I got a MIni 4 pro on amazon.ca and I tested it. Works nice. an improvement over my old mini (the original). I got the package with the 3 regular batteries. I noticed that once the battery gets to 18% I have to Return Home or Land -I guess for safety? Can I change this? or is best not change it? Thanks
MIni 4 pro-forced to Return Home or Land when battery gets to 18% charge- can I change this?
- Thread starter Pacodrone2024
- Start date
Best not the change it even if you could. I can only think of a few instances where an ordinary recreational flyer would really need to continue to fly their drone for fun past the 18% market. If you have 2 other batteries sitting on 100%, what is the purpose of that? In that case if something were to happen, it would be an unnecessary self-inflicted risk. With most of my drone, I make it a habit to never go lower than the 20s, it just doesn't make any sense unless you are testing out something or you're on a mission or it's your last (and only) battery. This would be my advice.
The battery level that triggers RTH varies depending on the distance from the home point and the calculated amount needed to safely come home. Flying beyond that is risky.
thanks guys...I guess it also depends of how windy. how high and fast the drone flies...I was covering a golf course and I made it fly a bit faster -I didnt feel that the batteries lasted too long...but then again I got good shots. I can see the appeal of buying the extra capacity batteries but then the drone goes over 250grms. What's the real impact of this? Will I be stopped from flying in areas I would otherwise be ok to fly? does DJI or in my case Transport Canada will notice the heavier than 250grms and stop me from flying without registering? I just use it once in a while and never out of sight of line or anything..never quite understood the rules-sorry to deviate from the original question. I like the drone. I don't think I need or want a bigger one at all
Excellent advice all round from people who know through experience. I'll add something along the same lines. Leave your RTH percentage where it is... 'safe' costs you nothing whereas 'sorry' means you're 800 bucks out of pocket.
I haven't heard of a single instance where authorities were out in the field and weighed anyone's mini to see if it was compliant, it's certainly never happened to me. It's only $5 to register your aircraft in Canada and both of my mini's are registered for when I do fly with my plus battery. I'm not going to advise you to fly illegally but the chances of your mini ever getting checked with a plus battery are very slim. Fly safe and don't bother other people and you will likely never have an issue.
Hi there. You ask good questions. Beyond the safety issue of pushing the range envelope, battery manufacturers discourage discharging lithium batteries below 20% citing that it lessens longevity of your batteries. Transport Canada regs specify that drones weighing between 250 g and 25 kg must be registered. To fly a registered drone, you must possess at least a basic operations pilot certificate. So yes, the rules change when you add the 'plus' battery to your drone. Asking if Transport will notice if you fly an unregistered drone at over 250 grams is analogous to asking if it's ok to drive 100 km/hr in a 50 zone if nobody is there to enforce your infraction. The choice is yours.
thanks!! I don't want to bother with registration or studying for a basic operations pilot thing...gosh...I don't intend to fly beyond my line of sight. My mini was fine (at 2.7k) but can't take any wind at all...got tired of the windy conditions warnings and having to make it return...gosh...so this mini 4 pro is better and if the weather is bad then well I won't fly the **** thing. I'm not pretending to be a drone operator. I'm a part time videographer and I got great shots at the golf course! I think I will get a couple of extra regular capacity batteries and have them ready just in case. Thanks Pilots for the help!
DanLewisFW
Member
You can cancel the Auto RTH it gives you that option. If you are nearby and want to manually return the drone you can but it is just safer to let it come back. I have both the lighter batteries and the extended and like the poster above said no one has asked me to let them weight my drone. I suspect that would happen if I tried to fly it somewhere illegally like an airport but that would be the least of your problems then!
Droning on and on...
Well-Known Member
Keep in mind that RTH is a feature that activates when the system calculates you have just enough battery left to return and land with a safety margin (land with 15%, IIRC). This can occur with more than 50% battery left, depending on how far away you've flown.
The "critical battery" forced landing is not RTH, will not automatically fly back to the home point, and will land wherever the drone is with a limited amount of control over descent rate and horizontal position. I think this kicks in at 10%.
The "critical battery" forced landing is not RTH, will not automatically fly back to the home point, and will land wherever the drone is with a limited amount of control over descent rate and horizontal position. I think this kicks in at 10%.
