Mini 2 RTH Questions & Advice?

[eva2000]

Mini 2 noob who's first flight will be in less than 12hrs

I've been watching Youtube videos for Mini 2 and have some questions about the return to home feature and wondering if what I observed is still valid or if firmware updates may have changed its functionality since those videos were made.

1. You update RTH point during flight or update RTH to lock into your controller's location. But can you update RTH point to a location on a map or to my controller after RTH has already been triggered? Or is it that once RTH is triggered, I won't be able to update RTH point on the map or set it to return to my controller's location?

2. You can't trigger RTH if Mini 2 is within 20 meters of its home point?

3. When Mini 2 will auto set its home point after it lands and takes off again. So if I flew the drone out 50m and landed, that would be its new auto set home point when it takes off again. But I'll still be able to update the RTH point in Fly app to return to a new map location or to my controller right?

4. From some Youtube videos it seems updating RTH to go to controller location ends up more accurate than leaving it to RTH to auto set home point. Is that the case from other Mini 2 users' experience ?

 

[netfolks2000]

Mini 2 noob who's first flight will be in less than 12hrs

I've been watching Youtube videos for Mini 2 and have some questions about the return to home feature and wondering if what I observed is still valid or if firmware updates may have changed its functionality since those videos were made.

1. You update RTH point during flight or update RTH to lock into your controller's location. But can you update RTH point to a location on a map or to my controller after RTH has already been triggered? Or is it that once RTH is triggered, I won't be able to update RTH point on the map or set it to return to my controller's location?

2. You can't trigger RTH if Mini 2 is within 20 meters of its home point?

3. When Mini 2 will auto set its home point after it lands and takes off again. So if I flew the drone out 50m and landed, that would be its new auto set home point when it takes off again. But I'll still be able to update the RTH point in Fly app to return to a new map location or to my controller right?

4. From some Youtube videos it seems updating RTH to go to controller location ends up more accurate than leaving it to RTH to auto set home point. Is that the case from other Mini 2 users' experience ?

Watch some YouTube videos about these features. If you are not sure of these things do not fly far for a while, not out of sight at all. Set drone to beginner mode to keep it close. Save yourself some agony.
1. RTH settings are made before you take off. The RTH LOCATION is set automatically from the point from which it takes off. Make sure you set the return height so that the drone will not hit anything on the way back, like a building or trees. IMPORTANT: You also have to choose, before takeoff, what you want the drone to do if it loses signal, land, hover or return home. Once these settings are set, you will probably not change them unless you go to a very different terrain.
2. Why would you trigger RTH if you are as close as 20 meters??? You can see it clearly and guide it to a landing place.
3. You will not typically land the drone somewhere else. What would be the purpose in that? You'd probably lose signal and not be able to take off again. Some will land it and then GO TO IT but that is unusual. Most flights are from one point where RTH would be. Even resetting the home point in the app would take valuable flight time and risk not even getting back to the new landing spot. Like I said, most flights are from one spot. If there is a next flight then a new spot might be chosen. You take risks when changing RTH points and options. The drone could hover over a tree somewhere and then land in it.
4. Whether the drone does an RTH to the original home point or to the controller location, the point is it comes back to you and you can guide it precisely when it starts to come down. Always pick a spot in the open where it can't be harmed if not right on the same spot. Remember YOU are the pilot, not the auto land intelligence. You are monitoring everything and in charge, making sure it goes according to plan.

 

[Meta4]

I've been watching Youtube videos for Mini 2 and have some questions about the return to home feature and wondering if what I observed is still valid or if firmware updates may have changed its functionality since those videos were made.

RTH functions are as described in the manual and have not been changed by formware updates.

1. You update RTH point during flight or update RTH to lock into your controller's location. But can you update RTH point to a location on a map or to my controller after RTH has already been triggered? Or is it that once RTH is triggered, I won't be able to update RTH point on the map or set it to return to my controller's location?

