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MPP LEDs

7thstring

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Hi all,

I was wondering if anybody had an explanation for the front red LEDs behavior.

The first time I saw somebody flying a DJI P4 at a business party, at first I thought we were on record when the red lights went on.

Now I have a MPP I obviously know it's the opposite, but... why? Is it for avoiding the red light to illuminate the subject? Can it be reversed?

It looks quite counterintuitive that the red light is not on while recording, for anyone having experienced at least once in their life how being on TV looks like.

One reason for asking, however, is that whenever I approach my building, especially at night, I actually turn recording on, just to make sure that those red lights are off and the drone passes unnoticed, otherwise red lights might indicate that I'm invading other's privacy (absurd, it's the opposite). Although when at a far distance the solid red LEDs clearly help spotting the drone at night.

Thanks
 
No as in turning it on when recording and off when not recording. As with any other recording device.
 
No. You can manually toggle them on/off at anytime though.
 
The red LED's are on to aid in spotting and to help in visually determining the direction it is facing. They turn off while recording to avoid red intrusion and/or reflections in the video. You can turn them off entirely in the Go 4 app.
 
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There is a setting to auto turn them off while recording so the lights do not negatively affect the video.
 
Ok thanks, as I imagined then. I still wonder why all other video recording devices do have a red light for the opposite purpose.
Perhaps DJI could have have more recessed LEDs for that purpose, in order not to affect the video.
 
I think the LED's you are referring to are smaller and their only purpose is to show the subject that the recording is active. The Mavic LED's are also used as a navigation aid.
 
I think the LED is first and foremost a visual navigation aid. If they are off, it's hard to determine the direction you are actually flying as you can't see the rear LED unless its flying away from you. With the Spark, it has 2 red on the front and 2 green on the rear. Flying in the evening, it's easy to tell the direction it's flying.
 
I think the LED's you are referring to are smaller and their only purpose is to show the subject that the recording is active. The Mavic LED's are also used as a navigation aid.

That's why I mentioned TV camcorders, when you are on TV the red lights are veeeery bright, but surely they serve the purpose of letting you know that you're on AND which camera to look into if you have more than one on you.

As far as positioning is concerned I don't buy it, if that was the intention DJI should have positioned them more to the sides to avoid leaking into the camera field. Also perhaps using aviation/naval rules (red/green for left/right - port/starboard might have helped guessing the heading at a glance).
 
That's why I mentioned TV camcorders, when you are on TV the red lights are veeeery bright, but surely they serve the purpose of letting you know that you're on AND which camera to look into if you have more than one on you...
The red lights on the TV cameras are recessed back from the lens so they do not cause a problem (besides reflections).
...As far as positioning is concerned I don't buy it...
You don't have to buy my explanation; it is only my opinion based on my experience. If you don't like the red led's on then turn them off.
 
You don't have to buy my explanation; it is only my opinion based on my experience.

Apologies if that looked harsh, it was unintentional (I'm not a native English speaker). I just meant that if DJI wanted to use those LEDs for pure positioning, they should have done something more navigation-compliant. I also see that there are external devices using those LEDs as triggers, due to the lack of an external I/O interface.
 
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Apologies if that looked harsh, it was unintentional (I'm not a native English speaker). I just meant that if DJI wanted to use those LEDs for pure positioning, they should have done something more navigation-compliant. I also see that there are external devices using those LEDs as triggers, due to the lack of an external I/O interface.
Good enough, and you are right about DJI's poor choice of LED color. With everything they engineered correctly it is surprising that they missed that.
 
Good enough, and you are right about DJI's poor choice of LED color. With everything they engineered correctly it is surprising that they missed that.

Its not really a poor choice of colour, its intended as a warning, if you see the red LEDs all controls are reversed.
 
Its not really a poor choice of colour, its intended as a warning, if you see the red LEDs all controls are reversed.
But the same could be said with any combination of colors; if you see both LED's then it is facing you. I was thinking it would be better to use the red/green lights like @7thstring mentioned:
 
Precisely. If we all refer to our toys as "aircafts" and ourselves as "pilots", well such aircrafts don't comply with the aviation rules in terms of visual signalling. Eventually they will be forced to adhere to them (I hope).

e.g.

main-qimg-e127707980348f83010998e695278805-c


So you exactly know at a glance which direction they're going to.

Btw some naval examples too, but the rules are the same (and internationally adopted). Obviously naval lights are very complex and describe all sorts of situations but the basics headings are covered in the picture above.

06.jpg


That's why I expected the red lights to work the other way round, because calling them positional lights is blasphemy (fine, these are adult toys in the end) :) two red lights and no green in sight scream "object moving port (left) relative to the observer"... NOT moving towards the observer.
 
BTW I just realized that the spark has them even more incorrect. They were smart enough to package red and green, but failed to orient them correctly (red on the front, green on the back o_O)
 
Marvellous!

To add confusion, the M2 has the same lighting as the spark.

Red on the front, green on the back.
 
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