Mavic refuses to rise from base of waterfall

Porto · Oct 7, 2017

John Gowland said:
In one of his videos he talks about 3 groups,
1. 100% law abiding,
2. Crazy people who do very dangerous and silly things.
3. Those who get so frustrated with restrictions they adapt things while being responsible and safe.
I will never be 2, I have been 1 up until now but I am getting very frustrated.

Yup, can't agree more that we should never be no. 2. No. 1 will vary from countries to countries. In Asia many of the law/regulations regarding drones is in grey areas, very difficult to be 100% law abiding. Maybe it's how they want it to be. As a reporter, you know better than me

John Gowland · Oct 7, 2017

Not a reporter just a teacher. Laws are pretty much ignored here. Traffic is a nightmare. Laws such as height max are a joke. Its kite season and there are hundreds of them some as big as 10 meters and 100s high, city and country. They "tend" to keep away from the airport. Its a drone flyers biggest danger. I have to look for them before flying everywhere I go. I generally keep out of sight, not had one problem. Had to pass a temple once to get to a mountain and they don't like drones near them. Just brought it down and smiles al around. Otherwise like everywhere else just genuine interest and fascination.

Porto · Oct 7, 2017

Correction John, you are a teacher. Not just a teacher

Oingo Boingo · Oct 7, 2017

I've filmed many waterfalls in the Hogsback area of South Africa. 2 things u need to do. Turn off the VPS and the obstacle avoidance

Also how many GPS sats did u have when u flew. U can take off in ATTI mode when u have less than 10 or 7 satellites set, but it could be a problem when trying to navigate back to ur homepoint

Golfnut · Oct 7, 2017

Oingo Boingo said:
I've filmed many waterfalls in the Hogsback area of South Africa. 2 things u need to do. Turn off the VPS and the obstacle avoidance

Also how many GPS sats did u have when u flew. U can take off in ATTI mode when u have less than 10 or 7 satellites set, but it could be a problem when trying to navigate back to ur homepoint

Could you have tried WiFi mode?

John Gowland · Oct 7, 2017

Yes Golfnut, I thought of that a couple of days ago. Yesterday I spent a few hours practicing with wifi and searched this place and other forums about its use with a Mavic.
Now it is a bit flaky, you have to practice a lot with it in preparation. Don't just go out and do it.
It is very different to what you are used to. The latency is very pronounced but it does respond. I got to 45 meters high without a problem. At 50 meters it maxed out and wanted to come home, but used its positioning to land way off target 0.3 meters! Yes a couple of feet. It is not particularly responsive so you have to be patient, very patient. But I reckon I could have done it without too much of a risk. I did not do it in a real situation of a narrow canopy at the bottom of a waterfall. That is the next task.
Always a solution or better still a number of them.

John Gowland · Oct 7, 2017

Oingo that was what was strange. You would have thought it would take off in ATTI mode. And it should have gone high enough to connect to sats. But it didn't it got to a meter and then dropped a half meter below assent start. That is what I could not understand. I have even gone higher in doors with a high ceiling. And it has been very stable just made it hover incase of issues and switched to tripod mode immediately. Flew inside many many times. Even got gps connection on occasion.
When I did take off it was bouncing between 0 and 1connection. It took off with 1 or 2 and as it rose quickly connected to many. After the initial connection I could go up and down at will.
It just needed 2 connections to start.
It did this weird thing at 3 waterfalls. I have never seen it do that before. A meter up, stop, drop, rise a meter, drop, over and over.

John Gowland · Oct 7, 2017

I dont mean to be nasty to anyone just a bit of fun.
I have decided to change my hobby.
I am going to take up basket making. Then when hike up a mountain about to explode millions of tons of lava I can put the basket on my head for protection.

You will have to read the whole thread to get that.
No criticism meant.

John Gowland · Oct 9, 2017

On second thoughts I will stick with this hobby.

This looked OK as 2.7K and even when I exported it as 1080 in imovie.
When I uploaded it to youtube it was horrible.

Also put it in the correct place in Photos and Videos and asked for help there.

John

Mako79 · Oct 9, 2017

DJI has made height restrictions on the Mavic to prevent users from foil blocking the GPS and flying in ATTI mode near airports or restricted zones.
As a by product, when the GPS counts are low, it switch to ATTI and drop altitude to max 30m with OA off and 8m with OA on (correct me if i am wrong).

87sf · Dec 26, 2017

Hey all, thanks for this thread.
Was at a waterfall yesterday and had the same issue. Will play around and see if I can get it up to 30m on ATTI Mode so it connects to GPS.

Just heard from a mate that he had his Mavic over a volcano when it erupted. Electrical interference drained the battery from 75% to 3% in about 30 sec before the screen went blank.