Strange Mini-1 Start-up Process

[Chaosrider]

I haven't flown much at all since I started my new job, but today I finally got the chance! My Mini-1 was next up on my Mini flight line, so I popped in a charged battery, and went to go fly. My normal sequence is to start DJI Fly, and then connect the phone to the controller. Then I start the aircraft, then I start the RC. This normally works fine, but today, not so much.

It had been easily over a month since I had last flown the Mini-1. When I started up the aircraft, it seemed...sluggish. Its normal little wake-up happy dance, seemed slow and...quiet. It was sufficiently weird, that I turned the AC off, and rebooted. It sill didn't seem quite right, but it was better. I turned on the RC, and it connected to the phone fine, but it couldn't find the aircraft. I had set the aircraft about 10 feet away from me, so I tried bringing it right next to me, but that didn't make any difference. No connection.

I went through the power off/power on cycle several times, with no success. The AC status light was fast blinking green, which I didn't remember as normal. Finally, I turned everything hard off, took the battery out of the AC, and rebooted the phone.

I decided to just let it think for a while, and finally I got the notice in Fly asking if I was having a hard time connecting, and I said yes. It turns out the RC and the aircraft needed to be re-paired. I don't remember having to do that before. Does a pairing "time out" if the AC hasn't been flown for a while?

The pairing worked, and I launched the aircraft, but it seemed a little sluggish at first. I climbed out and away from the back deck, and everything seemed to be working. However, I seemed to lose contact with the aircraft more quickly than usual. I let it do its RTH thing, and when it reconnected, I cancelled the RTH. I flew along some of my standard routes, but kept losing the signal. The weird thing was, after the first RTH, it would threaten to RTH, but as soon as the counter got down to zero, it reconnected, and the RTH self-cancelled. This happened several times.

There's a hierarchy of connectivity among my Minis. The Mini-1 is the worst, and it's much more sensitive to antenna pointing than either the SE or the Mini-2. Today it seemed even worse than usual. The Mini-2 is almost indifferent to antenna pointing.

But I kept flying around, and things seemed to get better. I got in a full 18 minute flight, and came home to land.

Everything now seems normal, but it was just weird. Have any of the rest of you observed behavior like this?

The Mini-1 is a great little bird, and I'm glad that I have one!

 

[Mynah]

I suppose this kind of post is what keeps the drone hobby going addictively, for me at least. It's all digital right? So there's a logical explanation for every 'weird' occurance based on naughts and ones and some Chinese programming logic. BUT, that notion is a pipe dream since when you least expect it the most illogical things happen. To me this is the adrenalin rush, I get a chemical kick out of every flight.
I once woke my Mini from a month's hiberation and found it 'sluggish', it persisted in going 'down' after take-off so I had to heavily persist on the left stick 'up' to prevent it from sitting itself back down from where I took off, stubbornly refusing to hover above the usual take-off pad. (Log data scrutinised afterwards indicated it was in 'auto landing' mode after take-off, why, only the Mini would know.)
So first thought was prop deformation due to storage, only, it sat for a month UNFOLDED occupying precious 30 square centimeter of space in my camera cupboard in my studio.
I let it do it's binary 'thing' and it landed, only, I had to shut down motors manually to stop it from trimming my lawn for me, (the Mini OEM ground clearance was calculated by CAD on some Chinese design engineer's mouse pad, NOT in the field.)
Now I've lost ALL confidence in the beloved Mini which served me SO well in the past year and 322kms of loyal flying in the most daring and exotic corners of my country.
This is what I do next; I refresh the drone firmware, calibrate EVERYTHING that can be calibrated, IMU, compass, control sticks, gimbal, and yeah, I know, general concensus is that if the app does not ask for IMU and compass calibration it is not needed, I beg to differ, when my Mini starts bitching about 'wind warning' when there IS no wind then I know it's time for IMU calibration.
Then, after two cups of coffee for fortification and with adrenalin rushing, four hours of dedicated drone hobby attention later I check 'UAV forecast' and get the green light, then I launch the Mini again and.....it flies as if it was bought yesterday and nothing was EVER wrong.
Man, I just love this hobby

 

[Chaosrider]

I suppose this kind of post is what keeps the drone hobby going addictively, for me at least. It's all digital right? So there's a logical explanation for every 'weird' occurance based on naughts and ones and some Chinese programming logic. BUT, that notion is a pipe dream since when you least expect it the most illogical things happen. To me this is the adrenalin rush, I get a chemical kick out of every flight.
I once woke my Mini from a month's hiberation and found it 'sluggish', it persisted in going 'down' after take-off so I had to heavily persist on the left stick 'up' to prevent it from sitting itself back down from where I took off, stubbornly refusing to hover above the usual take-off pad. (Log data scrutinised afterwards indicated it was in 'auto landing' mode after take-off, why, only the Mini would know.)
So first thought was prop deformation due to storage, only, it sat for a month UNFOLDED occupying precious 30 square centimeter of space in my camera cupboard in my studio.
I let it do it's binary 'thing' and it landed, only, I had to shut down motors manually to stop it from trimming my lawn for me, (the Mini OEM ground clearance was calculated by CAD on some Chinese design engineer's mouse pad, NOT in the field.)
Now I've lost ALL confidence in the beloved Mini which served me SO well in the past year and 322kms of loyal flying in the most daring and exotic corners of my country.
This is what I do next; I refresh the drone firmware, calibrate EVERYTHING that can be calibrated, IMU, compass, control sticks, gimbal, and yeah, I know, general concensus is that if the app does not ask for IMU and compass calibration it is not needed, I beg to differ, when my Mini starts bitching about 'wind warning' when there IS no wind then I know it's time for IMU calibration.
Then, after two cups of coffee for fortification and with adrenalin rushing, four hours of dedicated drone hobby attention later I check 'UAV forecast' and get the green light, then I launch the Mini again and.....it flies as if it was bought yesterday and nothing was EVER wrong.
Man, I just love this hobby

I think a lot of the "slow wake-up" effect is physical stiffness of the mechanical components, rather than some binary gremlin. That's why I try to fly all of my drones regularly, to prevent any build-up of that.

I always store mine unfolded. I find the whole foldy thing just an annoyance.

Glad you got your little bird back in the air!