First Crash... Very lucky!

Luckyguy

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I was out flying the neighborhood tonight on my third battery and decided to do some very low filming at 20' around a house we bought as an investment property a few weeks ago across the street.

Battery got to 30% and I got the typical low battery warning and was setting it down when I got a verbal warning "going to Home in 10 seconds." 3 seconds later while only a foot off the ground, it took off to my GTH height (200') but at 15 feet off the ground hit a telephone cable, flipped over and landed upside down on the lawn.

Luckily, only 2 prop guards were broken and the props blackened from contact with the telephone cable. I removed all the guards, replaced the props and inserted a 4th battery and all systems checked out, and it hovered great so I looks like I got off lucky, just like my handle!

I thought it didn't head home until power got to 10%. Am I mistaken?? Is this a setting you can change? Thanks.
 
It is a setting you can change in the app as well as when it warns you in regards to low battery. Unless you've had a lot of experience though, I wouldn't recommend changing these settings.
 
I was at 21% when it took off for home. I thought it didn't do that until 10%??
 
I get a RTH warning at 30% and at 10 to 8% it will auto land where it is. Settings can be changed but I think this is where most people have theirs set?
 
I have found the same behavior but only if my fail safe altitude is set really high. Lower your RTH altitude and I'll bet this settles things down.
 
That makes sense since it probably takes into account that it needs more power to go higher if the RTH height is set high as mine is at 200 feet. Thanks!!
 
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I'm pretty sure the % when it RTH and the RTH height are two independent settings. I would recommend researching that and understanding what the default settings are as well as what your various fail safes mean and what they do.
 
Luckyguy, in the DJI GO app, you'll find settings where you can set both the low battery % and critical low battery %. I recommend you keep those settings at their defaults.

When the battery reaches the low battery level, the DJI GO app will show a message stating that it's going to initiate RTH in 10 seconds. If you do not cancel that action within 10 seconds, your Phantom will start the RTH process. After RTH initiates, you can cancel it at anytime by pressing the RTH button on the front of the remote controller or on the icon on the left side of the DJI GO app.

When RTH is initiated, your Phantom will only ascend to the RTH altitude and return to home if it's more than 20 m (65 ft) away from the home point. If it's closer than 20 m, it will land at its current position (without ascending to the RTH altitude). Due to that functionality, you should make sure you are always close to the home point when you're bringing your Phantom in for a landing. If you move away from the home point, it would be a good idea to reset the home point to your current position. That'll require you to have a mobile device with GPS.

When the battery reaches the critical low level, your Phantom will start landing at its current location. You cannot cancel this process. The only thing you'll be able to do is hold the throttle in the full up position to prevent your Phantom from descending further and/or navigate to a safer landing spot as it automatically descends. If you choose to control it, keep in mind that you should get it to the ground as quickly as possible. If the battery dies in the air, your Phantom will drop like a rock.

The Phantom manual goes into greater detail about the above items. You can find the manual on the DJI downloads page.
 
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Luckyguy can you post the flight log? Would be interesting to see this
 
atki, the mode does not matter.
 
Thats odd, my mates have drained the battery down to 1% on long range fpv attempts.. at 10% they still would be a kilometre or more out, would make bringing it home that last kilometre quite challenging.
 
Yep, it would take some skill to continue flying while it's auto landing.
 
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Sorry if this is the wrong place but it is no longer showing coming soon for follow me on the phantom 3 standard. I wonder if it will change with advanced and pro soon too.
 
Z_Phantom, you should start a new topic. We're not discussing that here ;)
 
Yep, it would take some skill to continue flying while it's auto landing.

Yeh Ive had it landing on me once but Id only just switched back to gps mode on my way home after a 6.5km fpv, I was too busy trying to get it the rest of the way home while it was landing and only wondered later about atti mode and if it would have cancelled it or not. I hadnt had another chance because its only rarely I would take the battery so low.

Thanks for the information
 

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