Mini 2 jumps into "Atti mode" by itself- Not fun

[Skybuyer]

As I was doing some control tests indoors in the C mode (of Mini 2) and just trying to get a feel for fine control at very slow speeds, I was in the bedroom and got an unexpected surprise. In mid flight, without changing anything the DJI Voice (what should we call her?) announces suddenly "Atti mode". I'm not sure what "mode" I was flying in before, but I had minimal if any GPS sats locked in and was warned "fly with caution" when I launched.

I don't think I was flying with GPS indoors, but right after Atti mode kicked in the Mini 2 became virtually uncontrollable. I was over an open area of carpet and couldn't get it to land straight down. I had no fine control and very little gross control even and ultimately after several seconds of wrestling with the controls got it onto the ground (carpet). Totally out of control. It came very close to crashing into walls and/or furniture.

So a few questions...

1) If I'm not locked into GPS, what mode was my Mini 2 flying in before the "Atti mode" announcement?
2) What do I have to know about flying in Atti mode?
3) What might have caused it to spontaenously kick into an uncontrollable mode.
4) Do I have to have a different mindset to fly in Atti mode?
5) Am I able to manually put it in Atti mode?

Even after months of flying there is so much to learn. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[slup]

So a few questions...

1) If I'm not locked into GPS, what mode was my Mini 2 flying in before the "Atti mode" announcement?
2) What do I have to know about flying in Atti mode?
3) What might have caused it to spontaenously kick into an uncontrollable mode.
4) Do I have to have a different mindset to fly in Atti mode?
5) Am I able to manually put it in Atti mode?

All practice exercise is best carried out outdoors ... there you have plenty of space & mostly full view of the sky which usually means no problem to have sufficient satellites locked in. Navigating in tight spaces around delicate things indoors + without proper understanding of how things work usually means disaster.

1: You probably were in opti mode, meaning the VPS sensors could lock to the ground pattern & by that stabilize the drone.

2: The drone goes into Atti mode when both the VPS sensors can't get a proper lock on the ground (either due to not enough light or to far from ground) ... together with not enough satellites locked. This isn't a mode you can chose by yourself ... it's a consequence of that the flight controller consider the GPS position (or lack of...) unreliable and no VPS sensor lock. When it happens the drone is only stabilized in height but not horizontally ... it will not hold position, drift with the wind or earlier momentum until you break it by giving carefully reverting stick commands.

3: Most probably it was to dark ... or the ground was without a proper pattern ... or to reflective, this lead to that you lost the only thing that stabilized your drone horizontally --> Atti mode. It is equal controllable as all other modes ... but if you never have experienced this unaided mode it can feel like it's uncontrollable.

4: Yes ... as described in point 2, careful stick commands & you have to break yourself, it's not enough to just center the sticks.

5: The Mini 2 can't be put in Atti mode manually without in some way shielding the GPS unit in the drone & blocking the VPS sensors ... it isn't a button for it.

 

[Meta4]

2) What do I have to know about flying in Atti mode?

Your drone doesn't so much "go into" Atti Mode.
It's more like Atti Mode is all that's left when there's insufficient GPS and the VPS sensors aren't able to provide horizontal position holding.
It's completely controllable but confusing if you haven't experienced it before.
The drone won't stop when you centre the sticks, but will continue sliding through the air, like driving on ice with no brakes.
Gentle joystick inputs are required, full stick joystick input can be dangerous if there are obstacles nearby.
It will hold altitude.
It's no problem outdoors in the open but risky near obstacles.
But on your drone, you won't ever experience it out in the open unless something's gone quite wrong.

 

[old man mavic]

@vindibona1 if you really must fly indoors not really a good idea ,then put the prop guards on ,at least that way ,you will minimise the chances of damage to yourself, your home, and the drone ,and also make sure that you have the return to home set at hover ,that way it wont try and drill through the ceiling if it looses signal from the RC

 

[EyesWideShut]

@slup and @Meta4, well explained answer. To add, I may be mistaken, but I sometimes think as it gains and loses satellites and visual lock, it electronically bounces back and forth between Atti and VPS modes. If it locks on GPS it may jump horizontal position a few feet (or more) possibly making it more difficult to anticipate and control. Another reason to put on the prop cage when indoors, especially in low light.

