User issue?

[dronerdave]

Hi all. I’ve been flying my Mavic Pro for a few weeks now and have had some issues I’m confused about. While taking off I use the precision landing mode most of the time and have a landing pad. On a couple flights I’ve lost some of the control of certain functions. The takeoff is always normal and things are fine most of the time but on a few occasions the Mavic starts to climb on its own. When I try to bring it down, it barely reacts and with the left stick in the fully down position it only drops the aircraft about a foot every five seconds or so. It also seems to jump into a self-landing mode (RC says landing) until I hit up on the stick and then it will start going back up on its own. I was able to avoid a river when I lost sight of it and noticed the height was dropping too close for comfort. Flying back wasn’t too much of a problem except it was continuously trying to climb or land. Back overhead at about at about 200 feet over the launch pad, the landing took forever. Thankfully my batteries were above 50%. The last time this happened I hit the RTH and instead of a double beep tone coming from the controller it just gave a steady on/off single tone. Again it took a long time to land again with me fully down on the left stick the whole way. After I got it down I noticed the sport mode on the RC had been activated but the manual says the switch is inactive during flight. I shut down and rebooted everything and it seems to fly correctly but I’m concerned about what’s causing it to jump into this strange mode. I wonder if it’s a user thing on my part. All the updates are current as of a few weeks ago. I always check the sensor state & compass. All is in the green. I’m using a 5.5 crystal sky monitor. Another thing I noticed on the monitor was a blue ring target on the display during the precision takeoff hovering point when the camera is pointing down. I’ve never noticed that before.

Does the main camera actually capture a takeoff image or is that done with the down sensors?

Are you supposed to power down the controller when changing the aircraft battery?

I thought you’re supposed to start the controller before firing up the Mavic itself???

What’s with the China maps? I turned those off being I’m not planning on going there. By default they were on. Is that a mistake?

Is there a link to something like a menu flow chart out there?

Sorry if I’m asking questions that have been answered a bunch of times.



Thanks

Dave

 

[Pathogen]

menu chart was just posted in this forum

I never cared about what order to start things in

precision landing use cheap cameras. not the main camera that makes your video

I see no need to power down RC when changing AC batteries, unless device startup order is of concern

who knows maybe china maps is secret permission to grant china to spy on you?

---

I can't help with the strange flight behavior, but you are mistaken about the sport switch, it is active during flight, you can switch back and forth freely. Also note that the downward sensors have been known to become confused with water, and the front sensors can become confused by the sun. uberskilled pilots turn all that junk off.

 

[Kilrah]

Sounds like faulty ultrasonic height sensor, what's the height it reports when that happens?

Switching to sport mode or disabling VPS in the settings is the thing to do in case of such control issues.

Power state doesn't matter at all.

 

[dronerdave]

Thanks for the replies. I'm still new to all this. I guess what confused me is where it says this in the manual:

The Flight Mode is locked in P Mode by default, regardless of switch position. To switch flight modes, go
to Camera view in the DJI GO 4 app, tap
and enable “Multiple Flight Modes”. After enabling multiple
flight modes, toggle the switch to P and then to S to fly in Sport Mode.
The Mavic Pro is fly in P-mode by default every time after powering on. Toggle the Flight Mode Switch to
P and then to S every time before you use S mode.

So if the sport mode is selected during flight on the controller, the Mavic will react differently if I haven't selected "Multiple flight modes" in the app? I was in an open area and tried to see what kind of speed I could get while switching the controller to sport and the top speed never changed. At this point in time I have no desire to go fast until I get the hang of this craft but I'd like to try it. Just strange that after rebooting everything and switching back to P mode, the Mavic operated fine the rest of the day.

I'm still too new to this thing to find the flight log but I'll research how to get it. Thanks.

 

[msinger]

The takeoff is always normal and things are fine most of the time but on a few occasions the Mavic starts to climb on its own. When I try to bring it down, it barely reacts and with the left stick in the fully down position it only drops the aircraft about a foot every five seconds or so. It also seems to jump into a self-landing mode (RC says landing) until I hit up on the stick and then it will start going back up on its own.

These things happen when the downward sensors incorrectly detect the ground is near mid-flight. Those issues can be resolved mid-flight by disabling the Landing Protection setting. You'll find that setting in the following section of DJI GO:



Here are the usual cases where the downward sensors incorrectly detect the ground is near:

• Something is dangling beneath the Mavic (e.g. a GPS tracker antenna)
• A 3rd party accessory is installed beneath the Mavic (e.g. extended landing gear)
  
• The sensors needs to be calibrated like this
• The sensors are dirty and need to be cleaned
• The sensors are damaged and need to be replaced (not a common problem)
  
  

Does the main camera actually capture a takeoff image

No. The Mavic only uses the downward sensors for precision landing.

Are you supposed to power down the controller when changing the aircraft battery?

It shouldn't matter either way. It's okay to keep it powered on (that's what I do).

Is there a link to something like a menu flow chart out there?

If you're referring to the DJI GO app, then check out the DJI GO 4 manual.

 

[dronerdave]

Thanks I'll try that. It does have rear landing gear.

 

[msinger]

Ah, that could be your issue. Try removing the landing gear and see if you can reproduce those issues then.

 

[Qoncussion]

Thanks I'll try that. It does have rear landing gear.

Ah, that could be your issue. Try removing the landing gear and see if you can reproduce those issues then.

Or, if they're the landing gear that I have (popular model), try turning the rear gear around. When installed backwards (what I suspect you may have done) they directly block the rear vision sensor.

 

[msinger]

Good point. Here's the correct orientation:

 

[dronerdave]

Exactly what I'm using landing gear wise. One of the buddies I fly with has the same setup I'm using the only difference was he hadn't upgraded anything since early October. All the setting on mine seem to be the same as shown above but I have yet to calibrate the sensors. Now it's saying the FW needs updating and that went smooth at least. I'll post back when I get it in the air. Hopefully I won't have anymore issues.

 

[dronerdave]

Took the Mavic out today after the upgrade and all seems well. Noticed some of the parameters were reset to factory values. Flew for for a total of about an hour before it got too dark out. Did several landings, both self and controlled. No issues at all. Hope it stays that way. One thing about having flight complications is learning how to deal with them and get the craft home safely. It does pump up your BP a little!

Thanks for all the tips. Not turning off the controller while doing a battery change helped to save some time and effort.