Litchi vs DJI Go App

[Dirty Bird]

Enable auto-takeoff & load the mission while you are on the ground. That will save battery power. There is a limit on how far apart waypoints can be. I'm not 100% sure of the limit but I believe it is 2000m.

Don't mean to hijack, but I have 2 Litchi questions and I want to break my habit of starting a new thread every time I think of a question to ask.

Quite often when I try to send my P4 on a Litchi mission I will get an error that says something to the effect of "Failed to upload mission." Sometimes I'll get that error many times even though I have full bars on my RC signal. Where it gets annoying is that I'll be wasting a lot of battery power (15% or so in some cases) trying to send my mission to my P4 while it hovers up in the air. Any idea what causes this or how to fix it?

Second of all, a few days ago I got a warning on Litchi that 2 of my waypoints were too far apart. It would have been nice if the mission hub told me about this while I was designing the mission rather than wasting my time getting my drone all set up to fly only to find out my mission wasn't valid. What is the maximum distance 2 waypoints can be apart?

 

[Dirty Bird]

At least 200...probably more. I've flown "The Baltimore Run" alone over 100 times. I have a lot of other Litchi missions outside of Baltimore, but they are boring in comparison so I haven't posted them. Most of these missions (3/4s) have been flown with my P3 Standards, a fair amount with my P4, and only recently I flew a few Litchi missions with my P3 Advanced.

I have never had a P4 compass error, but I have had unexpected P3 compass errors on a few occasions. The first time was several months back flying my P3 Advanced manually with Go. Took off from the driveway, everything normal, & about a minute into the flight suddenly got a compass error & the bird entered ATTI mode. Compass issue continued & I was able to fly back & land manually. Calibrated the compass, took off again with all showing normal, and about a minute in the situation repeated itself. Bagged it for the day. Next day all was fine so I have no idea what was up with that? I've never had an incident with my P3 Advanced compass since. Again this was with Go. I have since discovered there is a spot on my driveway where something steel must be buried because a P3 Standard gave an error when attempting to lift off from the same spot. Moved a couple feet over & all was well.

The other day I did have a compass issue during a Litchi mission with a P3 Standard, but I believe I know why. I was testing a new 42,000' mission from Stoney Point all down through Stoney Creek. I launched from atop a wooden pylon (think short telephone pole) with heavy steel cables run between each consecutive pylon. These form a barrier at the top of a hill so cars can't fall down a hill into the Bay. I loaded & engaged the Litchi mission sitting on the pylon. The bird lifted off fine, but a few seconds after liftoff I got a compass error warning, the bird dropped to ATTI mode, & she started drifting with the wind. I watched for maybe 15 seconds before dumping the mission & landing. Next time I lifted off from the ground & all was fine. My guess is the compass error was induced by the heavy steel cable passing through the pylon only a few inches beneath the P3. It wasn't enough to warn me before liftoff & only after I moved away from the source did things go awry. You'll see the pylon with steel cables in the video below.

I've never had (at least to my knowledge) a mid-mission compass error with Litchi. The few times I have had compass errors all seem to be related to taking off from a magnetized spot. Usually the warning is before liftoff. I'm not sure how Litchi would handle this if the compass error occurred in the middle of a mission?

This is "Stoney Point" test flight - 42,000' mission length - P3 Standard returned with 25% battery:

Wow DirtBird, 200 missions with Litchi? So I wanted to ask you about P3P versus P4. I will get a compass error with my P3P about every 15th or 20th flight. Sometimes it doesn't last very long, 10 seconds then everything is OK again (I always recalibrate with these incidents). Other times it lasts a long time and I have to bring the craft back to home for re-calibration. The occasions are always local to my last compass calibration, and most of the time is on the 2nd or 3 flight in the same area on the same day. With my P4 I have never had a compass error, ever, after about 150 flights. The dual compass obviously works well. My question to you is, have you ever had an issue with an autonomous Litchi flight in your P3s? You mentioned you never had an issue. Do you ever get compass errors with Go? And never Litchi? Just curious.

I'm thinking if I run Litche on my P3P (I haven't done that yet), that I run a higher risk of a problem (compared to P4) if the compass goes wacky when it's out of range. So I only fly Litche with my P4. Have you had any anomalies related to the P3 compass, ever?

What do you suppose happens when Litchi gets a compass error when flying autonomous? Does the craft go into ATTI hover and abort the mission?

 

[ussvertigo]

I get mad every time I see one of the Bird's videos. The tallest, most interesting thing I have to film where I live is a farmer on a tractor. Location, location, location. What setting is working best for you on these night runs? I love the wp's around the last building, slowing the cruise speed at those would be a nice touch. Learned a lot from you guys.

Only problem I've had with compass calibration is on my driveway, which is not reinforced with metal but fibers. But I found there is metal at the expansion joints

 

[Pharm]

Missions wont load if you are not in "P" mode

Missions won't load if you ARE in P mode on a P3. On a P4, you DO have to be in P mode.

Edited (after reading correction by ussvertigo. )

 

[Pharm]

Here's a question: Can i plan a flight path using Litchi, and control the rotation of the drone, and the gimbal manually while it autonomously flies the path i have plotted?