If you wanted to change things after initiating RTH, cancel the RTH and then make the changes.

2. You can't trigger RTH if Mini 2 is within 20 meters of its home point?

It's exactly as described in your manual.

3. When Mini 2 will auto set its home point after it lands and takes off again. So if I flew the drone out 50m and landed, that would be its new auto set home point when it takes off again. But I'll still be able to update the RTH point in Fly app to return to a new map location or to my controller right?

Yes ... but in normal flying you shouldn't need to be resetting home points.
Just leave the homepoint alone unless you have a good reason to tinker with it.

4. From some Youtube videos it seems updating RTH to go to controller location ends up more accurate than leaving it to RTH to auto set home point.

Like a lot of what you might see on Youtube, that's not correct.

 

[ArnieZiffel]

One thing to be aware of- If you ascend into high winds, RTH will not function on demand. You will have to fly home manually.

 

[Meta4]

One thing to be aware of- If you ascend into high winds, RTH will not function on demand. You will have to fly home manually.

Not true.
RTH will always operate, windy or not.

DJI's warning message is very poorly worded to make it sound like RTH won't operate in windy conditions.
What they mean is that if the drone has to fight against strong headwinds its return speed might not be enough to ensure the drone gets home.

If you let the drone get far downwind and it has to fight against a strong wind to get home, that's on you.

 

[ArnieZiffel]

Not true.
RTH will always operate, windy or not.

DJI's warning message is very poorly worded to make it sound like RTH won't operate in windy conditions.
What they mean is that if the drone has to fight against strong headwinds its return speed might not be enough to ensure the drone gets home.

If you let the drone get far downwind and it has to fight against a strong wind to get home, that's on you.

Interpret it as you will, but it happened to me, not more than 200 feet horizontal from home, and it made me fly home manually. My experience only, but YMMV.

 

[Meta4]

Interpret it as you will, but it happened to me, not more than 200 feet horizontal from home, and it made me fly home manually. My experience only, but YMMV.

It's not an interpretation.
What I wrotehas been tested and is factual.

I'd wonder about your interpretation of your incident.
Post the flight data if you want to find out what actually happened.

 

[LoudThunder]

Just leave the homepoint alone unless you have a good reason to tinker with it.

Some good reasons to change your home Point is that you launched from a boat that is traveling so you do not want it go back to someplace that is now only open water.

You are in an open field and you've been walking around the field and you do not want your drone to fly all the way back to where you are not anymore…

You are in a moving vehicle and you do not want it to chase it back…

You are flying it in the mountains while you are on a hike and using it to follow you…

One important point about flying in mountains. The base altitude is established at the point you launch from and it does not matter if you are at sea level (at the beach…) or half way up Mount McKinley at 10,000 feet above sea level… The DJI Drone sets the launch point at Zero-feet or Zero-Meters (that's a big fat 0). When your drone is at head-level (let's say 6-feet) then the drone thinks it's at 6-feet. If you are in your back yard and you are standing on your deck on the second story and you launch it and land it on the ground, the drone thinks the altitude is a minus 10-feet (-10 feet).

So, if you are hiking in the mountains and using the drone to follow you and you are climbing uphill, you are still at ground level, but your drone thinks it may now be hundreds of feet higher and if you set your Return to Home at 200-feet and it initiates a RTH, your drone will probably fly lower than the trees surrounding you, probably even lower than the ground you are standing on…

Wrap your head around this or you will wrap your drone around a tree…

 

[Meta4]

Some good reasons to change your home Point is that you launched from a boat that is traveling so you do not want it go back to someplace that is now only open water.

Yes .. there are some valid reasons to change the homepoint and you've listed them.

But for most flyers, most of the time, there is no need to reset the homepoint.
And since the OP stated that he hasn't ever flown, for now he shouldn't confuse himself with resetting the homepoint.
He should just leave the homepoint alone and concentrate on basics.

