Ground Station Now Available for Vision 2 and 2+

[anglicantv]

Who is brave enough to try it? http://www.dji.com/info/releases/dj...or-phantom-2-vision-and-phantom-2-vision-plus

 

[BigTulsa]

I was going to except for the silly 8km radius rule around airports. Sure, I'm close to an airport. A 'Class C' (by FAA standards) and by the DJI list on their website, a category B (with only a 3km no fly zone).

I can fly manually in an area I can't fly with the GS. That seems a little silly to me. What a load of crap.

 

[Dillinger]

New groundstation - 500 m away max and 200 m height max.
his is so -so and so artificial limit, that I hope someone will hack this version and make at least way to take limits off.
By default for "out of box" flyers it will be ok, I think.

 

[vernman]

OK, I have looked at the new feature on the DJI application for iOs and Android. I have even simulated several way points and altitude changes. No issues with that part. Here is the question. How do I start the flight ? What mode should the controller be set to ? Most of all, Where can I find any documentation ? Thanks.

 

[BigTulsa]

OK, I have looked at the new feature on the DJI application for iOs and Android. I have even simulated several way points and altitude changes. No issues with that part. Here is the question. How do I start the flight ? What mode should the controller be set to ? Most of all, Where can I find any documentation ? Thanks.

Documentation is in the download section of the DJI website.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[singleTap]

worked great for me.

 

[vernman]

Just tested and the feature and it seems to work just fine. Flying a Vision 2. Thanks for the additional info on the software.

 

[schenckg]

I've been using the ground station for a week or so and while it's a cool feature I've realized it is also a very dangerous feature.

Specifically there are a couple of ways you can end up wrecking your drone.

- Flying too low. Because you enter the height of each waypoint you could miss one and end up flying into a hill or obstruction. Also, if it runs low on battery and comes home on it's own it could hit an intervening structure. I wish that it new way points would default to the same height as the last way point. I also wish the main ground station screen showed the height of each way point vs. the distance from home or at least let you select which one to show.

- Flying too far. Because you can easily plot courses that take the drone out of reception and because the drone will not failsafe if it is running a ground station course you can easily overcommit and end up not having the battery to get home. In addition, once you loose reception you're committed. The only thing that will abort the mission is if the drone power gets too low but you may be too far away to get back home.

For the first issue you can be very careful with and make sure your heights are all sufficient. I carefully use Google earth to assert the heights I'll be flying over and add a big safety margin. I generally have my first way point take me up to a height where I can safely navigate everything in my path and make sure my last way point is still at that same height before going home.

For the second issue there isn't a good solution except make sure to always have a full battery and if any part of your flight is out of reception range do it first so if you'll be in control towards the end of the flight if power is getting too low.

I had a flight yesterday where I sent it on a course I'd sent it one two times before without problems but several aspects of this flight caused problems:
1) Battery, while fully charged 4 days ago, had lost some of it's charge. I've seen this before where the top 10% of your battery capacity drains off even if the battery test shows a full charge.
2) I sent it on the course at medium speed vs. high. It uses a lot more power and of course goes slower at medium. IT IS EASY TO FOGET TO SET THE SPEED and it default to medium, not fast.
3) Went higher than before and fought a 15+ mph head wind 1/2 of the trip.
The end result is that when the drone came back into reception range it was already sounding the battery alarm and I got it down in a bit of a panic with about 13% battery left. It doesn't help that when you get a low battery it start a bleating horn sound that tends to fluster you. The total flight time was around 10 minutes so something used the battery faster than expected.

I love this toy and with 20+ flights I haven't had a crash yet but the law of averages says that sooner or later my number will come up.

 

[BigTulsa]

I've been using the ground station for a week or so and while it's a cool feature I've realized it is also a very dangerous feature.

Specifically there are a couple of ways you can end up wrecking your drone.

- Flying too low. Because you enter the height of each waypoint you could miss one and end up flying into a hill or obstruction. Also, if it runs low on battery and comes home on it's own it could hit an intervening structure. I wish that it new way points would default to the same height as the last way point. I also wish the main ground station screen showed the height of each way point vs. the distance from home or at least let you select which one to show.

- Flying too far. Because you can easily plot courses that take the drone out of reception and because the drone will not failsafe if it is running a ground station course you can easily overcommit and end up not having the battery to get home. In addition, once you loose reception you're committed. The only thing that will abort the mission is if the drone power gets too low but you may be too far away to get back home.

For the first issue you can be very careful with and make sure your heights are all sufficient. I carefully use Google earth to assert the heights I'll be flying over and add a big safety margin. I generally have my first way point take me up to a height where I can safely navigate everything in my path and make sure my last way point is still at that same height before going home.

For the second issue there isn't a good solution except make sure to always have a full battery and if any part of your flight is out of reception range do it first so if you'll be in control towards the end of the flight if power is getting too low.

I had a flight yesterday where I sent it on a course I'd sent it one two times before without problems but several aspects of this flight caused problems:
1) Battery, while fully charged 4 days ago, had lost some of it's charge. I've seen this before where the top 10% of your battery capacity drains off even if the battery test shows a full charge.
2) I sent it on the course at medium speed vs. high. It uses a lot more power and of course goes slower at medium. IT IS EASY TO FOGET TO SET THE SPEED and it default to medium, not fast.
3) Went higher than before and fought a 15+ mph head wind 1/2 of the trip.
The end result is that when the drone came back into reception range it was already sounding the battery alarm and I got it down in a bit of a panic with about 13% battery left. It doesn't help that when you get a low battery it start a bleating horn sound that tends to fluster you. The total flight time was around 10 minutes so something used the battery faster than expected.

I love this toy and with 20+ flights I haven't had a crash yet but the law of averages says that sooner or later my number will come up.

While the GS is a neat application in theory I'm a bit of a control freak and would rather have myself be the one to blame for any accident I may get my vehicle in. If I WERE to use it, I would use it within a limited space/distance.

Not a huge deal for me anyway as most of my current locations I fly from are restricted by airports from the GS. I live close to a Category B airport, but not so close that I can't fly pretty much anywhere manually. However, there are no categories for waypoint flying, so the places I fly mainly now don't allow me to fly with GS given that the restricted radius is 8 km (as opposed to the Category B restriction of 3 km). I'd have to drive to a secondary location to fly that way (about 15 minutes from my home). However, this location is ideal as it is a flood control retention plain that doubles as park/soccer field with few trees and is also depressed into the ground a little more than the peripheral which is where a running path is located. I just haven't got a chance to get out there since the update.