First Litchi Mission

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Just finished up my first Litchi waypoint/POI mission. Realized afterwards that if you have auto record set to on, then the bird will not take photos even if they are planned activities.
Had two problems:
1. Video was very choppy
2. Mission ending was set to Land. At the end of the mission it landed but came straight down FAST, bounced off the ground to about 4 feet, and I reached over and grabbed it. It then shut down. Weird. I would have thought that the P4 sensor would have stopped a hard landing like that. Luckily nothing broke.

Any ideas?
 
First off, I never use the land point in Litchi, I have the bird hover at it's final location or set a point where I want it to come back to but not land. Was your video choppy on your device or was the video choppy on the SD card? If the video was choppy just on your device you can lower the transmission bit rate in the settings, this will help.
 
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it was choppy on the SD card.
When you let it hover at the end of the mission, how do you take control and land it? Switch to A mode first or just land it?
 
Just land it, when you are in F mode it is still using all the sensors (GPS, Compass, ETC). I'm not sure why your video would be choppy, can you post a sample here?
 
F mode? Is that the same as P mode for the P4? Do you change modes to land or stay in the same mode?

Still not sure why the sensors didn't stop it from landing hard and fast. That concerns me. Sensors should protect the bird regardless of what app is running. Or so I thought.
 
F mode? Is that the same as P mode for the P4? Do you change modes to land or stay in the same mode?

Still not sure why the sensors didn't stop it from landing hard and fast. That concerns me. Sensors should protect the bird regardless of what app is running. Or so I thought.
Ooops sorry about that, I'm used to my Inspire 1 now. Yes F mode is the same as P mode on the P4. You don't need to change the mode switch. Yes I would have thought the VPS sensors would have kept it from hitting so hard. Again I trust myself landing more than I do the app.
 
Choppy video was only while viewing the clip with VLC media player on my brand new Dell laptop. Transferred the file to my iPad pro and it looks great.
 
Choppy video was only while viewing the clip with VLC media player on my brand new Dell laptop. Transferred the file to my iPad pro and it looks great.
Oh good, glad thats all it was. On Litchi flight logs are synced with Healthy Drones, you need to setup an account with them, the free one is fine, then sync them.
 
here is the clip of the landing...
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Holy crap, that's not right at all! That was more of controlled free-fall !!!
 
I'm always in the air first then flip over to P mode and start the mission.
 
Aye carumba that was a hard landing! :eek:

I begin my missions on the ground & let the bird take off on its own. I end the mission by returning to the first waypoint & land manually.

here is the clip of the landing...
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At the end of the mission it landed but came straight down FAST, bounced off the ground to about 4 feet, and I reached over and grabbed it.
A few people have posted flight logs here showing this occurring in DJI GO too, so I don't think it has anything to do with Litchi. Manual takeoffs and landings are what I like to recommend since it allows the pilot to always be in full control of the aircraft.
 
I always do automated takeoffs, but end it either way...automatic landing or takeover from hover at the last waypoint. You can control an automatic landing...giving it up throttle while it's descending will slow it down, event to a hover (under normal circumstances, which in the video was not).
 
I've been having some good old fun with Litchi, and I do everything I can manually except fly the waypoints. I take off myself, place the copter near the first waypoint, and then upload the mission. As soon as it heads off on the mission, I hit record. I always set the final waypoint to be right next to the first, and when it returns to near that position, I flip the switch to S-mode and it stops and hovers right there. I used to wait until it said "Returning to Home" (which I set as the final action), but by the time I aborted this action and the command made it to the copter, it was in a full on climb to the RTH altitude, and I don't like the sudden prop surge of the copter's motors when this is suddenly interrupted.

The reason that I turn the video on manually, is because the copter's maximum single file size limitation (4GB) means that a single mission could result in two videos on the SD card (at 1080P anyway). The first file will be full size per this limitation, and the second will be the remainder of the flight. I do not presently have access to software to splice these files, and it's a shame when this 'break' comes right in the middle of "the good part". By turning the video on manually, at least I am doing all that I can do to control how fast this maximum file size is reached. I usually end up cropping off the first 10-15 seconds of video anyway...
 
FYI you can use the YouTube Video Editor to splice shots together. Alas you still get a little "burp" where they join as the Phantom drops frames when it begins a new recording. Not terrible but if the splice occurs at the wrong time it can definitely ruin a good shot.

The reason that I turn the video on manually, is because the copter's maximum single file size limitation (4GB) means that a single mission could result in two videos on the SD card (at 1080P anyway). The first file will be full size per this limitation, and the second will be the remainder of the flight. I do not presently have access to software to splice these files, and it's a shame when this 'break' comes right in the middle of "the good part". By turning the video on manually, at least I am doing all that I can do to control how fast this maximum file size is reached. I usually end up cropping off the first 10-15 seconds of video anyway...
 

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