FYI: I changed my gimbal arm and ribbon cable myself for $30. Might be worth saving some ducets and fixing it yourself.
Drone crashed after using RTH
- Thread starter KonstantinePhotos
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True. But it voids warranty when something does actually go wrong. I need the bottom shell and landing gear as well.
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Haha. I couldn’t resist. Ok. Was just checking to make sure we didn’t miss the obvious. I would guess then it’s because it updated and went back to the defaults, which IS annoying as h$**!
I
I'm a manager at Dave and Busters and all my game techs are pretty savvy and could probably put this thing back together.
Yeah this bugs me a little too, make the unit setting global for crying out loud.
To the original poster-sorry to hear about your crash.
A contributing factor to this sad flight was the disconnect. Can you disclose if you had a LOS connection? Was there anything between you and the craft? Trees are one of the worst signal interference problems because they contain water, which absorbs RF signal very good, hindering the craft's connection.
If you end up keeping the P4, you should work on enhancing the integrity of that anemic GL300C controller to help prevent unexpected RTH to occur so easy. This would include a directional antenna and amp, or using a different model controller, such as GL300A, B or GL658A, B or C.
I started flying DJI craft in July 2015 with a P3P, great craft, I still have it. But when I bought my P4 the craft was always losing connection at distances less than a mile. My P3P never did that. I can't tell you how disappointed I was in the poor range performance of P4, compared to P3P. After a long analysis of settings, transmission quality testing, channel selection with the 32ch hack, windsurfer inclusion, and measuring the RF power of the controller (the root problem), I ended up using a GL658A Inspire controller with my P4. That RC has 50% more transmit power than GL300C when linked to my P4. That controller when paired with my P4 works as well as my P3P for range and signal integrity. The GL300C is just weak, so you need to address that if you intend to keep the craft.
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Wow, what equipment did you use when flying P4P ?! Was it a stock RC thats comes with P4P?
In comparison with the Ocusync system of MP, the Lightbridge(2?) system seems very fragile to me, and signals can come and go with a slight change in the orientation of the RC antenna (with LOS, of course). Pressing the RTH button triggers re-orientation of the P4P antennas as AC rotates 180. Even that could be the cause of “no signal."
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How was the light condition at the time of the unfortunate crash?
Last dec I also had a 40m RTH when AC travelled behind a small hill of about 50 m in height with small trees on the top. The forward OA system correctly detected the sparse tree branches, and raised the AC (even moved it backward somewhat) until signals were recovered.
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Ocu-Sync is a really good version of Lightbridge, very true. The integrity of the signal is strong and consistent, meaning the degradation of the signal is gradual with distance. Ocu-Sync also has something very unique, which other Lightbridge implementation don't. This is the ability to have multiple wireless receivers receive the video signal from the craft. No other DJI Lightbridge implementation can do that. DJI makes (but doesn't sell) a product called RoboMaster. It's a wall powered stand-alone Ocu-Sync receiver that can be linked to the craft that will decode the video stream from the craft and send the 720 resolution video out an HDMI port to a TV, as a second video display, separate from the iPad which is connected to the RC. This receiver can be a mile away from the RC, because it's a wireless connection DIRECT to the craft. This is the same principle as using DJI googles as a second display, linked directly to the craft. The video signal does NOT go through the controller, like Inspire for the second controller view. I hope, and expect Ocu-Sync will be implemented in a P5 design, hopefully coming out this year. DJI would be fools not to use Ocu-Sync in a P5, for compatibility with their DJI goggles. Then maybe they'll start selling RoboMaster, demonstrated at CES2016 with Mavic in the DJI flight cage.
Trivia to know: WiFi implementations (P3SE, Spark, Mavic Air, Yuneec and GoPro craft) that use TCP/IP protocol in their communications cannot connect to multiple clients from the craft like Ocu-Sync. WiFi is point to point only, without a router to help.
The P4 craft does not exhibit this same stable signal behavior as Ocu-Sync. The P4 controller (GL300C) has a control signal that's very fragile as you mention, signals can come and go spontaneously. This can be mitigated by using a GL658A Inspire controller with the P4, as I have been doing for the last 20 months.
