i use litchi in android but only for missions flights .. i use a couple of times autopilot in the ipad but i prefer litchi that the connection is not necessary to complete missions.. but wen i just want to fly and go far i use the dji go.. for me its easier to check the battery, signal etc... in the go app
Preferred app for long range runs
- Thread starter sacooke
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I understand the statements here but still say for non autonomous flights. The best way to go is DJI Go. Battery monitoring, check sensors, etc all in go. Just fly. Again, if you are going to fly without controlling the bird DJI GO is probably last on the list.
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Surely using Litchi's waypoint suggests that you have pre-determined your endpoint? Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy Litchi's autonomous modes, but how would you use Litchi to 'go for a record', where you don't know in advance where you will want to turn around? As I understand it you need to be flying a 'mission' to be able to exploit the fact that Litchi will complete the trip upon loss of RC signal.
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Erroll,
For me that's part of the fun of it. Trying to determine where you need to start heading home without depleting the battery. In good conditions I know I can easily do 5 miles with my P3Pro's with about 30+% battery left. Not straight line, distance trips. Trips like the one in the video I posted in this thread. That trip is just short of 6 miles. Also, I get the full battery condition screen pop-up in an instant just by pressing my pre-programmed C2 button.
The only thing that I don't like about Litchi is they haven't implemented every single DJI setting. Personally, I'm not concerned about getting to the sensors while I'm in-flight.
To each his own. Like I said in this and previous posts, I don't want to be using many different apps. I was looking for one app that would have the most features and be the most reliable, Litchi fit the bill for me. I'm not endorsing Litchi, just answering the OP's question the best I could as I interpreted it.
Jerry
I use DJI GO and LITCHI .dji go mostly for general flying and litchi just for waypoint missions however ive just noticed litchi has more photo options like pano and hdr aeb so ive started trying that out.
Quite often i swop between the 2 whilst drone is still in the air.
Ive had 13200 feet(2.5 miles) distance with dji go still with full signals and on low power CE mode too, but have yet to try long distance with litchi
Quite often i swop between the 2 whilst drone is still in the air.
Ive had 13200 feet(2.5 miles) distance with dji go still with full signals and on low power CE mode too, but have yet to try long distance with litchi
I too own all the major flight apps for android but find that I prefer to use DJI GO for my long range (relative) runs because of the information like time remaining to low battery warning and also that it is a different color to critical levels. It helps to eliminate some of the guesswork for me which in turn gives me more confidence.
Thank you everyone for your input.
Thank you everyone for your input.
I purchased my first drone with the hopes of being able to fly reliable, repeatable, long distance missions for survey applications.
After wasting 6 months and $25,000 on a top of the line S1000+/Zenmuse/Dual Futaba system, I purchased a Phantom Pro 3 and very quickly saw how wrong I had been.
After experimenting with various ways of getting up and down safely with images that will stitch into Agisoft Photoscan, I settled on Ultimate Flight because the developer was so responsive to my questions and suggestions while I was learning.
Ultimate Flight allows you to define a complex missions using a PC/Mac based upon Google Earth KML polygons, then load and fly them from auto-takeoff to auto landing, including all the required camera controls such that a relatively untrained operator, like a farmer, can fly missions and end up with the same number of drones he started with.
With my S1000+ system the largest polygon I have ever been able to image in a single flight from a legal altitude was 50 acres, and the poor thing was exhausted on landing.
With a P3P I have been able to routinely image areas up to 180 acres from 100M, and 250 acres from 150M.
Both of those missions are around 7500 meters total length. A 7500 meter mission will land with about 30% battery left, but I don't recommend missions longer than that because wind can cause an extra drain on the battery. The folks I work with are interested in images, not excitement.
With a single P3P during a 4 hour period, using 5 batteries and a 12v inverter for the battery charger, I can expect to cover 1000 acres with little or no drama
I cannot imagine flying a mission of any length with Ultimate Flight because once you define a waypoint grid you get a very good idea of how long it will take to fly it. If the mission exceeds what a single battery will safely bear you can either increase the flight speed or raise the altitude. Speed and Altitude both affect Photoscan though, so there is a point where you have to decide to break the mission into 2 battery flights.
