Mavic P2 - Lost Connection & Lost Drone

sar104 · Sep 17, 2018

SpinItUp said:
no
set RTH @30m not 150

It doesn't matter what RTH is set to if the aircraft is already higher. It won't descend until landing.

SpinItUp · Sep 17, 2018

well there you go

now how about you sharing the software that loads all the info you get (hmm thought not!)

anyway the perspectives

SpinItUp · Sep 17, 2018

looks like you tried to gain alt' again near the last shown coordinate but it vanished after a short plateau heading towards NW direction or the initial spot of where the RTH kicked in.

Snowstorm · Sep 17, 2018

This is very puzzling, RTH at that distance and battery should not be a big deal. 3km our at 150m with light to moderate wind at 50% is cutting it close but not that close. It should have at least made it real close back. There must have been some sort of malfunction for it to vanish like that.

Do you have another quad? Try to get closer and fly the path back, it may help you find your quad.

Was home point properly set?

Meta4 · Sep 17, 2018

Snowstorm said:
Was home point properly set?

Of course it was set properly, the Mavic does that automatically as soon as it gets a GPS position fix.
And it's clearly shown in his flight data.

mjvthomas · Sep 17, 2018

Snowstorm said:
This is very puzzling, RTH at that distance and battery should not be a big deal. 3km our at 150m with light to moderate wind at 50% is cutting it close but not that close. It should have at least made it real close back. There must have been some sort of malfunction for it to vanish like that.

Do you have another quad? Try to get closer and fly the path back, it may help you find your quad.

Was home point properly set?

I just picked up another drone to try and track it down. I’ll setup to fly tomorrow at the last location shown.

Yes the home was set prior to me going anywhere.

sar104 · Sep 17, 2018

SpinItUp said:
well there you go

now how about you sharing the software that loads all the info you get (hmm thought not!)

anyway the perspectives

Were you replying to me? If so then it's not my software - the txt logs are converted with the TXTlogToCSVtool and the DAT files are converted using DatCon. Even the briefest of Google searches would have found those.

SpinItUp · Sep 18, 2018

sar104 said:
Were you replying to me? If so then it's not my software - the txt logs are converted with the TXTlogToCSVtool and the DAT files are converted using DatCon. Even the briefest of Google searches would have found those.

thanks...both platforms I don't use! oh well.
Yes sorry my briefs were without a belt yesterday

...EDIT: oh wait, DatCon is an offline app. It is installed on your PC, Mac, or Linux system and then run locally.
Thanks sar and it works on my Linux box

SteveCA · Sep 18, 2018

sorry for your loss. I know some folks will cry foul but I learned the hard way regarding signal loss and now have my RTH set to 500m. That way, if you lose signal, your bird will elevate and you will regain signal at which point you can stop the ascent and regain control of your bird.

mjvthomas · Sep 18, 2018

SteveCA said:
sorry for your loss. I know some folks will cry foul but I learned the hard way regarding signal loss and now have my RTH set to 500m. That way, if you lose signal, your bird will elevate and you will regain signal at which point you can stop the ascent and regain control of your bird.

Interesting point, have you ever had to use it after losing signal? Does it climb to the altitude once it hasnt been able to reastablish?

SteveCA · Sep 18, 2018

mjvthomas said:
Interesting point, have you ever had to use it after losing signal? Does it climb to the altitude once it hasnt been able to reastablish?

it kicked in only one time in 500+ flights. I flew behind a very tall cliff, and lost signal. The drone elevated about 100 feet at which point I got line of sight and signal reestablished. I pulled down on the left stick to stop the ascent and took control of the drone. It would have been a total loss except for my max RTH settings.

Mossiback · Sep 18, 2018

mjvthomas said:
...According to the rep I spoke with at DJI if they find that it was a drone malufuction they would replace the drone through the Care Refresh program...

If it was a drone malfunction it should be replaced under warranty, not Care Refresh.

Mitch · Sep 18, 2018

SteveCA said:
sorry for your loss. I know some folks will cry foul but I learned the hard way regarding signal loss and now have my RTH set to 500m. That way, if you lose signal, your bird will elevate and you will regain signal at which point you can stop the ascent and regain control of your bird.

Set RTH to 500m? Roughly 1500 feet? Wow

SteveCA · Sep 18, 2018

Mitch said:
Set RTH to 500m? Roughly 1500 feet? Wow

1640 feet to be exact. And no I do not allow it to go to the maximum height. This is a fail safe so that I can reestablish connection and then take manual control. You will always regain signal long before your drone goes anywhere near the max setting. Regaining control is always better than the alternative where the drone sits and hovers until it runs out of batteries and then crashes down on something.

SteveCA · Sep 18, 2018

I should also point out that I never use RTH. I always fly manually home. My settings are simply to be a fail safe.

sar104 · Sep 18, 2018

SteveCA said:
1640 feet to be exact. And no I do not allow it to go to the maximum height. This is a fail safe so that I can reestablish connection and then take manual control. You will always regain signal long before your drone goes anywhere near the max setting. Regaining control is always better than the alternative where the drone sits and hovers until it runs out of batteries and then crashes down on something.

Whether you regain control depends on why it lost uplink to begin with. If it were a problem with the RC, which is not uncommon, then you may not get it back, and then you have just sent your drone to 500 m with no control.

Mossiback · Sep 18, 2018

SteveCA said:
I should also point out that I never use RTH. I always fly manually home. My settings are simply to be a fail safe.

A downside to that 500m setting is that if you cannot regain control it will use more battery than needed to clear obstacles and it may rise up to stronger winds that it won't be able to fight.

WilliamG · Sep 18, 2018

500m RTH height is insane. The winds at at that elevation can be brutal, and yes - it will burn so much battery getting there, too.

SteveCA · Sep 18, 2018

I’m pretty sure none of you can find a single verifiable instance of the controller losing “uplink” on a Mavic with Occusinc, with direct line of sight except under wifi interference which would clear when the drone elevates. Until then I will continue to keep my RTH set at the max

I am not suggesting that you do the same as ymmv

sar104 · Sep 18, 2018

SteveCA said:
I’m pretty sure none of you can find a single verifiable instance of the controller losing “uplink” on a Mavic with Occusinc, with direct line of sight except under wifi interference which would clear when the drone elevates. Until then I will continue to keep my RTH set at the max

I am not suggesting that you do the same as ymmv

It depends precisely what you mean by verifiable. There are plenty of cases reported on this forum where the aircraft, in clear line of sight, has entered failsafe RTH and not responded to control. You can question exactly what caused that but, from an outcome perspective, it makes little difference.