Litchi (a 3rd party app for the Mini) allows you to turn on/off the VPS sensors and landing proximity sensor. Wish it had the same option to turn on/off the GPS rather than using foil. If you do turn off the VPS and also the Proximity sensors, it's important to turn them back on. Took me a while once when outside using the DJI FLY app at about 8 feet it wasn't holding it's position. Finally figured it out that I had to get out of FLY and go into Litchi and turn the sensors back on.

 

[Tony McDrone]

When flying indoors only...you won’t need to reset the RTH unless you are flying more than 20m away from the homepoint. If you hit the the RTH button the app will just ask you if want to land, it will not rise to your preset RTH altitude.

 

[old man mavic]

i like to have a back up just in case

 

[Meta4]

People confuse RTH with selecting Loss of Signal options.
The only thing you can set for RTH is the RTH height.

 

[spsphotos]

ATTI mode is a pain to master. I have a small Parrot drone, no GPS or VPS. Always running into ceiling, walls, pretty much anything. THe controls are on the phone and very sensitive.

I just bought the prop guards for the mini 2 so I can fly indoors.

 

[Kilrah]

I always change one of the switch positions of my DJI aircraft to be ATTI mode and find it very stupid that hasn't been a normally accessible feature in DJI aircraft since the Mavic.

It should be accessible so that people can train flying in ATTI and know how that works before the day their aircraft falls back to it unexpectedly and they have no idea how to continue flying it.

And it's a safety feature as it's a way out of "flyaways" caused by navigation errors. Plus it's even useful for some shots, and it's convenient to measure wind speed and direction at various heights

 

[Skybuyer]

Your drone doesn't so much "go into" Atti Mode.
It's more like Atti Mode is all that's left when there's insufficient GPS and the VPS sensors aren't able to provide horizontal position holding.
It's completely controllable but confusing if you haven't experienced it before.
The drone won't stop when you centre the sticks, but will continue sliding through the air, like driving on ice with no brakes.
Gentle joystick inputs are required, full stick joystick input can be dangerous if there are obstacles nearby.
It will hold altitude.
It's no problem outdoors in the open but risky near obstacles.
But on your drone, you won't ever experience it out in the open unless something's gone quite wrong.

Interesting. If there is only GPS and Atti, and I had no GPS signals before, what kept is relatively stable and under control before the "announcment"? I though I was already IN atti mode????!!!! But you're right. It's like driving on ice with no brakes. I actually have experienced that in the DJI simulator which I can access with my M2 controller. GENTLE joy stick commands is an understatement. I mean, if I just breathe on them I get far more response than I want. Better outdoors for sure, but there seems to be little reason to fly atti outside.

 

[Skybuyer]

I always change one of the switch positions of my DJI aircraft to be ATTI mode and find it very stupid that hasn't been a normally accessible feature in DJI aircraft since the Mavic.

It should be accessible so that people can train flying in ATTI and know how that works before the day their aircraft falls back to it unexpectedly and they have no idea how to continue flying it.

And it's a safety feature as it's a way out of "flyaways" caused by navigation errors. Plus it's even useful for some shots, and it's convenient to measure wind speed and direction at various heights

You're right. While I can't switch into atti mode manually, I think I should be training more on the DJI simulator which is all atti mode.

 

[Skybuyer]

@vindibona1 if you really must fly indoors not really a good idea ,then put the prop guards on ,at least that way ,you will minimise the chances of damage to yourself, your home, and the drone ,and also make sure that you have the return to home set at hover ,that way it wont try and drill through the ceiling if it looses signal from the RC

Of course you're right. I'm not sure what the availability is of the, but they were backordered on the DJI store even until a few days ago. For some reason they seem to be different than the prop guards for the Mini 1. I wonder what makes them different? The Mini1 and 2 seem to be nearly identical in dimensions. While I no longer have my Mini 1 to compare I cannot see any major differences other than the legs being ever to slightly thicker. All my accessories seem to fit, but I never had prop guards for the Mini 1... nor problems flying indoors. thanks for your input.

