Range issues- Mavic never returned home

[Mavic23]

Drone unable to return home, I was capturing footage of a castle that was about 100 yards away from me as I was panning around the building I intermittently received a warning-Loss connection I glanced at battery life about 60% , I had just purchased the drone less than a month ago so like most newbies I didn't feel comfortable flying my drone after a warning of that importance (ohh sht $800). So as I'm turning the aircraft around to fly back, another out of range failure fault only this time for brief few seconds the screen freeze, as the feedback returned and the low battery warning comes on, I'm thinking this is strange I just had more than half battery life (the warning is set to the factory default ), at this point my heart starts to pound and I just want the aircraft back in my hands so I select the return home button, I can see the aircraft going up and ready to return home, the screen freezes then goes black again I'm looking up hoping to see the drone, about a minute or two later feedback returns I can see the aircraft is descending but is nowhere near where it's original launched location another warning aircraft unable to land (it's trying to land on water) I quickly exit the land command and I take over switched the drone to sport mode as its low in battery I start to climb again the screen goes black and the drone is never to be seen again. I tried to contact DJI not to get a free replacement but to see if they would work with me on the purchase of new drone, after all I have battery's controller props charger that are less than a month old."we can't help you our product is too new for discounts " Not bashing DJI products the few images I was able to capture are really good, I just think that as a leading company they could do a better job at taking care of their customers. Be ware they don't work well with their customers

 

[HiKen51]

Drone unable to return home, I was capturing footage of a castle that was about 100 yards away from me as I was panning around the building I intermittently received a warning-Loss connection I glanced at battery life about 60% , I had just purchased the drone less than a month ago so like most newbies I didn't feel comfortable flying my drone after a warning of that importance (ohh sht $800). So as I'm turning the aircraft around to fly back, another out of range failure fault only this time for brief few seconds the screen freeze,

What type phone/tablet were you using?

 

[Mavic23]

iPhone 6plus

 

[djiboi]

Did you have the DJI refresh package?

 

[Mavic23]

No unfortunately I didn't I was saving up for my trip and just had enough $$ to buy the drone and batteries

 

[djiboi]

**** that sucks. Sorry hear that.

 

[hquant]

Care and Refresh would not have helped either. You need to be able to present the crashed drone. Never to be seen again is not good enough for any kind of replacement under the DJI C&R contract. Replace it with an EVO to teach them a lesson.

 

[HiKen51]

iPhone 6plus

So sorry for your loss--everyone's worst fear is sudden loss of contact and drone doesn't return. Watch the Classifieds here--you might find a good deal on a drone. If the MP II comes out soon, there'll probably be lots of MPs for sale.
I've been flying with a 6S for several months, never had a problem. Getting a tablet soon because I often see things in my recorded video that I missed on the small screen, and the video would have been better if I'd known what was there.
Be sure to close all other apps when starting Go 4.

 

[tracer bullet]

I'd look through some similar threads here, and follow the directions to post your logs. There's a couple guys good at looking at them who don't seem to mind doing the work, and more than one person has found their drone because they eventually figured out exactly where to go look. Assuming this didn't happen days / weeks ago and / or in a different place from where you are now.

I can see DJI's view, FWIW, the majority of crashes are user fault. Not always! But usually.

 

[Verizondrone28]

60% warning and then low battery...the batteries automatically discharge after 10 days. Is it possible that you hadn’t flown in some time and flew that day without topping off the battery? The battery meter could have been showing a false charge or surface charge. With a drop that quick, that’s what it sounds like to me.

 

[Mavic23]

So sorry for your loss--everyone's worst fear is sudden loss of contact and drone doesn't return. Watch the Classifieds here--you might find a good deal on a drone. If the MP II comes out soon, there'll probably be lots of MPs for sale.
I've been flying with a 6S for several months, never had a problem. Getting a tablet soon because I often see things in my recorded video that I missed on the small screen, and the video would have been better if I'd known what was there.
Be sure to close all other apps when starting Go 4.