Yes, as long as you have contact with the RC. The manual explains how to do this.

 

[Pharm]

Don't mean to hijack, but I have 2 Litchi questions and I want to break my habit of starting a new thread every time I think of a question to ask.

Quite often when I try to send my P4 on a Litchi mission I will get an error that says something to the effect of "Failed to upload mission." Sometimes I'll get that error many times even though I have full bars on my RC signal. Where it gets annoying is that I'll be wasting a lot of battery power (15% or so in some cases) trying to send my mission to my P4 while it hovers up in the air. Any idea what causes this or how to fix it?

Second of all, a few days ago I got a warning on Litchi that 2 of my waypoints were too far apart. It would have been nice if the mission hub told me about this while I was designing the mission rather than wasting my time getting my drone all set up to fly only to find out my mission wasn't valid. What is the maximum distance 2 waypoints can be apart?

Max distance between waypoints is 2000 m. That includes the distance between the first and last waypoint.

 

[Pharm]

...Quite often when I try to send my P4 on a Litchi mission I will get an error that says something to the effect of "Failed to upload mission."...Any idea what causes this or how to fix it?

Depends on what the message says. Anytime I've gotten the "Failed to upload" message, it always tells me why. I've gotten "Altitude too high", which means the altitude I have set for a waypoint is higher than the max altitude I have set in DJI Go. I've also gotten "One or more adjacent waypoints are too far apart". Always read the entire message.

 

[ussvertigo]

I always start my mission in P mode, we are talking about Phantom 4?

 

[XFlite]

Awesome work guys! When using Litchi are you able to control the camera direction and focus point while it's running your flight path? Anyone here tried using Litchi with some cienamtic work?

 

[gsreinke]

I bought Litchi and tried it yesterday.....went without a hitch. One thing I wonder is sending it on its way and not seeing it as it takes the first turn out of sight.......am I breaking the FAA rule of not keeping the drone in plain view at all times?

FAA rule is LOS

 

[Pharm]

I always start my mission in P mode, we are talking about Phantom 4?

Yep. You're correct. Forgot the P 4 is different.

 

[Tenly]

FAA rule is LOS

VLOS actually. LOS could be 1,000 miles away. It only refers to a straight line. V adds "visible" to LOS "line of sight" which is an important distinction.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Reginald Thomas]

I only use Litchi for autonomous waypoint missions but, in over 200 complex, long-distance missions it has never failed.

A truly awesome video capturing Baltimore's Harbor, fantastic flying and videography. When I grow up, I want to fly just like you.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Larry56]

I only use Litchi for autonomous waypoint missions but, in over 200 complex, long-distance missions it has never failed.

Great looking video Dirty Bird. I'm assuming you had nothing set to "auto" so I'm curious if you'd be willing to share your camera settings, including white balance, shutter speed, ISO, etc. I'm assuming no ND filter? Did you have 3D Noise Reduction turned on or off?

Anytime I've tried night flying, I've been disappointed with videos that had slightly overexposed street lights and other $hit. Anyway, I'd really appreciate any tips/tricks in this area.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Thanks. Believe it or not that is full auto @ 1080x30 fps.

Great looking video Dirty Bird. I'm assuming you had nothing set to "auto" so I'm curious if you'd be willing to share your camera settings, including white balance, shutter speed, ISO, etc. I'm assuming no ND filter? Did you have 3D Noise Reduction turned on or off?

Anytime I've tried night flying, I've been disappointed with videos that had slightly overexposed street lights and other $hit. Anyway, I'd really appreciate any tips/tricks in this area.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Drestin Black]

I only use Litchi for autonomous waypoint missions but, in over 200 complex, long-distance missions it has never failed.

Wow!

And this was fully automatic - you couldn't see it and just let it fly and it came back x min later ? Great job


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Dirty Bird]

Thanks. Yes it was flying the Litchi mission I programmed.

Wow!

And this was fully automatic - you couldn't see it and just let it fly and it came back x min later ? Great job


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[GadgetGuy]

Max distance between waypoints is 2000 m. That includes the distance between the first and last waypoint.

That is 6561 feet. The error message is a bit confusing, but that is the correct number. Not sure to what the 1.6 before the comma refers. Is that perhaps a help message section number?

 

[GadgetGuy]

FAA rule is LOS

As long as you aren't flying commercially, for all hobbyists VLOS is only a Guideline, not a Rule, same as no night flying. It's an important legal distinction! Just make sure it comes back safely, and no reckless flying was involved! The results are spectacular!

 

[JustGoFaster]

I only use Litchi for autonomous waypoint missions but, in over 200 complex, long-distance missions it has never failed.

Hi,
The video is fantastic, really impressive, so we'll done. I have a reservation however for the future for us all. So many videos are posted showing the breaking of numerous laws. Everyday the footage we see posted shows that we as a group of enthusiasts are reckless and happy to demonstrate that we just break the law whenever it suits us. If we want to be able to keep our activity alive in the future we must be careful! Sorry! I know I sound like your Dad but I hope you can understand my point. Just a few rules are worth refreshing in your mind...overflight rules...closest approach to a person or structure.......must maintain visual contact with the UAV..etc.