 

[eva2000]

Watch some YouTube videos about these features. If you are not sure of these things do not fly far for a while, not out of sight at all. Set drone to beginner mode to keep it close. Save yourself some agony.

Cheers, it's me watching Youtube videos that led to more questions

1. RTH settings are made before you take off. The RTH LOCATION is set automatically from the point from which it takes off. Make sure you set the return height so that the drone will not hit anything on the way back, like a building or trees. IMPORTANT: You also have to choose, before takeoff, what you want the drone to do if it loses signal, land, hover or return home. Once these settings are set, you will probably not change them unless you go to a very different terrain.
2. Why would you trigger RTH if you are as close as 20 meters??? You can see it clearly and guide it to a landing place.

Yeah, I'm being cautious trying to figure out all the ins and outs of RTH before my 1st flight. Had my 1st flight today and definitely more confident than when I created this thread. Since I was within 20 meters, manually landed fine.

3. You will not typically land the drone somewhere else. What would be the purpose in that? You'd probably lose signal and not be able to take off again. Some will land it and then GO TO IT but that is unusual. Most flights are from one point where RTH would be. Even resetting the home point in the app would take valuable flight time and risk not even getting back to the new landing spot. Like I said, most flights are from one spot. If there is a next flight then a new spot might be chosen. You take risks when changing RTH points and options. The drone could hover over a tree somewhere and then land in it.
4. Whether the drone does an RTH to the original home point or to the controller location, the point is it comes back to you and you can guide it precisely when it starts to come down. Always pick a spot in the open where it can't be harmed if not right on the same spot. Remember YOU are the pilot, not the auto land intelligence. You are monitoring everything and in charge, making sure it goes according to plan.

Yeah unlikely I'd do a mid landing, but just wanting to learn or confirm what I have watched on Youtube about Mini 2's RTH as to whether it's accurate from other Mini 2 users' experiences

If you wanted to change things after initiating RTH, cancel the RTH and then make the changes

Thanks

Like a lot of what you might see on Youtube, that's not correct.

Cheers, exactly why I created this thread to gather other Mini 2 users' experiences with RTH

If you let the drone get far downwind and it has to fight against a strong wind to get home, that's on you.

Thanks for that info. I downloaded UAV Forecast app to check wind/gust so to avoid this!

One important point about flying in mountains. The base altitude is established at the point you launch from and it does not matter if you are at sea level (at the beach…) or half way up Mount McKinley at 10,000 feet above sea level… The DJI Drone sets the launch point at Zero-feet or Zero-Meters (that's a big fat 0). When your drone is at head-level (let's say 6-feet) then the drone thinks it's at 6-feet. If you are in your back yard and you are standing on your deck on the second story and you launch it and land it on the ground, the drone thinks the altitude is a minus 10-feet (-10 feet).

So, if you are hiking in the mountains and using the drone to follow you and you are climbing uphill, you are still at ground level, but your drone thinks it may now be hundreds of feet higher and if you set your Return to Home at 200-feet and it initiates a RTH, your drone will probably fly lower than the trees surrounding you, probably even lower than the ground you are standing on…

Thanks for that info!

He should just leave the homepoint alone and concentrate on basics.

Thanks understand where you're coming from. I tend to like to learn as much as possible for all situations even if I don't intend to do some of those RTH scenarios

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Whilst I agree that initially the OP should concentrate on the basics I think it is subsequently highly advisable to experiment with every aspect of and type of RTH......in a safe, wide open, treeless place.

With regards to remote landings and subsequent attempted take offs from there, be wary of doing that, all sorts of things can prevent motor start ups e.g a grass stem blocking the rotation of a prop, excessive tilt of the drone, battery charge levels that are below the minimum for take off but which allow a drone in flight to continue flying.