 

[Mavic23]

Thnx, and thank you for your feed back, I'll contact DJI by phone when I get back to the states

 

[Mavic23]

60% warning and then low battery...the batteries automatically discharge after 10 days. Is it possible that you hadn’t flown in some time and flew that day without topping off the battery? The battery meter could have been showing a false charge or surface charge. With a drop that quick, that’s what it sounds like to me.

No I had just charged them the night before

 

[MavicMo]

DJI Refresh can only be used if you have the damaged drone in hand. I would see if there are any type of logs that can be pulled and sent to DJI...

Did you have the DJI refresh package?

 

[InvisibleName]

Sorry to hear of your loss, and my experience yesterday won't make you feel any better, but I thought I'd share.

I'm still learning with my first drone and flew my Air beyond LOS (open fields) for the first time. Everything was going well & video was clear, then I got an Interference warning. I started to turn her back using video & map as reference, then the video froze & I got a Loss of Signal warning. I've got to say that I started to worry / panic, but convinced myself that the auto RTH on loss of signal function would soon kick in. It seemed like an age as I stared into the distance, and then, suddenly, there she was heading back to me, followed shortly after with a near perfect landing (maybe 3 feet away from the take-off point).

 

[Travisimo]

Sorry to hear of your loss, and my experience yesterday won't make you feel any better, but I thought I'd share.

I'm still learning with my first drone and flew my Air beyond LOS (open fields) for the first time. Everything was going well & video was clear, then I got an Interference warning. I started to turn her back using video & map as reference, then the video froze & I got a Loss of Signal warning. I've got to say that I started to worry / panic, but convinced myself that the auto RTH on loss of signal function would soon kick in. It seemed like an age as I stared into the distance, and then, suddenly, there she was heading back to me, followed shortly after with a near perfect landing (maybe 3 feet away from the take-off point).

Yep, this will become a regular occurrence if you fly beyond LOS. And you cannot always expect to know the exact distance that you might just lose signal because there are so many variables. The most important thing is to be aware of your surroundings and your flight path to ensure that a safe Return to Home can occur when you have no visual identification of the Mavic. The exact scenario you described has happened to be dozens of times (not just with the Air, but with my previous Phantom 3 Standard as well). If your Return to Home height is set high enough to avoid all obstacles AND you don't fly under anything that it could hit when the Air flies to its set RTH altitude, then you should always be fine if this happens.

 

[BiteSizeThumb]

I had a similar situation and was a bit of a freak out to me. What I realized is instead of initiating return to home, I imitated automatic landing and the drone began to land where I flew it. Luckily I saw it go down and ran forward to grasp some signal and noticed it was in automatic landing mode and cancelled it, quickly proceeding with the RTH option.

Could you have happen to press the wrong automated command by mistake?

 

[Travisimo]

I had a similar situation and was a bit of a freak out to me. What I realized is instead of initiating return to home, I imitated automatic landing and the drone began to land where I flew it. Luckily I saw it go down and ran forward to grasp some signal and noticed it was in automatic landing mode and cancelled it, quickly proceeding with the RTH option.

Could you have happen to press the wrong automated command by mistake?

And you can avoid that by using the return to home physical button on the remote controller. That and the Pause button are my best friends when flying.

 

[dbyantis]

Yep, this will become a regular occurrence if you fly beyond LOS. And you cannot always expect to know the exact distance that you might just lose signal because there are so many variables. The most important thing is to be aware of your surroundings and your flight path to ensure that a safe Return to Home can occur when you have no visual identification of the Mavic. The exact scenario you described has happened to be dozens of times (not just with the Air, but with my previous Phantom 3 Standard as well). If your Return to Home height is set high enough to avoid all obstacles AND you don't fly under anything that it could hit when the Air flies to its set RTH altitude, then you should always be fine if this happens.

Agreed, as long as the pilot is closely monitoring the battery, no gas, no RTH.

 

[Mavic23]

DJI Refresh can only be used if you have the damaged drone in hand. I would see if there are any type of logs that can be pulled and sent to DJI...

Yeah, I don’t know that any information is stored in remote or back to the phone