When you do fly a predefined mission in Ultimate Flight, the screen shows a bright red circle that represents the farthest distance you can fly and still hope to have enough juice to come home. On longer missions I watch that circle slowly close in towards the end of the flight, but I've never yet had a mission not bring the platform home safely.
For most survey missions we create, the maximum distance to the platform usually doesn't exceed 1500 meters, but with an autonomous flight it doesn't matter if you lose the R/C signal because the platform will continue to fly the mission regardless of its ground connection.
Ultimate flight has other features I have used from time to time for shorter missions to do survey volume calculations like the ability to define circles with the gimbal pointing at a certain spot on the ground or in the air and the ability to define missions where the platform flies sideways to get oblique images of something like a containment berm.
Another feature I have used several times is the ability to fly a mapping mission, create an orthophoto from that mission, then load that geo-referenced image into Ultimate Flight to give an up to date background for future flights. Since some Google Earth areas can be many years old, this has been very useful for construction and volume storage calculations like piles of asphalt and gravel.
To be honest, Ultimate Flight has a bunch of features I have never used and don't understand like a virtual wall to prevent you from hand flying outside a defined area, fancy camera settings, the ability to adjust waypoint heights based upon Google Earth elevations, and both inward and outward panorama missions.
For me though, the ability to define a mission at home, understand and control the risks, then fly with confidence is the only way to go.
Hank
Texas
After wasting 6 months and $25,000 on a top of the line S1000+/Zenmuse/Dual Futaba system, I purchased a Phantom Pro 3 and very quickly saw how wrong I had been.
After experimenting with various ways of getting up and down safely with images that will stitch into Agisoft Photoscan, I settled on Ultimate Flight because the developer was so responsive to my questions and suggestions while I was learning.
Ultimate Flight allows you to define a complex missions using a PC/Mac based upon Google Earth KML polygons, then load and fly them from auto-takeoff to auto landing, including all the required camera controls such that a relatively untrained operator, like a farmer, can fly missions and end up with the same number of drones he started with.
With my S1000+ system the largest polygon I have ever been able to image in a single flight from a legal altitude was 50 acres, and the poor thing was exhausted on landing.
With a P3P I have been able to routinely image areas up to 180 acres from 100M, and 250 acres from 150M.
Both of those missions are around 7500 meters total length. A 7500 meter mission will land with about 30% battery left, but I don't recommend missions longer than that because wind can cause an extra drain on the battery. The folks I work with are interested in images, not excitement.
With a single P3P during a 4 hour period, using 5 batteries and a 12v inverter for the battery charger, I can expect to cover 1000 acres with little or no drama
I cannot imagine flying a mission of any length with Ultimate Flight because once you define a waypoint grid you get a very good idea of how long it will take to fly it. If the mission exceeds what a single battery will safely bear you can either increase the flight speed or raise the altitude. Speed and Altitude both affect Photoscan though, so there is a point where you have to decide to break the mission into 2 battery flights.
When you do fly a predefined mission in Ultimate Flight, the screen shows a bright red circle that represents the farthest distance you can fly and still hope to have enough juice to come home. On longer missions I watch that circle slowly close in towards the end of the flight, but I've never yet had a mission not bring the platform home safely.
For most survey missions we create, the maximum distance to the platform usually doesn't exceed 1500 meters, but with an autonomous flight it doesn't matter if you lose the R/C signal because the platform will continue to fly the mission regardless of its ground connection.
Ultimate flight has other features I have used from time to time for shorter missions to do survey volume calculations like the ability to define circles with the gimbal pointing at a certain spot on the ground or in the air and the ability to define missions where the platform flies sideways to get oblique images of something like a containment berm.
Another feature I have used several times is the ability to fly a mapping mission, create an orthophoto from that mission, then load that geo-referenced image into Ultimate Flight to give an up to date background for future flights. Since some Google Earth areas can be many years old, this has been very useful for construction and volume storage calculations like piles of asphalt and gravel.
