9.23mi 40min Flight - Midnight Skunk Works!

Ed209 · Apr 21, 2016

It appears so. I don't know why you would want to give up the ability to control your RTH though. With prolonged flight, your RTH will kick in and you'll want to cancel it. At 10%, the bird will start to auto land and you better be on your way back and almost home. You can throttle up the left stick to keep the bird from landing and losing altitude. It might take 70-80% throttle to maintain altitude.

shockwave199 · Apr 21, 2016

I always thought, maybe wrongly so, that smart RTH was an algorithm that kicks in a RTH automatically when it calculates, between distance from home point and available battery power remaining, it's necessary to do so. Different than the RTH button on the remote or a soft button on the screen for the user to instantiate, it's an automatic failsafe to help avoid the pilot unwittingly getting too far out to be able to safely land because of not enough battery power to do so. I'm still not sure that's what the smart RTH setting does, but it sure makes sense that's the explanation of it. And by disabling it, the pilot turns off that safety net and takes on the calculation themselves. What I question is whether in a modified battery setup, is the smart RTH calculation still accurate or is it adding something to have to cancel out of unnecessarily? Or more to the point, am I completely wrong about what I think smart RTH actually is, and does. Not the RTH button, but the smart RTH setting that can be enabled or disabled in the app settings.

Ed209 · Apr 21, 2016

It is confusing I agree. What I do know is that with a modified battery, the meter is still accurate. It just takes longer for it to start moving down. With "proper" external bats in parallel, all of the cells in each battery pack discharge at the same rate. The DJI smart battery doesn't know of the additional mAh available so DJI Go doesn't show anything above the 4480mAh of the DJI pack. BUT the timer is still working and is just delayed due to the additional capacity. The DJI battery discharges its cells slower because it's sharing the load with externals that's all. Watch my video.. .You'll see the Go app show --/-- for a while and then go to 25:00 for a while before beginning the count down.

dirtybum · Apr 21, 2016

Ed explained the conjunction of the two batteries and it's relationship to the timer perfectly!
There is no reason to disable smart return home unless you're afraid of bumping the sticks while it is on its way back. Smart return home simply allows you to give stick command while it is moving back. I've done flight comparisons to show that in some FW's giving 100% throttle while in smart return mode (which means you have to press the button) Will give you speed greater then you could achieve with GPS mode alone, but speeds lesser than Atti mode. I encourage everyone to try it.

shockwave199 · Apr 21, 2016

dirtybum said:
Ed explained the conjunction of the two batteries and it's relationship to the timer perfectly!
There is no reason to disable smart return home unless you're afraid of bumping the sticks while it is on its way back. Smart return home simply allows you to give stick command while it is moving back. I've done flight comparisons to show that in some FW's giving 100% throttle while in smart return mode (which means you have to press the button) Will give you speed greater then you could achieve with GPS mode alone, but speeds lesser than Atti mode. I encourage everyone to try it.

I agree and yes, thanks Ed for that explanation. My one remaining question on the subject is, if you disabled the smart RTH setting in app settings, what do lose? What gets disabled exactly?

Ed209 · Apr 21, 2016

shockwave199 said:
I agree and yes, thanks Ed for that explanation. My one remaining question on the subject is, if you disabled the smart RTH setting in app settings, what do lose? What gets disabled exactly?

I would think disabling the Smart RTH would basically disable your ability to control the bird during the RTH process. Now what I don't know is, if it disables your ability to keep it in the air during the critical battery voltage auto land. I'm not willing to test but someone who has the curiosity or the right area could do so. Honestly, I don't really care because I'd never want to give up any chance for me to control my P3s.

dirtybum · Apr 21, 2016

Shockwave, it sounds like you got some good tests to run this weekend. Get back to us on that smart return home information so were all informed and I will get back to you Monday morning just how far a phantom can fly on a 5.2 battery with 3 mile an hour winds and how long it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. Now go!

shockwave199 · Apr 21, 2016

LOL! I think the reason this specific question remains unanswered is because no one is willing to see what the consequences of disabling it will have. I thought maybe you long distance guys worked it out already. To be fair, none of us should have to guess exactly what the smart RTH setting is, and what it enables or disables. DJI should make it clear what this setting does.

Let me ask you something you might have seen happen or not, being you guys have gone great distances. Assuming signal has been fine during a flight and not lost, which would kick in a RTH, has RTH ever kicked in out there without you starting it manually? Like at some point it just goes into RTH on it's own because it thinks it has to, given battery percentage and distance from home- at which point you have to cancel the RTH if you want to keep flying (because you know you can)?

