Mavic P2 - Lost Connection & Lost Drone

[Sportking]

Link just goes to eBay search page.

Sorry about that, I thought I was posting a valid link. Someone has posted the proper link to the same vendor. That's a great deal for 2 sets of labels.

 

[sar104]

There is a bit of redundancy on the AC but none on the RC. Is this a case for a second RC. Or should DJI build a second RF circuit into the RC.

Regards

I don't know. It's not clear whether the problem is with the AC or the RC.

 

[SpinItUp]

When my AC disconnected (because of interference from suburban dwellings) I could still control it but just no video downlink.
The map image shows the AC still out above the field though it was right above me at home when I took the picture of my tablet.
As it was only about 350m away with VLOS (but only visible between houses) it turned out to just be a scare.
The logs stopped just like this 1 with no indication anything was wrong,
Whatever was input into the controller may have crashed it and/or it ran out of juice.

 

[mavicpro1000]

Did you use 'find my drone' in the app? If not why not? Thanks.

 

[toniintc]

Did you use 'find my drone' in the app? If not why not? Thanks.

OP stated in the original post that he in fact tried FMD.

 

[mavicpro1000]

OP stated in the original post that he in fact tried FMD.

You sure? All I read was that he climbed a few roofs! And he thought about looking in the river!!

 

[SpinItUp]

You sure? All I read was that he climbed a few roofs! And the thought about looking in the river!!

we're sure

 

[mavicpro1000]

Ok thanks for that oops. So he TRIED to use fmd but,doesn't say why he couldn't use fmd.? So are we saying that fmd didnt work? For me fmd works 100% I've done hours of tests with it. It's never failed. It puts you within 5 meters of the drone.

 

[msinger]

For me fmd works 100% I've done hours of tests with it. It's never failed. It puts you within 5 meters of the drone.

Find My Drone only shows the last recorded location of the drone. If the drone didn't land (or crash) at that location, it could be much, much further than 5 meters from that point.

 

[esommer11]

Hello all... Happy Saturday... Great read here and I like the idea of a high RTH but I think perhaps set it pre-flight appropriately for where you are flying. 500M is huge but if you're flying around through the Grand Canon, maybe not? I'm all about contingencies and here's one I adopted as a (complete offline for any reason - like this situation) last line of defense. I use a secondary locator system called Marco Polo. It's a micro transceiver mounted to the drone (or a dog) that can be activated from a handheld controller. The mounted micro transceiver receiver works for two weeks straight waiting to be pinged by the handheld to transmit back. So what you would do is backtrack from point of loss with the handheld crisscrossing your best estimate until the handheld picks up the signal. The distance is decent too... I tested it with the transceiver in the house (worst case scenario bad reception) and I still was almost 1/2 mile away obstructed by many houses in a residential neighborhood. The handheld then tells you which way to walk after the micro transceiver wakes up and starts to transmit. I've never used it thankfully but I have it as a fully independent search backup. I bought it after I had a tello fly away lost forever. This thread was all about what to do if, so I thought I'd share if you have a couple hundred extra to spend for a viable backup.

Here's another super important flight REACTIONARY ITEM to keep in mind if you somehow flew too far away to get home. Perhaps flying down high winds too far realizing you're screwed with battery... We all have our drones set to RTH if RC signal loss... Well let's say you find yourself in this situation and you realized it simply can't get home. Land the drone in a safely hidden location and go get it; easy right? But here's a danger point to realize with this... If you start to put down and you lose RC signal, what's going to happen? It's going to RTH which we already know there isn't enough battery to get there. Hence the drone crashes somewhere in between. And if signal was recovered during the RTH attempt after the RC signal loss, you now need to hastily find another place to land while you're still not sure why it's still flying..? So to eliminate all these complications if you decide to emergency land is to change the RC lost signal action to LAND instead of RTH. After finding a place, descend straight down to it, and land. If RC lost signal occurs during this, the drone simple lands correctly where you planned instead of it flying away for home eventually crashing as it runs out of battery.