AeroJ
Well-Known Member
As Dustin so admirably demonstrated in his push-it-to-the-max range test.
Spoiler: He's gonna lose the drone. The reason he was expecting the battery to continue way longer than it did was because he tested the last pack over safe ground, and found that he could countermand the land routine, even when it was constantly trying to do it by holding the left stick up for at least 10 minutes before it did it anyway.
This did not work the second time he tried it, when it mattered !
horsepowerphoto
Well-Known Member
Next posting by OP: "So I was flying around, and my drone dropped out of the sky.. Not sure why" LOL
Droning on and on...
Well-Known Member
That wasn't nice. The OP was polite and asked a sincere question. No need to mock him like some drooling idiot.
morning! so..is getting the large capacity batteries worth it? It doesn't affect the drone flying too much...
or is it better to get more regular batteries...I like this drone for what I use it for...i still don't know how some operators can make it fly far from home on the regular batteries. They don't seem to last very long.
or is it better to get more regular batteries...I like this drone for what I use it for...i still don't know how some operators can make it fly far from home on the regular batteries. They don't seem to last very long.
AeroJ
Well-Known Member
IMO, no. As soon as you get over 250g then many more rules apply to you and where you can fly and how close to stuff you can legally get, so you instantly make your life more difficult. And there is no need for plus batteries - is 26 mins really not enough for you, and don't you have 2 other packs ?! That's well over an hour in the sky, and much longer than that and you'll be running out of a) concentration and b) memory card space !
Plus batteries are an advantage when you REALLY need that extra time in the sky - long range test type missions, jobs with a lot of waiting around in the sky, that kinda thing. But we shouldn't do these great long range excursions with our tiny minis (hard to do legally, stressful to do practically) which we lose sight of only about 200m away ! The great thing about all these youtube range tests is that they fully explore the limits of the machines so we don't have to lose our own drones trying it !
And that's the case for why regular batteries are totally fine, especially when you have 3 of 'em !
hmm...to be honest I havent timed how much I get per battery...the last time I used the drone (I have used it only 3 times so far!) I'm not sure I got 26 minutes per battery...but with 3 I was fine...I guess one extra one wouldnt hurt. The card I have is 256GB but 4k60 takes memory space for sure. I don't like letting the drone get too far away -I only fly it in daytime but I lose sight of it quickly so you are right, long range flying is not for me and not with this drone (my old Mini wouldnt get too far or high)...but I still see videos of people flying it very far. Thanks guys...I love this drone! I even inspected my roof the other day! LOLIMO, no. As soon as you get over 250g then many more rules apply to you and where you can fly and how close to stuff you can legally get, so you instantly make your life more difficult. And there is no need for plus batteries - is 26 mins really not enough for you, and don't you have 2 other packs ?! That's well over an hour in the sky, and much longer than that and you'll be running out of a) concentration and b) memory card space !
Plus batteries are an advantage when you REALLY need that extra time in the sky - long range test type missions, jobs with a lot of waiting around in the sky, that kinda thing. But we shouldn't do these great long range excursions with our tiny minis (hard to do legally, stressful to do practically) which we lose sight of only about 200m away ! The great thing about all these youtube range tests is that they fully explore the limits of the machines so we don't have to lose our own drones trying it !
And that's the case for why regular batteries are totally fine, especially when you have 3 of 'em !
AeroJ
Well-Known Member
Furthermore. You can push your mini 4 further than the 18% if you absolutely have to. Quite a lot further in some circumstances. You cancel the RTH when it first tells you it's doing it in 10 seconds, and (unless you are in crazy wind) for a few mins you can carry on flying...
If you tap the battery meter whilst in flight you get 3 very useful times:
1. Time to RTH at 18%, allowing you to see it coming and plan for it, and allow it to happen, which is best for your battery, best for the craft, for your mental health, and generally best for everybody
2. Time to Forced Landing: Letting you know how long you have before it descends on its own. You can still oppose this with upward stick movement btw !
3. The time until the battery is genuinely empty, ***** itself and you fall out of the sky. Flying it down to that last number is madness - never do that, obviously.
