Litchi Force Landing?

[sinxa]

Same thing just happened to me an hour ago.
I was using litchi waypoint for 3 minutes ETA, i took of at 34% battery remaining and then start the mission. After pass the 1st wp and heading to the 2nd wp about 100meters, it suddenly initiate landing without my command. It was my luck, i realize it when the quad is still in the RC signal range, so i switch to PGPS immediatelly and bring it home manually. I can't imagine what's gonna happen when it was out of signal range, since it was urban area waypoint mission above the city.

If the battery % when i took of was really my fault, i still don't understand why it should initiate autolanding? While i still able to bring it back with 27% battery left.
I checked the failsafe setting and seem to be all default, 30% low battery warning and 15% critical.

Almost 3 month using my P3s with DJI go and never experience this auto landing even when i flew through 20% battery. But why this is happened with litchi??

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Aaron407]

It's still happening to me as well. The last time I flew, with the newest firmware and version of Litchi, the blue "LANDING" header popped up three times and started forcing landings within the first two minutes or so, even when starting with a nearly full battery. I'm not sure what's going on. Looking at the detailed log, it doesn't appear that there was an unusually significant battery deviation, but there was still a flight status change for initiating landing. I have a new battery now to see if it still has issues. If it does, I'm not sure what to do as my previous attempts to discuss this with them had them simply pointing the finger at DJI for firmware issues, while the DJI Go app doesn't exhibit this issue at all.

 

[Mark The Droner]

You must not launch without a fully charged battery.

You must not launch without a fully charged battery.

You must not launch without a fully charged battery.

Repeat 100x...

 

[Aaron407]

You must not launch without a fully charged battery.

You must not launch without a fully charged battery.

You must not launch without a fully charged battery.

Repeat 100x...

Definitely good practice, but it shouldn't be the difference between a proper flight and a seemingly unwarranted forced landing when it does not happen with the OEM's app. Something's just not right.

 

[Mark The Droner]

... Something's just not right.

The "Something" is launching without a fully charged battery

 

[Aaron407]

Just to clarify, are you suggesting that we should simply accept forced landings if a flight was made with a battery at 90% rather than 100%? I fully respect your stance, but, as an electrical engineer, that approach doesn't sit well with me. Whether you're in the middle of flying with batteries at 60% or you take off with them at 60%, the cell voltage would be roughly the same, and a landing shouldn't be forced simply due to semantics. Regardless, I have never had issues with the DJI Go app forcing a landing due to taking off with a less than full-charge, so it seems specific to Litchi. When I contacted them, they made no note of it possibly being related to flying without a fully charged battery, so I don't feel that the charge level is necessarily the trigger. Also, if you feel that the variable causing the issue is the initial battery charge level, why did you previously post "Then it has to be a bug in litchi"?

 

[Mark The Droner]

I understand your angst or frustration - but this has been discussed at great length in many threads over the past year. There are several reasons it behaves funny on a partial charge. False reading is one. Voltage lag is another. It shouldn't do this and it shouldn't do that and all this is true. But the solution is so simple: Just launch with a fully charged battery.

That's really all there is to it.

 

[Aaron407]

I understand your angst or frustration - but this has been discussed at great length in many threads over the past year. There are several reasons it behaves funny on a partial charge. It shouldn't do this and it shouldn't do that and all this is true. But the solution is so simple: Just launch with a fully charged battery.

That's really all there is to it.

Finicky electrical systems... a curse, but also my paycheck

 

[sinxa]

I think litchi have to note it somewhere on their website or apps to remind us "you must fully charged the battery before launch", if it is really all about. Please somebody give me any link or screenshot.

Honestly, this strange and unexplained behaviour degrade my confidence to use litchi waypoints out of RC's coverage.

I'm gonna hold off litchi and use dji.go instead for next couple weeks, and let's see wether this force landing going to happen before critical battery or not.. . .

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[sinxa]

I emailed litchi and this is their answer.
"Litchi never request aircraft to land by its own".

And i replied :

Thanks for your reply, .

1. In fact my critical battery was and still set to 15%. No-fly zone? I guess not, i live in small city with no airport neither any restriction to fly by local law. You may check on my location 7.143443s 110.902913e. I flew my quad a lot on this area and not even a single one initiated force landing, especially when battery is more than 30%. And my failsafe routine set to RTH, and have never change it to other option. I hope litchi give a look on this, since i am not the only one and never experience this with DJI.go.

2. I'll give it a try on the next chance.

Regards,

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[mikep2323]

Has this still been happening to anyone? I haven't flown in over a month and went to fly the other day and it tried to land a few times. Each time I was able to cancel it. I defiantly didn't have a full battery charged. I just went up a little to try to drain the battery before charging again. I have done this countless times before and this has never happened before. I will fully charge the battery and see if it happens again.

Sent from my Shield Tablet using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[sinxa]

Has this still been happening to anyone? I haven't flown in over a month and went to fly the other day and it tried to land a few times. Each time I was able to cancel it. I defiantly didn't have a full battery charged. I just went up a little to try to drain the battery before charging again. I have done this countless times before and this has never happened before. I will fully charge the battery and see if it happens again.

Sent from my Shield Tablet using PhantomPilots mobile app

i'm not gonna risk it again unless i have an opportunity on wide open area, so i'm ready in case that "not full battery force landing" gonna happen again.

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[CrispyClaret]

Just seen this thread, interesting that Litchi is not the panacea of all things perfect. You would think it is the only way to fly based on a lot of posts.
As for "you must not launch without a fully charged battery", well there go your spontaneous sunrise/sunsets or once in a lifetime opportunities to film something interesting.
Given that we keep getting told not to store our batteries fully charged, it leaves Litchi in the house while Go copes with a quick dash into the back garden/yard etc.

 

[mikep2323]

i'm not gonna risk it again unless i have an opportunity on wide open area, so i'm ready in case that "not full battery force landing" gonna happen again.

Sent from my SCL23 using PhantomPilots mobile app

I fully charged all my battery's and flew yesterday without a problem. I don't think I will risk it again. I have definitely flown quite a few times without being fully charged and never had a problem. I also flew over a wide open field just in case. When it did it before I was very high up over trees.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Mark The Droner]

We can keep a fully charged battery available to fly with 24/7. It's just not convenient. And it may not be best for the health of the battery. But we can certainly do it if we want.

Ex) You charge battery A at noon. The next morning, you charge battery B. At noon, you discharge Battery A.

Repeat every day.

Re apps, I don't believe there is a difference in battery behavior between Go and Litchi

 

[Storm]

Food for thought! Your batteries have an auto discharge function. If you haven't flown in a few days depending on what the auto discharge is set at (how many days) they might have started the discharge process. You might get a false reading on voltage. If so, the app reads more charge than there is under load, meaning, once you throttle up the load from the motors drops voltage quicker. Just a thought.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[CrispyClaret]

We can keep a fully charged battery available to fly with 24/7. It's just not convenient. And it may not be best for the health of the battery. But we can certainly do it if we want.

Ex) You charge battery A at noon. The next morning, you charge battery B. At noon, you discharge Battery A.

Repeat every day.

Re apps, I don't believe there is a difference in battery behavior between Go and Litchi

Only works if you have more than one battery, there are plenty of us out there who struggled enough to buy a Phantom, never mind adding £125 for another battery.