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Turning off the screen while in flight?

Ziggy01

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Another dubious question.

Today I was attempting a fairly long hyperlapse (15 secs - about 15 minutes air time) and since the drone was nearby and my course was preset I thought Id save on phone battery by switching off the screen. The drone behaved normally and after about 10 minutes I switched the screen back on and the rc reconnected (well, it hadn't disconnected) and the hyperlapse completed.

Since I had about 10 minutes Mavic battery left I started a second hyperlapse and with 5 minutes or so battery life left the Mavic suggested it would enter RTH in 10 seconds. Normally you can option out but in this case only "confirm" was available, so I hit that. My Air 2 was only about 40 meters away but over water and immediately began to land pretty much where it was. The cancel RTH was greyed out (wtf??!!) and it was going for a swim. I still had manual control but it fought me all the way back to dry land and eventually a safe landing.

Ok, perhaps switching the screen off isn't the greatest idea but I certainly wasn't anticipating this kind of behaviour.

Take this as a cautionary tale if you wish but any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
Another dubious question.

Today I was attempting a fairly long hyperlapse (15 secs - about 15 minutes air time) and since the drone was nearby and my course was preset I thought Id save on phone battery by switching off the screen. The drone behaved normally and after about 10 minutes I switched the screen back on and the rc reconnected (well, it hadn't disconnected) and the hyperlapse completed.

Since I had about 10 minutes Mavic battery left I started a second hyperlapse and with 5 minutes or so battery life left the Mavic suggested it would enter RTH in 10 seconds. Normally you can option out but in this case only "confirm" was available, so I hit that. My Air 2 was only about 40 meters away but over water and immediately began to land pretty much where it was. The cancel RTH was greyed out (wtf??!!) and it was going for a swim. I still had manual control but it fought me all the way back to dry land and eventually a safe landing.

Ok, perhaps switching the screen off isn't the greatest idea but I certainly wasn't anticipating this kind of behaviour.

Take this as a cautionary tale if you wish but any thoughts would be appreciated.
The landing definitely wasn't a result of that you turned off your mobile device earlier during the flight ... attach your mobile device .TXT flight logs from that flight, in there the real reason is found. Read up here on how to retrieve (see section 3.) --> Mavic Flight Log Retrieval and Analysis Guide
 
Don’t really get why you would turn off your screen to save a bit of phone battery ..if you are that near Low battery why would you even fly in The first place?
curious , not critical btw..
 
You should be able to fly it without ever hooking a screen up in the first place.
yep but only in exceptional circumstances - without it you may have no idea where the thing is or which way it's pointing in which case having a screen is so much better ....
 
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If you hit the rth button on the controller the drone will stop whatever its doing and hover
 
Don’t really get why you would turn off your screen to save a bit of phone battery ..if you are that near Low battery why would you even fly in The first place?
curious , not critical btw..

Well, phone battery is a bit of a premium in these parts. As for low battery, I usually fly until about 2-3 minutes remaining. It's never been an issue. I rarely send it out more than a kilometre.
 
You said the button was greyed out
You're on about the screen
I'm on about the controller itself

Yeah, I can't be certain that I hit it. I know, it's obvious now, but I may have been mildly panicking...
 
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I have flown my Mini, without any screen hooked to the controller.

But my suggestion to you OP, is get a new phone, the battery must be shot in yours if it gets run down that quickly. My phone's battery lasts many many hours.
 
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Without the app running an RC only flight has limited range and this may have also caused the abnormal behavior. From the User Manual - "For increased safety, flight is restricted to a height of 98.4 ft (30 m) and range of 164 ft (50 m) when not connected or logged into the app during flight. This applies to DJI Fly and all apps compatible with DJI aircraft. '

And as far as turning the phone off to save the phone's battery power, you do know the RC is always charging for Android phones and can be on/off for iOS? Also from the User Manual - "The built-in battery has a capacity of 5200 mAh and a maximum run time of 6 hours. The remote controller charges the mobile device with a charging ability of 500 mA@5V. The remote controller automatically charges Android devices. For iOS devices, first make sure that charging is enabled in DJI Fly. Charging for iOS devices is disabled by default and needs to be enabled each time the remote controller is powered on."
 
Yeah, I can't be certain that I hit it. I know, it's obvious now, but I may have been mildly panicking...
If you are fine with only speculations then by all means proceed ... but if you truly want to have any possibility to know the reason for this & share that as a lesson learned to all others here at the forum you need to share the .txt flight log ... in post #4 you find a link showing how to retrieve.
 
Sounds like an autolanding due to critically low battery level. It canNOT be cancelled but you can fight it as you have tried.

My Mavic 2 Pro behaves the same in this regard. Go to 11:35 in this footage , the cancel-RTH button on the left with a cross on it was greyed out after landing has commenced :

 
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