Is home lock reliable? (Video)

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Hello guys,

I'm very familiar with the NAZA M IOC system and used it plenty times to my advantage as its a great feature to have esp home lock in case the phantom gets too far and lose orientation.

I've heard before on the forum that if you get too far, home lock no longer works and I've heard otherwise

Yesterday was a scary day. I flew my bird out to avoid 1200ft from my house, still had video feed but I wanted to bring her back but didn't know the nose orientation.

As you can see on my video I have full control up until to 0:07 mark and That is when I engage home lock. For a split second it begins to go towards my house which is visible on the upper left side of the video but it changes couse and goes farther and farther away from my house over the freeway which I did not intend to happen. By the 0:21 mark I realized it has flow farther and that is when I let go of the sticks and now video feed is cut, phantom is out of sight. No control at all. You can see my phantom hover and I immediately switch to fail safe mode. At 0:29 seconds the turns and cripples towards home. The rest of the video shows exactly that.

I'm really starting to believe home lock isn't very reliable. I compass calibrated as I do every flight. I had NAZA M mode on. Ive done home lock before.
It was scary not knowing what happened to my bird I was already thinking about how much the new vision plus is going to cost me as a waited there about to cry lol

Can someone give me any insight on what happened? I'm not ruling out pilot error either so feel free to chip in thanks !!

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There's no plausable explaination for Home Lock not working beyond a certain distance from Home point except for control signal availabilty (i.e. within range).

Secondly, there's loss of GPS 'lock' but that has no relation to how far away from you the quad is. This can happen at any time, any distance, depending on a host of conditions.

The other possibility is the S2 switch being intermittent causing unpredictable and unwanted mode changes. Maybe it switched to CL or Off. This alone can cause a lot of seemingly unexplained operations or control confusion if you're not aware of it.

S1, S2 failures are well documented.
 
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There's no plausable explaination for Home Lock not working beyond a certain distance from Home point except for control signal availabilty (i.e. within range).

Secondly, there's loss of GPS 'lock' but that has no relation to how far away from you the quad is. This can happen at any time, any distance, depending on a host of conditions.

The other possibility is the S2 switch being intermittent causing unpredictable and unwanted mode changes. Maybe it switched to CL or Off. This alone can cause a lot of seemingly unexplained operations or control confusion if you're not aware of it.

S1, S2 failures are well documented.
Interesting. Well I'm going to hook my phantom up to the computer and see if the switches are working thanks
 
Am I the only one who thinks flying over that highway and homes kinda screwed up ??
What if it came down on a car ?
Maybe it's just me.
 
Possibly jumped into ATTI mode due to lack of satellites.
I was using the ultimate flight app the other evening and the spoken warning kept coming up as satellites were marginal.
Every time she said it changed to atti mode it was off with the wind.
It was close at hand so easy to keep control but would have been tricky if you could hardly see it.
 
Yeah
Am I the only one who thinks flying over that highway and homes kinda screwed up ??
What if it came down on a car ?
Maybe it's just me.[/QUOT
Am I the only one who thinks flying over that highway and homes kinda screwed up ??
What if it came down on a car ?
Maybe it's just me.
as I said on my original post it wasn't my intent to fly over the freeway. I thought home lock was working but the bird kept flying fhe opposite direction
 
Possibly jumped into ATTI mode due to lack of satellites.
I was using the ultimate flight app the other evening and the spoken warning kept coming up as satellites were marginal.
Every time she said it changed to atti mode it was off with the wind.
It was close at hand so easy to keep control but would have been tricky if you could hardly see it.

That's really scary if that happens while we are flying far away and it randomly Jump into atti mode. Is there any way to avoid that? Does the phantom try and lock back into gps mode? I know once I lose GPS You cannot even use fail safe home. I Might invest in a GPS booster or mod so that I cN ensure better gps reception.
 
The Gps booster is only shielding , nothing else. If you have always had good gps lock or have a v3 there's really no need.the v3 has improved shielding.
It's electronic ,stuff happens.
 
I've never read that.
Me either. Maybe people are referring to when they lose connection to the controller. In that case nothing works but RTH kicks I. Automatically
 
Bad idea to fly near a highway. Yes GPS and home lock are not 100% reliable. You should program each flight in advance. Go to https://in-the-sky.org/location.php?
set your location and then click "Map of your sky". You can also go back to the date and time of the event and maybe find the reason (lost of a satellite).
Basically once you took off you should always check if the home lock is really working by distancing yr quad, rotate it, putting it in home lock and have it return to you. Even if you do this test I think the registrered mark could change due to a loss in one of the satellites resulting in a wrong triangulation. I had a few cases where the home lock was recorded completely wrong (it was not even moving in the direction of the previous homelock) that is why I don't trust to fly further than 200 meters (600 feet - flying at sight) and stay fully concentrated where the quad direction is. The worst case scenario I shoot it high up and this would allow me to understand where is the front by moving it around.
 
Bad idea to fly near a highway. Yes GPS and home lock are not 100% reliable. You should program each flight in advance. Go to https://in-the-sky.org/location.php?
set your location and then click "Map of your sky". You can also go back to the date and time of the event and maybe find the reason (lost of a satellite).
Basically once you took off you should always check if the home lock is really working by distancing yr quad, rotate it, putting it in home lock and have it return to you. Even if you do this test I think the registrered mark could change due to a loss in one of the satellites resulting in a wrong triangulation. I had a few cases where the home lock was recorded completely wrong (it was not even moving in the direction of the previous homelock) that is why I don't trust to fly further than 200 meters (600 feet - flying at sight) and stay fully concentrated where the quad direction is. The worst case scenario I shoot it high up and this would allow me to understand where is the front by moving it around.

interesting information, thanks a lot!

That flight I had, the phantom did lock into at least 8 sats. It also recording a home position. I calibrated the compass as I do in every flight regardless of it being the same flying field. I did test home lock before but i guess the satellites got lost or something.

as for flying to near a freeway, Its something i always avoid due to safety issues. I have to admit i get impatient and fly my bird outside my house which is right next to a freeway. I never fly over it though. this is something i need to work on.

seems like you are very conservative flyer, to be honest 600ft is nothing for me I've done 1300ft with a stock setup. this platform is made for long distance flying. they sell upgraded antennas that can go miles away. i guess you gotta pay to play.
 
... this platform is made for long distance flying. they sell upgraded antennas that can go miles away. i guess you gotta pay to play.


Wrong.

Not being a prude but technically changing and modifying the antennas is illegal.
The 'platform' is type certified as sold, not modified.
The antennas are sold by third parties who have no responsibility for how they are used. DJI could never get FCC certification the way they are being modified.

The Tx power for the ISM band will not allow it to fly miles away and soon you will be required to fly LOS.
 
Hi guys,

I had used the p3 home lock for the first time, and looking at the resulting map i saw it did not fly in a straight line. I am sure about that. It had deviation of about 5 degrees, before successfully going back home. You can say it made an arc.

What could be the explanation? Bad compass calibration? I calibrate every flight.

Thanks
 

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