To be honest, Ultimate Flight has a bunch of features I have never used and don't understand like a virtual wall to prevent you from hand flying outside a defined area, fancy camera settings, the ability to adjust waypoint heights based upon Google Earth elevations, and both inward and outward panorama missions.
For me though, the ability to define a mission at home, understand and control the risks, then fly with confidence is the only way to go.
Hank
Texas
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I didn't know about the battery reading. Good to know. I am pretty consistent with my pre flight checks. I always monitor the battery while flying. I check the sensors before I fly away on my first battery. DJI GO is the most comprehensive for controls so I use it when I'm trying to fly for distance.
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I am interested to know of any advantages to using third party applications, versus DJI-Go, while flying non-autonomous flights. I'm very much aware of the advantages for autonomous flights but I don't see advantages otherwise.
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I'm not sure about the other apps, but with Ultimate Flight, any time you fly, manually or autonomously, you get a battery bar across the top that shows the remaining level with green, yellow and red warning zones, as well as the battery level in percent.
On the main flight display screen, it shows your current location as well as the location of the platform on Google Earth. There is a bright red circle centered on the current location of you UAV that closes in as your battery goes down. I've never tested it before, but I assume when the circle closes in past the marker of where you are, it might not make it all the way back.
UF also keeps a detailed flight log every time you lift off that is much easier to get than the DJI flight log. The DJI log takes a USB connection to the drone and a conversion process available on-line. The UF flight log comes out in a folder on the tablet already formatted in normal CSV format with headings for each field.
Since the altitude values DJI puts in the EXIF info of the JPG files includes a GPS altitude, which can be off by hundreds of feet, I use the UF flight log to include the altitude above takeoff value, which is much more accurate. To get a geo-referenced orthophoto, I then use the altitude of the home point from Google Earth as an offset. The Google Earth elevation values aren't perfect, but they are a heck of a lot more reliable than the DJI EXIF values, which sometimes show my entire flight being well below sea level.
I then also use the gimbal angle and platform heading from the Ultimate Flight log as import values to Agisoft Photoscan, which seems to help quite a bit in complete camera alignment.
On the main flight display screen, it shows your current location as well as the location of the platform on Google Earth. There is a bright red circle centered on the current location of you UAV that closes in as your battery goes down. I've never tested it before, but I assume when the circle closes in past the marker of where you are, it might not make it all the way back.
UF also keeps a detailed flight log every time you lift off that is much easier to get than the DJI flight log. The DJI log takes a USB connection to the drone and a conversion process available on-line. The UF flight log comes out in a folder on the tablet already formatted in normal CSV format with headings for each field.
Since the altitude values DJI puts in the EXIF info of the JPG files includes a GPS altitude, which can be off by hundreds of feet, I use the UF flight log to include the altitude above takeoff value, which is much more accurate. To get a geo-referenced orthophoto, I then use the altitude of the home point from Google Earth as an offset. The Google Earth elevation values aren't perfect, but they are a heck of a lot more reliable than the DJI EXIF values, which sometimes show my entire flight being well below sea level.
I then also use the gimbal angle and platform heading from the Ultimate Flight log as import values to Agisoft Photoscan, which seems to help quite a bit in complete camera alignment.
In upcoming FPV Camera v3.1, there is a new battery consumption meter to show real time mAh/km (Metric) or mAh/mi (Imperial) for optimizing economy cruise speed to fly the longest range per battery. It's similar to fuel economy (MPG) of a car. This is designed for those long range junkie with all sorts of directional antenna, RF amplifier and battery mods, who need to squeeze all the performance of their gears.
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FPV Camera v3.1 is currently under beta testing. You may sign up beta program at fpvbooster.com if you want to test flight it.
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Absolutely if long range is synonymous to loosing RC communication requiring total reliance on the drone's autonomous flight program.
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Awesome, just like a car you can try and stay in economy mode for longest battery life.
How about auto economy mode that does it for us?
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Well I tried litchi with its screen recorder. Disappointing to say the least. It crashed at about 10k feet and I was blind the entire route home. They updated it last week will try again fpv for dji seems good as I went 11k no issues. I want to go 15k o be satisfied.
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