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rth message coming on at wrong time?

MavicairLou1

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Joined
Nov 10, 2019
Messages
17
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Age
46
Location
Glendale AZ
Hi I was flying my mavic air yesterday and I have the rth battery percentage set at 20% but for some reason when my battery was at 40% the message came on saying it will return to home in so many seconds unless I cancel,is this just a glitch that happens sometimes,anyone that might know I would gladly appreciate it,I love this drone I just want to make sure everything is ok,Thank you guys
 
I don't think you had set the RTH percentage, but rather the low battery warning. The latter is just informational. Some prefer to be notified that they're at say 30% and will start heading back regardless of how close they are.
The the low battery RTH level is dynamic based on flight conditions, mainly how far and how high. There's nothing for you to set here.

If you look at your battery time line, you'll notice a yellow circle with an H. You'll notice it move to the right as you fly further out and up. When your current battery level remaining reaches the moving H, that's when you'll get the RTH prompt.
 
The setting you made was only for the low battery warning ?
Don't think you can set RTH battery %, but I could be wrong (I was once, lol).

The Air should RTH when IT senses the time / battery needed is close to cover the distance out from home.
If it went off at 40% battery, you must have been out a little ways, if you were close, it might have done this at a much lower battery % level.

Leave it at 20% low battery warning, that means you are close and it's just a reminder to watch out for that.

I would consider landing at say 15 - 20% most flights, unless very close flying.
It's just safer.

RTH into a head wind is one of the major losses of drones, especially if it's auto RTH.

Edit - Dan beat me.
 
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The setting you made was only for the low battery warning ?
Don't think you can set RTH battery %, but I could be wrong
Right -- there is no setting to choose the battery level when RTH is triggered.
 
The setting you made was only for the low battery warning ?
Don't think you can set RTH battery %, but I could be wrong (I was once, lol).

The Air should RTH when IT senses the time / battery needed is close to cover the distance out from home.
If it went off at 40% battery, you must have been out a little ways, if you were close, it might have done this at a much lower battery % level.

Leave it at 20% low battery warning, that means you are close and it's just a reminder to watch out for that.

I would consider landing at say 15 - 20% most flights, unless very close flying.
It's just safer.

RTH into a head wind is one of the major losses of drones, especially if it's auto RTH.

Edit - Dan beat me.
[emoji16]
 
Ok I got ya,I’m new lol it was just wierd ,I understand what you guys are saying I thought when you set the low batt warning which I still had set at 20% that when your batt hit that it would return to home,I wasn’t far away from me at all maybe 50ft up and about 40ft out and then when the batt was at 40% it said it was returning to home and I thought I could of swore it said because of low batt,so if the drone gets down to 20% where I have it set all it will do is tell me nothing will automatically make it return to home?thanks for any info ,I bought this used off a guy who flew it 3 times but have no paperwork and I guess I should download the Manuel’s, but thank you again for responding
 
50x40 would probably set low battery RTH at 15%. Are you sure you didn't hit RTH button? You'd have to be way over a mile at a very high altitude to consider RTH at 40%.

If dynamic RTH sits at 15%, then at 20% she'll say "low battery warning", banner turns red with Low Battery, and starts beeping incessantly. That's all, no other action. When it then reaches 15% in this example, THEN it returns home, assuming you don't cancel.

To know where RTH sits at any time, look for the yellow H on the battery time line.
 
Last edited:
Ok thank you very much,and you know what maybe I did accidentally hit rth on the remote,I really don’t think I did but I truly can’t say for sure,but everything you told me was very helpful,thank you very much!!
 
Low battery warning and critical battery warning will happen to whatever the pilot has set them too.
And yes, RTH automatic will happen when the on board systems estimate the time needed to cover the distance and altitude gain / drop as set, and still should have a small margin battery left, in my limited use of RTH auto, I'd say 10 - 15 % ?

RTH auto won't be taking wind into allowance, this is the dangerous part of using battery down to this level, especially if RTH altitude is set fairly high, and you re coming back into a head wind . . . all things your pre flight planning should take into account.

Do download the manual and have a read, but there are quite a few things not in the manual, you really have to dig through all the menus and settings, advanced settings, in the app to see what is there.

Here's the Mavic Air manual, easy to save the PDF to your phone and read with ibooks or whatever.

 
Thank you very much for all of your info and for the manual,I really do appreciate all the help,you guys on here are very informative and thanks for taking easy on a new pilot,I’m just trying to learn as much as I can because I really am enjoying this mavic air,thank you again!!!
 
Hey no worries Lou, that's the great thing about this place, someone can always help you find your feet in this hobby (or vocation).

After you've been here a while you'll see just how much there is the learn / know about your Air, and you can't take it all in at once.
Little steps in learning the ropes, get one or two things into your head, then move on to another feature, and so on.

But the most important is learning to fly, learning what the aircraft will do in all situations, getting the aircraft back every flight with no sad endings to a flight.
Get that right first then start on video / photographs.
Editing is another thing to get into later.

Have fun and fly safe.
 
And most of all, don't panic! Take your time to get out of situations. Even in ATTI mode, if you're high enough you can take a few seconds to gather yourself and fly your way back. I almost had to do that with my P3 when it had a brief compass issue.
 

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