TTGator said:
Ah very cool. Did not know about the GPS satellites or the Home Lock parts. Very useful indeed!
I still haven't gotten brave enough to test out the Home Lock part. Sometime soon I'd like to do that. I was thinking the easiest way was to fly it 100 yards or so away in a nice empty field and then turn my controller off?
ok first off, are you clear on the difference between Phantom Mode and Naza Mode? the default mode is Phantom Mode, unless you've change it that's what you're in. There is a better way to test/enable Failsafe manually without turning your controller off. see below copy/paste from a prior post of mine:
OK so, right now in Phantom mode the 2 control switches on your remote don't do anything (during flight) right? In the Phantom assistant software, go to the Basic / RC tab. see at the bottom "Control Mode Switch"? there's only 1 thing you can change, on the right the dropbox (by default) says Normal Fly. If you change that to Failsafe, then while your phantom is up in the air if you click the right switch full down the Phantom will go into Failsafe (the lights on the bottom normally green will start blinking yellow) the same as if it loses touch with the RC . wherever it is, the P will fly back to it's home position (the GPS position it locked when you turned it on) and descend until it lands. You can flip the control switch back to normal and resume control at any time (yellow blinking lights go back to green). I basically use this feature as a "fly back overhead and start descending" autopilot... especially useful if I'm WAY up in the air (at 2m/s descend rate, that's a while to descend from 200m or so) or very far off and just don't feel like manually flying back overhead. just flip the switch any time to resume normal control. this is in many people's opinion much safer and better than turning off the RC to trigger failsafe
of course you'll want to test it at short range before relying on it at longer ranges... remember:
if the Phantom is below 20m and Failsafe is triggered, it will ascend to 20m, fly to home point, and descend
if the Phantom is above 20m, it will fly to home point and descend
so that's how you can both enable the ability to trigger failsafe and resume normal control, all without turning off your RC, and you can test at short range and feel comfortable that failsafe works... liek you said fly it off a short distance, trigger failsafe, watch the results. resume manual control at any time by toggling the switch back up
sometimes the GPS lock position isn't like EXACTLY perfect, for me it's common for it to be 1-3 meters off the EXACT point it took off from, that can be due to subtle changes in the earth's magnetic field in different parts of the country/planet. however it will get **** close and for me personally I never let Failsafe actually land it, I just flip the switch and resume normal control then land manually. actually, I never land anymore I catch.
speaking of catching: many folks around this forum have agreed with me that catching is preferable to landing for several reasons, not the least of which is ANY lateral movement on touchdown can cause a tipover and broken props.
I recommend reading
this post I've made previously with some good protips, especially the part about catching and the video I link. That same post also expands on Phantom Mode vs Naza Mode. Naza Mode gives you different flight modes that honestly can be more confusing than normal. I personally stick to Phantom Mode with manual Failsafe and don't bother with Naza mode, home-lock mode, course-lock mode and all that noise. NAza mode also has FULL MANUAL control if you accidentally flip the switch wrong which is basically death for a non-expert pilot like none of the flight assists are active in full manual. I've never even done it, no desire to.