats and wind profiles that this looks to by a wind related issue. Its just that once I was landing it was totally unable to do anything even when there were momentary pauses in wind all together.
I think we need the .DAT to shed some light over this event, please attach the file here as @Fly Dawg proposed earlier
 
Generally hard to find a longer time in this flight with some consistent stick commands ... a lot of somewhat erratic rudder commands mixed with others from the right stick. The longer straighter stretch down to the road were the Mini eventually landed consists of minus elevator input in the wind direction (Mini accelerate backwards away from HP) together with a down link interruption (no data in the log).

So left to look at is smaller time windows were we can find a consistent behavior. Just looking at those periods when no stick inputs are given & the Mini only slightly drifts show a big variation in the tilt inclination ... from 15 to 0 degrees. This could indicate strong gusty winds, strong as the mini still slightly drifts backwards, this as low as to 18 meters height.

No where comes the Mini near the specified tilt angle of 30 degrees it should manage in Sport mode ... so again, the .DAT file would be valuable to see the power & rpm's for the different props. Wouldn't be surprised if it again turns out that the engines is maxed out as we have seen before ... therefore not able to increase the tilt angle to 30 degrees.
 
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