The P4P is a yet another implementation of Lightbridge, adding 5.8Ghz to the options when flying. It's been established that 5.8Ghz AUTO is the best connection for the P4P with range of 4 to 5 mile in urban areas! I believe this works so well because there is less usage of 5.8Ghz WiFi in homes and businesses, and even then, if it is used, 5.8Ghz doesn't go through walls as easy as 2.4Ghz, keeping the flight area more clear of 5.8Ghz WiFi interference. My P4P flies 3 to 4mi away from home point all the time, it's a beast for range IMO. I never fly 2.4Ghz unless someone near me is flying 5.8Ghz, so I'll yield that band to the other pilot as long as I'm not flying too far away. Flying on different bands is good practice if there's only two flying near each other, which helps mitigate interference. I use a stock GL300F with my P4P and it exhibits good signal integrity, a stable signal almost as good a Ocu-Sync. I'll use a windsurfer when I plan to fly more than 2 miles away. The P4P is an incredible craft IMO, I'm pretty happy with it's capabilities, especially the new found freedoms of 1.3.509 craft firmware. It's my go to craft for most flights. Although my Mavic has great range and flight time, it gets neglected, mostly because of the lesser camera.
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Wow sorry you crashed your new drone. I’m sorry also but you must be very new to drones as everyone who flys much knows after upgrading firmware & before ever flight to do a quick check of all settings. I hope DJI helps you out with cost of fixing your drone. Definitely pilot error as it says in tips to set higher RTH higher. Also as quick as you can always take control of your drone & do not rely on RTH & bring it back manually. I wish I could say things differently. How long have you been flying drones? Watch more YouTube videos on operating p4. Good luck. [emoji111]️[emoji256][emoji573]
Fix it and have fun. We all make mistakes. I fell for the exact trap you did in my first week, lucky for me I cancelled RTH within seconds of impact. And yes it was the 30m default altitude trap. I haven’t launched since without confirming the setting before takeoff.
It wouldn’t be hard for DJI to cause a check settings reminder to display that you have to click through before starting motors after an app update.
It wouldn’t be hard for DJI to cause a check settings reminder to display that you have to click through before starting motors after an app update.
A little tidbit to know.... When you lose your video feed by flying out of range, you may still have control of the craft. If the LED on your RC is green, you will still have control to ascend, whether you can see FPV or not. As soon as you seen the green LED, you can give the craft commands, like ascending straight up to a higher altitude.
If I lose the video feed I'll immediately look to see if the RC LED is red or green. If it's green, I will give it FULL LEFT STICK UP to gain altitude, which will usually relink the video so I can see FPV again.
Also, if your craft is coming home via auto RTH, if the light is green, you can increase the altitude with the left stick while it's on the way home, regardless if you have a video feed or not.
Using a windsurfer can help tremendously to improve the integrity of the signals, to and from the craft.
Fully agree, maybe as pre-flight check-list. Many pilots are having there own list of things to check, which is also of interest for pro pilots operating with rigor.
Issue is not only with some settings being reset during update, but issue starts since first app install when values are not rewieved by user.
I would design new settings option enabled by default to enable pre-flight check list pop-up display, to appear before launch. Would show key settings with their actual value, those for safe flight of course. No rocket science for devs and a light add-on.
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Of course I'm new. It doesmt take away the fact that the P4 is consumer grade drone and that everyone is new at some point. I believe I failed myself but I believe also that DJI has failed me as well. Ufortunately for me, it costs me a lot more than it costs DJI when put into perspective. I guess I doubted myself when I was I'm RTH because I was afraid if I took over and made a mistake that resulted in the same outcome then it would be seen as pilot error. So part of me was ignorant in my actions but a lot of things also went against me that failed. A high contrast obstacle was missed during adecquet amount of light. I'm not sure how DJIs profit margins and business plan is set up and if it makes room to help incidents like tbis one. I know other drone companies have it built into its price and plan to do so. From the looks of it online and other experiences from people it seems to me that DJI will tell me to stick it and suck it up. It seems they will take every possible step to put it on thr pilot regardless if soemthing of there's has failed.
I do however remember hitting the left joystick up because on was afraid it was too low. Unfortunately I don't see that on the joystick movements. I'm a bit curious as to why amd how that may have happened. I went back and watch the joystick movements
If you read the crash experience of others on this forum and elsewhere you might be surprised how many AC are repaired/replaced under warranty.
There was no AC hardware/firmware failure here. Obstacle avoidance is not claimed to be effective in all circumstances. I’m not sure why you might expect DJI to cover this.
Start off flying LOS until you are comfortable and familiar with the AC performance, features and operation. There is little chance of these sort of incidents then.
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