Wind gust - drone climbing vertical up

[rscheff]

I just received this error msg. about an hour ago. It was about 19 degrees F. I did not see any flight issues but I did not fly it long. Why should the cold cause flight issues anyway.

 

[Meta4]

Why should the cold cause flight issues anyway.

Because the altitude sensor can malfunction in very cold conditions, giving erratic false data and causing height stability problems.

 

[rscheff]

I assume when you say "Altitude sensor" you are referring to the IMU? I referred to the Mini's manual and I could not find anything about the IMU. I did find a sentence that said, "Operating temperature of 32 to 104 degrees." I worked part time in the electronics field, I built and tested MIDI's (Music Interface Device), I never came across a piece of electrical equipment that would not work at 32 degrees. Some chips did not work well at high temps. but worked fine at low temps. I am sure there are some components that do not work well in extreme cold, but IMUs are used everywhere now, from expensive fitbits to cars. I Googled operating conditions for IMUs and the only mention of problems was extreme banging and jarring them to radio wave interference, nothing mentioned about cold. I am just curious what would be in their IMUs that do not work in the cold.

 

[Meta4]

I am just curious what would be in their IMUs that do not work in the cold.

I don't know whyor how the IMU can be affected, but I've examined the flight data from a couple of flights in very cold conditions where the altitude data was highly erratic.
This caused serious altitude stability issues.

 

[rscheff]

I could understand cold affecting the IMU if it was using some kind of liquid like Mercury, but it does not, it's a combination of electronic components, but even Mercury does not freeze until something like -54 degrees. It is a bit baffling and I am going to have to read up on it a bit.

 

[scro]

Doesn't the mini (and pretty much every other dji drone) use a barometric pressure sensor as its main altitude sensor? I could understand extreme cold affecting this as most electronic air pressure sensors need temperature compensation which is usually built in to the sensor.

 

[rscheff]

Yes, it is part of the IMU but my researched info says the operating temp. is between -45 to 145 degrees F. Numerous flyers have reported that they have flown many times in sub zero temps and have never received the message I did. You can't fly it fast, out of sight or higher than 3 feet. These are crazy restrictions. I am starting to think that it is a DJI CYA statement because you have to "agree" to move on. If something happens after that point they probably would not warranty it even if the accident was not caused by the cold. I just received my "Flight Report" titled "RTH" from DJI and it said that last year I flew the mini more than 97.8% of all pilots around the world. So with all this flight time why haven't I received this message before?