With that said, once you are at Time 2, and it starts landing on its own, as long as you continue to mix solid up commands with your directional ones, you can travel a surprising distance home if you find yourself in that horrible situation ! But for god's sake don't rely on it, or do it in anything other than an emergency.
A quick example of such an emergency might be:
Say you took off for a Cineflight into moderate wind, and flew 500m out against it (sensible, so it's behind you on the way home), and you spent down to 25% power getting the shots you wanted. But now you need to get home, and the wind has reversed direction, and increased quite a lot. Now it's a struggle to get back, and power starts subsiding at alarming levels while the drone fights it. You get to 18% in what feels like no time. But if you just do RTH here it's gonna fly up to your safety altitude where the wind is much, much stronger, and you'd be dealing with that on a weak / low power pack, starting a vicious cycle that may well end in craft down. So instead, we can countermand the RTH before it happens, manually DROP our altitude to as low as we can safely get, and make our way home, holding the up stick when the craft starts descending on its own. Many have been saved from death this way ! It does have a detrimental effect on the pack when it is forced under 3.2 volts per cell, and much moreso and more quickly if you ramp it to the minimum it will allow before it falls out of the sky, which is 2.7v
If you tap the battery meter whilst in flight you get 3 very useful times:
1. Time to RTH at 18%, allowing you to see it coming and plan for it, and allow it to happen, which is best for your battery, best for the craft, for your mental health, and generally best for everybody
2. Time to Forced Landing: Letting you know how long you have before it descends on its own. You can still oppose this with upward stick movement btw !
3. The time until the battery is genuinely empty, ***** itself and you fall out of the sky. Flying it down to that last number is madness - never do that, obviously.
With that said, once you are at Time 2, and it starts landing on its own, as long as you continue to mix solid up commands with your directional ones, you can travel a surprising distance home if you find yourself in that horrible situation ! But for god's sake don't rely on it, or do it in anything other than an emergency.
A quick example of such an emergency might be:
Say you took off for a Cineflight into moderate wind, and flew 500m out against it (sensible, so it's behind you on the way home), and you spent down to 25% power getting the shots you wanted. But now you need to get home, and the wind has reversed direction, and increased quite a lot. Now it's a struggle to get back, and power starts subsiding at alarming levels while the drone fights it. You get to 18% in what feels like no time. But if you just do RTH here it's gonna fly up to your safety altitude where the wind is much, much stronger, and you'd be dealing with that on a weak / low power pack, starting a vicious cycle that may well end in craft down. So instead, we can countermand the RTH before it happens, manually DROP our altitude to as low as we can safely get, and make our way home, holding the up stick when the craft starts descending on its own. Many have been saved from death this way ! It does have a detrimental effect on the pack when it is forced under 3.2 volts per cell, and much moreso and more quickly if you ramp it to the minimum it will allow before it falls out of the sky, which is 2.7v
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If Canada has a weight limit at 250g, the bigger battery will put the drone over the weight limit and into the next category. If anything happens and there are consequence your are likely to end up in deep horse muck if you have been flying illegally.
As has been pointed out, there low battery RTH threshold is distance dependant, I do not know if it factors in RTH height, I will eventually try to check that at some point. I do not noe if it takes did into consideration but I think I have seen some people say it does not.
In addition the mini 4 pro probably also has a variable battery percentage at which it will commence a forced landing where ever it may be. If so that threshold is height dependant. The descent can be temporarily over ridden but NOT cancelled and if you don't know what you are doing then you may lose the drone.
All in all the best way to avoid problems is to NOT cancel the low battery RTH, quite a few drones have been lost been lost by people who thought they knew better than DJI.
In addition to that, if you lost the drone in such circumstance and posted to that effect on here or the DJI forum then you are quite likely to be told, quite bluntly, that it was your own fault.
Also note that excessive RTH height runs the risk of putting the drone up into strong wind. Last point, don't fly the out bound leg of a flight downwind, especially if sending the drone to distance and the wind is significant. The drone would have to return upwind and that can eat battery charge.
I find the plus battery gives me about 10 minutes more flying time on both of my minis. The biggest difference I notice however is that the extra weight does add abit of stability in heavier winds. I don't use my mini's for long range flights as they are much harder to keep an eye on than my Mavic 3.
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