I don't fly a lot but recently I have been flying at a great park where range limit has been (low battery returning home) I'm getting this at approximately 13,800'. Battery is at 67% when I get it. When drone returns to land I'm still at about 40% battery. Is this some safety feature ? It's ultimately not a huge deal just more curious than anything. I still have full bars for telemetry and nearly full video. I do have the itelite antennae mod.
Phantom 3 Std returning to home at 13,800'
- Thread starter Abadrs
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Are you saying you launched with a 67% battery?
If so that's very risky and probably explains the incident.
Flight data may explain things.
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides.
Sounds like you are getting the smartRTH kicking in, assuming your are starting at 100% and the warning pops up at 67%? You can disable it in the app as it's quite conservative, the battery determines distance from home, I guess wind factors taken from current draw etc. I've had mine kick in at 75% at a reasonable distance, panicked and landed at 40%. I leave it switched off if the weather is suitable.
In starting at 100%. I've never flown this far before so I figured it was a built in feature but I didn't see it in software. But to be honest it was a little concerning to fly that far I definitely won't make a habit of it but I got some nice video.
I went through a stage of seeing how far I could get without crapping myself, proved I could do it, but now limit myself to flying and learning how to take reasonable videos and photos. The smartRTH setting is in the app and can be switched on and off. Don't have my device for a screen shot but it's in the battery section of the app (GO4 in my case using a P4).
Depending on which P3 you have (wifi/lightbridge) would help in knowing whether you are flying in an inteference riddled area that can seriously affect your range. Height can improve your signal to clear inteference as does antenna orientation.
What's the difference between wifi and lightbridge?out on farm so no interference and even when careful with antenna still can only get 100 mtrs controller has one central antenna
You have a PS3 which uses wifi to connect the RC to the AC, it is succeptible to a myriad of external electrical, other wifi sources in your flying area and can reduce your control signal significantly. It requires a handshake protocol for each control and video/telemetry action, which takes additional time for an action to be implemented.
Lightbridge technology is more of a closed loop of control and video signal that is much more impervious to outside influences. Later P3P/A, P4 phantoms and later models, excluding ocusync platforms use two separate antennas, one for control and the other for video and telemetry.
My first PS3 needed to be in a totally inteference free area and antenna orientation, including factoring height, to get the best results. Maybe try a simple parabolic antenna mod for yours (windsurfer), and you should see an improvement.
If you are in a rural atmosphere you should get more than 100 meters. But with that said any trees or obstructions limit the signal. I could get about 1500' in a city atmosphere with stock antennae. Wind surfer parabolic mirrors really helped before I got the itelite antennae mod. Which works insanely good in a rural atmosphere. I would do some more research into what's limiting your range.
My first thought is try different places to fly and see if any location makes a difference. Are you actually seeing a loss of signal before RTH is initiated or is there full bars and drone just initiates it? I'm sure you already have beginner mode turned off in settings too right?
Managed to get out to 200 mtrs by carefully watching antenna orientation and rc bars on screen which drop to zero just before rth kicks in I think windsurfer might be good start any thoughts on best type or seller am in Australia
Skyteat worked good for me. Amazon $12 US. That one tripled my stock range.
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