A tale of lost and found

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All of my flights over the past few days have been with the DJI Go app. Today I decided to use Litchi since I had planned a waypoint mission just around my house. I synced the app on my Nvidia K1 but the mission would not upload. Thinking I did something wrong, I decided just to manually fly using the Litchi app. I flew the exact same area that I had this morning using the Go app. About 500 ft out, just out of sight, I start getting the dreaded lost signal warning. I would then regain a signal only to lose it again and again. I decided to try and bring the drone back but never did regain the signal. As we hear over and over on this forum, my heart was in my stomach. It isn't the $600, it was the feeling that I am one of "those guys". :oops:

Any way I looked around for a while but to no avail. I went home and used the Litch "find my aircraft" option and it told me where I should look. Not believing anything the app told me, I then went to Healthy Drones and it showed he exact same location. I went to that location and sure enough there was the drone, a little dirty and less a half of two props. Funny thing is I had looked only fifty feet from this area on my first search and rescue.

Took the Dreauxn home, cleaned her up, removed the props and went through a checkout. I received an error that the accelerometer had failed and that an IMU cal was required. I saw that the x-axis on the accelerometer was -16.04. Not good. After a few google searches I found a post on the forum that gave instructions on what side of the bird to smack to get the accelerometer unstuck. Three good "who's your daddy" spanks on the battery did the trick. IMU calibrated fine, the gimbal is normal, and the motors fire up smooth. BTW, the video from the mission is corrupt, while the previous flight videos on the same card are fine.

It will be quite a while before I trust Litchi again, if ever. It is a shame because the app is so awesome, in theory. Thanks for "listening".

EDITED TO ADD: read the whole thread and you will see Litchi is not at fault.
 
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Hey TF - you might consider the possibility that the AC decided to land itself and it was just a coincidence you were on Litchi. If it landed itself, you would lose signal as it sank lower and lower behind the trees.

The video would become corrupt if the AC shut off while the video is running. When this has happened to me, I've fixed it with a free program called MP4 Video Recovery Tool. But it likely won't show the very end of the video because it wasn't closed properly.

Can you link us to the healthy drones file? Maybe we can figure out why it landed itself.
 
Sure here it is. http://healthydrones.com/main?share=lbeLCM

The battery still had three bars, so not sure why it would auto land. It is possible that the drone hit a tree on the way back, but the area I found it in is downhill from my launch spot. I have heard a few complaints of lost signal using the latest version of Litchi with the K1 tablet. I am not adverse to taking the blame if it truly was pilot error. In the end, all turned out well.
 
I'm going through the csv file and it looks like I may have barely hit the top of a tree. But that does not explain the loss of signal so relatively close to my house. I was flying near Trump's National Country Club. I wonder if they now have jamming devices. :eek:
 
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I'm going through the csv file and it looks like I may have barely hit the top of a tree. But that does not explain the loss of signal so relatively close to my house. I was flying near Trump's National Country Club. I wonder if they now have jamming devices. :eek:
I have had Healthy Drones report loss of signal when using a screen recorder, and then flown the identical route without screen recorder and all green. I do not trust the sensor reporting on HD
Too soon to blame Litchi, I have every confidence in Litchi.
Good that the 2 apps located your aircraft, and you got it back with minimal damage.
 
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More info...DJI Go app was running in the background, I hear that is bad. Also, USB debugging was turned off. Please chime in if I am looking at too many variables. Usually I change one variable and retest, but not in this case.

Looking more and more like pilot error. CSV file shows the craft tried RTH but my altitude was set 1 foot too low given the altitude data. My apologies to Litchi.
 
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I'm convinced - complete pilot error as it is with 99.9% of flights. What an idiot.
 
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Strange data. The voltage is stuck on one value for half the flight. The battery percentage keeps toggling down to 0% then back up. And then it leaps from 80% to 74% in less than seven seconds.
 
Strange data. The voltage is stuck on one value for half the flight. The battery percentage keeps toggling down to 0% then back up. And then it leaps from 80% to 74% in less than seven seconds.

That's what was strange. When I initially lost signal, the battery showed 0%. When I got the bird back there was three bars on it and I just charged it which took 20 minutes - about normal. This is a OEM batt. Obviously the battery was functioning or the drone would have fell from the sky.
 
Could be the go app in the background created memory problems in the k1 which resulted in a bad log - just guessing
 
..I found a post on the forum that gave instructions on what side of the bird to smack to get the accelerometer unstuck. Three good "who's your daddy" spanks on the battery did the trick..
I fixed computers for 17 years - amazing how many times you could 'Fonz' a broken computer back into life. :)
 
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"Dreauxn" ! I LOVE that, along with the ""Who's your daddy" smacks"!

We are from south Louisiana and big LSU fans, seaux that is why I have a Dreauxn. Geaux Tigers!
 
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We are from south Louisiana and big LSU fans, seaux that is why I have a Dreauxn. Geaux Tigers!
There is a disease in cats called Cytauxzoonosis or "Cyto" for short. Unfortunately, the common pronunciation is too often "Cytox". Makes me want to scream sometimes. I don't guess that could be considered a faux pas.
 

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