I of course have always and will always keep smart RTH enabled. But I sure would like to know why I really want to do that. Vexing, lol!

dirtybum · Apr 22, 2016

Assuming you always have perfect signal, RTH will try to kick in when battery runs down to a certain calculation in which the app warns you
"a/c will return home in 10 seconds" giving you the option to cancel. IF YOU CANCEL and keep flying under no circumstance will ask you again that flight, nor will it try to rth that flight ( unless signal loss)[emoji41]
Now, since you dont want to test Smart RTH for us, I will, and you can test how many licks to get to the center of a tootsiepop!

shockwave199 · Apr 22, 2016

dirtybum said:
Assuming you always have perfect signal, RTH will try to kick in when battery runs down to a certain calculation in which the app warns you
"a/c will return home in 10 seconds" giving you the option to cancel. IF YOU CANCEL and keep flying under no circumstance will ask you again that flight, nor will it try to rth that flight ( unless signal loss)[emoji41]

What you just described is exactly what I think smart RTH does when enabled. As I said earlier, if you disable the setting, I think it turns off that calculation and therefore, never goes into an automatic smart RTH on it's own. Why do I bring it up or think that matters? For long distance flight with a battery mod, disabling smart RTH could avoid the auto RTH interruption altogether, and that's one less thing, lol. But then YOU have to be the smart one and understand how much time verses juice verses distance you're gonna need to turn around and bring it in. It might be that you guys on long runs are already heading back anyway, which is why this isn't bothersome for you in the first place.

dirtybum · Apr 22, 2016

No, we're not heading back until its so **** close that we wont even really know that we're going to make it until we're 1000' from HP[emoji41]
We just hope and trust that our calculation was right & wonder if we should have turned around at 48% instead of 45! My next flight I'll turn it off, but I think the app still does the math for you, only I wont be able to put in stick commands.

shockwave199 · Apr 22, 2016

dirtybum said:
No, we're not heading back until its so **** close that we wont even really know that we're going to make it until we're 1000' from HP[emoji41]
We just hope and trust that our calculation was right & wonder if we should have turned around at 48% instead of 45! My next flight I'll turn it off, but I think the app still does the math for you, only I wont be able to put in stick commands.

Actually, a google search brought me to Blade from RC forums and he seems to confirm you are correct- the setting allows stick control during RTH. That's actually good enough for me. No need to create any more risk to check it. Cool beans.

Ed209 · Apr 22, 2016

Lol exactly what I said and why I quoted the manual. Manual clearly explains what smart RTH is. So if you turn it off, you're turning off that ability to control during RTH.

shockwave199 · Apr 22, 2016

Yes but they leave questions hanging out there about it. Because they don't reference the actual smart RTH setting within the app and how it relates, it makes it seem like they're only talking about the RTH button on the rc or the soft button in the app. They they refer to them as smart RTH. I really think that being able to control the bird during RTH should just be default behavior and they should eliminate the smart RTH setting altogether. Who wouldn't want to control the bird during RTH? Who would choose to disable that setting? Doesn't make sense and would avoid confusion. Anyway, thanks for indulging me about it. Rock on.

Tenly · Apr 22, 2016

shockwave199 said:
Yes but they leave questions hanging out there about it. Because they don't reference the actual smart RTH setting within the app and how it relates, it makes it seem like they're only talking about the RTH button on the rc or the soft button in the app. They they refer to them as smart RTH. I really think that being able to control the bird during RTH should just be default behavior and they should eliminate the smart RTH setting altogether. Who wouldn't want to control the bird during RTH? Who would choose to disable that setting? Doesn't make sense and would avoid confusion. Anyway, thanks for indulging me about it. Rock on.

I agree it's confusing. Are there 2 different things? One being "RTH" and the other being "Smart RTH"?

The way I initially read it is that there is a single feature called "Smart RTH" which can be initiated manually any time you have a home point recorded and a GPS lock. During the return process, you can use the sticks to control the flight.

I always thought that the setting which allows you to turn off "Smart RTH" disables the safety processes that will invoke the return process automatically due to low battery or lost connection.

I don't see anything which says you don't have stick control during the return process - nor do I know why a person would ever want to disable stick input during the return.

If you're testing proves otherwise, I'm happy to believe what you've seen. I'm just pointing out how vague the documentation is and how easily it can be misunderstood/misinterpreted.

Ed's posted a screenshot of the Smart RTH description, which amongst other things - indicates that you have stick control during this process - but is there any other section where it describes an RTH process which indicates stick access is disabled?

Jhunsbar · Jul 7, 2016

Ed209 said:
EDIT: Video posted.

Took the SOLID P3A out to 9.23 miles tonight. A direct result of the collaboration of some of the brightest, most innovative and "balls-of-steel members" (you know who you are), "Midnight Skunk Works" has achieved a major accomplishment in less than perfect conditions. This could go 10mi+ in ideal conditions.

HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Awesome flight man. Keep it up

Ed209 · Jul 7, 2016

Jhunsbar said:
Awesome flight man. Keep it up

Thanks. I've done 10.28mi since...Now it's just a matter of having optimal conditions.

Silverwingflinx · Jul 7, 2016

Ed209 said:
Thanks. I've done 10.28mi since...Now it's just a matter of having optimal conditions.

Great flite thax for the post truly amazing flight.

Tsm895 · Jul 23, 2016

What type of lights or setup do you use to fly at night? Ive tried buying some cheap led lights (24 leds in a circle) but so far neither of them worked. I have a phantom 2v+ and Im looking for something they will work but fairly easy to install since Im no genius when it comes to electronics. I can solder really good and I do have some knowledge on the subject. Please help!