With regards to
Qu 1) the OP might like to look at Change HP while in a RTH
Qu 2) I would say that it would be more accurate to say that the RTH function can be triggered within 20m of the home point......BUT.....that the response is changed. With other drones there can be multiple distance thresholds, within/beyond which, behaviours change.
Qu 4) could it be that the youtube you have watch have sent the drone into the air and away from the launch point BEFORE the drone has acquired sufficient satellites to establish a home point and that when sufficient satellites were gained the home point was set at some distance from the launch site?

 

[eva2000]

battery charge levels that are below the minimum for take off but which allow a drone in flight to continue flying.

I haven't thought of that as an issue. Thanks!

With regards to
Qu 1) the OP might like to look at Change HP while in a RTH
Qu 2) I would say that it would be more accurate to say that the RTH function can be triggered within 20m of the home point......BUT.....that the response is changed. With other drones there can be multiple distance thresholds, within/beyond which, behaviours change.
Qu 4) could it be that the youtube you have watch have sent the drone into the air and away from the launch point BEFORE the drone has acquired sufficient satellites to establish a home point and that when sufficient satellites were gained the home point was set at some distance from the launch site?

Cheers thanks for the link. As to video I watched, the person didn't demonstrate it just stated that RTH can't be used within 20m - that's why I wanted to ask if that is still the case.

Thank linked thread has an interesting idea

One thing I did notice about the Litchi app is that it might offer an automatic updating of the homepoint to the controller's location, I have yet to look at that but it strikes me as a very good idea (PROVIDING the phone creating the location data is accurate enough).

auto updating RTH to controller's location would be nice!

Or maybe DJI could have a feature to first RTH and check if controller can be found if not auto fallback to return to controller's location?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I haven't thought of that as an issue. Thanks!


Cheers thanks for the link. As to video I watched, the person didn't demonstrate it just stated that RTH can't be used within 20m - that's why I wanted to ask if that is still the case.

Asking questions about anything you are unsure of is a good idea.

A dynamic home point would be nice. Just in case you are thinking of it, for the moment, leave the Litchi app alone, I have it, it is a lot more complicated than the fly app and you do not want to confuse yourself between the two.

 

[Zbip57]

But can you update RTH point to a location on a map or to my controller after RTH has already been triggered?

Yes, you can. But, it depends...

If RTH was triggered because you lost your control signal, for whatever reason (flown out of range, or your controller died or is shut off), then obviously nothing you do at your end will affect what the drone is doing. You'd need to wait until your control signal is recovered.

I've experimented with this using my Mini-1 and found that once RTH was initiated, and as long as the drone is still enroute to the Home Position, yes, you can change the location of the Home Point and the drone will change direction and head to the new Home location. But, once the drone is overhead the Home Position and has started to descend in Landing, you can no longer change the Home Position.

You can cancel RTH and Auto-Landing at any point, assuming you do still have a control signal connection, by momentarily pressing the RTH button on your controller or on the app screen.

Back in Dec 2019, I did a series of four videos to experiment with how the Mini behaves . My concern was that many people reported losing their Minis in high winds when the Mini was incapable of fighting its way home against a strong headwind. I wondered what would happen if you tried to ditch the Mini in a safe location only to have it lose control signal on the way down. Originally there was no way to prevent the Mini from automatically going into RTH upon loss of signal. The fourth video in the series demonstrates the (then new to Mini) feature giving a choice of three options upon loss of signal: RTH, Descend, or Hover.

Anyway, at 4:12 in the 3rd video I experimented with changing the location of the Home Position while the Mini was already flying in RTH mode. It works! But it does not work after the Mini has already commenced descending to auto-land at the Home Point.

Here's the playlist of all four videos:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLngMU-9AtNNXcGwtXZh7o_qpB7qKwgb4

 

[eva2000]

If RTH was triggered because you lost your control signal, for whatever reason (flown out of range, or your controller died or is shut off), then obviously nothing you do at your end will affect what the drone is doing. You'd need to wait until your control signal is recovered.