 

[zeusfl]

For any new R/C airplanes or R/C helicopter pilot is recommended buy a simulator first, because in this community does not exist such as satellite lock under normal aircrafts.

https://www.realflight.com/ RealFlight now in version 9.5 is the best simulator in my opinion that will help you archiving the real conditions flying an R/C aircraft including drones. You can add weather effect like high winds, cross wind, turbulence etc. and you can mastered the flying techniques. This will save you hundreds of dollars in crashes when you fly R/C aircrafts since they fly pretty much in ATTI mode. Flying drones is peace of cake when they are in sat lock.

 

[Kilrah]

While I no longer have my Mini 1 to compare I cannot see any major differences other than the legs being ever to slightly thicker.

You can fit the mini1 guard on the mini2 and vice versa, it's just a little tighter than using the matching one.

 

[old man mavic]

if you want to fly in att mode ,without putting your drone at risk ,then do what i did and get yourself an Eachine E129 flybarless heli
i purchased mine from bangood from the uk with 4 batteries for just over £40 and its brilliant in light winds it has altitude hold and thats it ,so to keep it going where you want you have to keep constant stick control, its great for honing your skills and i have flown about 24 batteries through it so far without incident ,it will also fly indoors there are no sensors to worry about and its so light that it does not require any sort of registration, each battery will last about 12 to 15 mins depending on how you fly it ,in very still air, it will hover almost as good as if it had GPS hold look it up and see for yourselves

 

[Skybuyer]

if you want to fly in att mode ,without putting your drone at risk ,then do what i did and get yourself an Eachine E129 flybarless heli
i purchased mine from bangood from the uk with 4 batteries for just over £40 and its brilliant in light winds it has altitude hold and thats it ,so to keep it going where you want you have to keep constant stick control, its great for honing your skills and i have flown about 24 batteries through it so far without incident ,it will also fly indoors there are no sensors to worry about and its so light that it does not require any sort of registration, each battery will last about 12 to 15 mins depending on how you fly it ,in very still air, it will hover almost as good as if it had GPS hold look it up and see for yourselves

Don't even talk to me about Banggood. I bought my very first drone, an Eachine... forgot the model... for $250. It came defective. Banggood played games with me for 3 weeks and over 20 emails, asking me for the same information over and over, refusing to pay for return shipping even though their published policy stated that they would pay for it if within 7 days and just jerking me around. I finally just called my bank, relayed all the emails and THEY refunded my money. The good news is that I got my money back and it pushed me into DJI drones.

Since I have ceased doing business with any company that ships from China except for $5-$10 items. And Banggood isn't the only company that's not done what they say. But after that 3+ week experience with no satisfaction I will never ever do business with Banggood again. .

 

[boblui]

Interesting. If there is only GPS and Atti, and I had no GPS signals before, what kept is relatively stable and under control before the "announcment"? I though I was already IN atti mode????!!!!

Between the GPS and ATTI mode, there is the OPTI mode in which the position of the drone is detected by the tiny camera at the belly instead of GPS. Just like GPS mode, the flight controller will hold the position of the drone automatically if there is no stick inputs . If the environment is too dark for the camera to see things it will switch to the ATTI mode.

You can put the drone into ATTI mode by covering the body of the drone with Aluminum foil to shield off the GPS signal and the sensors at the bottom with tapes. Control is really not that difficult as long as you understand that you need to brake the drone manaully to stop it's horizontal movement.

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[old man mavic]

@vindibona1 sorry for your experience with Bangood i too dont like getting products from abroad ,shipping costs, customs, etc ,that why i stated it came from the UK

 

[hiflyer201]

I fly my Spark in the house with my cellphone. I started doing it just to quiet down my control movements. It can be a challenge in good light and next to impossible if the light is not sufficient. By the way..did you know that you can buy spackle in a tube.