I've experimented with this using my Mini-1 and found that once RTH was initiated, and as long as the drone is still enroute to the Home Position, yes, you can change the location of the Home Point and the drone will change direction and head to the new Home location. But, once the drone is overhead the Home Position and has started to descend in Landing, you can no longer change the Home Position.

Thanks for the insight

Anyway, at 4:12 in the 3rd video I experimented with changing the location of the Home Position while the Mini was already flying in RTH mode. It works! But it does not work after the Mini has already commenced descending to auto-land at the Home Point.

Here's the playlist of all four videos:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLngMU-9AtNNXcGwtXZh7o_qpB7qKwgb4

Cheers more awesome videos to watch and learn from

 

[eva2000]

Asking questions about anything you are unsure of is a good idea.

A dynamic home point would be nice. Just in case you are thinking of it, for the moment, leave the Litchi app alone, I have it, it is a lot more complicated than the fly app and you do not want to confuse yourself between the two.

Cheers. Ah the Litchi app is tempting but voiding warranty/coverage probably isn't for a noob like me yet heh.

 

[Zbip57]

The Reader's Digest condensed version of that long story and 4 videos was, if you absolutely do need to force your Mini down at a remote location, first change the "Loss of Signal" setting to "Descend", or change the Home Position to the Mini's current location. Otherwise, if the Mini loses control signal on the way down, the default setting of RTH means it might not actually land at that remote location, but will instead automatically try to return Home.

 

[eva2000]

The Reader's Digest condensed version of that long story and 4 videos was, if you absolutely do need to force your Mini down at a remote location, first change the "Loss of Signal" setting to "Descend", or change the Home Position to the Mini's current location. Otherwise, if the Mini loses control signal on the way down, the default setting of RTH means it might not actually land at that remote location, but will instead automatically try to return Home.

Very useful videos thanks. I 4th video you had the controller turned off to simulate a RTH but eventually cancelled RTH while the controller was turned off? So you cancelled RTH from Fly app in that case?

 

[Zbip57]

Very useful videos thanks. I 4th video you had the controller turned off to simulate a RTH but eventually cancelled RTH while the controller was turned off? So you cancelled RTH from Fly app in that case?

No. The app can only communicate with the drone through the controller.

In my videos I had a screen recorder running to document what the app is showing, plus I superimposed the recording from the drone's camera. So the camera view continues to show what the drone is doing even while the app display is frozen whenever I had the controller switched off.

I was experimenting with the drone's response to loss of control signal. I didn't want to do that by flying out of range, or behind a tall hillside, etc. The only way to safely force loss of signal was to turn the controller off. With the Mini, it takes 11 seconds after loss of signal before its configured Failsafe mode kicks in (RTH, Descend, or Hover).

But, with the controller switched off, there's no way to resume control until the controller is turned back on. Even then it takes a few seconds to regain the control signal.

I didn't want to let it actually land in the snow, so I had to turn the controller back on soon enough to regain signal and then cancel the landings. You can cancel RTH either by pressing once on the RTH button on the controller, or by pressing the cancel button on the Fly app screen. But in each case, that only works as long as the controller is on with a good signal connection to the drone.

If the controller is off, or the drone is out of range, pressing buttons on the controller or on the Fly app will have no effect since there's no signal going to the drone.

Also note in the videos, when I switch the controller off causing loss of control signal, there's no indication on the app screen to show what the drone is actually doing. The app just pops up an error message telling you that the signal is gone and the camera view freezes. It's only when I turn the controller back on to regain signal that the annoying RTH beeping starts.

 

[eva2000]

No. The app can only communicate with the drone through the controller.

In my videos I had a screen recorder running to document what the app is showing, plus I superimposed the recording from the drone's camera. So the camera view continues to show what the drone is doing even while the app display is frozen whenever I had the controller switched off.

Cheers

Definitely useful info