Rookie Mistake too

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So admittedly I am a rookie. I have had my copter for about 8 months but have flown only about 20 times. Yesterday after capturing some nice lake footage I thought I would go over to this amphitheater and to a fly through a few times. I thought I had battery enough and even looked at the battery showing 2 bars. I made my passes getting the footage I wanted and on the last pass it happened, YEP.... low batt return to home. I was under the structure and it took off. Hit the roof and then the ground busting 3 prop guards but also damaging my camera. Not too sure how to turn that feature off yet but after I fix things that will be on the agenda before lifting off on an indoor/under cover flights.
 
You can turn that off in the "Advanced" --> "Battery" section of the Phantom Assistant application. Uncheck the "Go-Home" check box.
 
Boy I must really be brave, I'm at 20% go home. That should give me 5-6 minutes of flight time. I can cover quite a bit of distance in 5 minutes.
 
I head home at 40% if I'm at any significant distance, and 30% if I'm nearby.
I wouldn't turn off low battery head home, I'd simply stop flying any major missions once the battery is below 30-40%
That go home feature might cover your butt in a flyaway or like, where it might be all that makes it decide to come back.
 
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I may have to up the numbers to, in the last 3 months I have had my plane tell me it was landing due to the battery getting low. Both time was within a couple of hundred yards. One was a soft landing in a neighbors field and the other in the woods. Good that DJI incorporated the "find my Phanton" it really works in that instance. So I learned that it will not just drop out of the sky but will self land if the battery gets to low. Both time the flights were over 2 miles. Guess head winds slowed her down coming home. Think I'll go for 30%.
 
It's never consistent across the whole battery - 20% remaining is not even close to 20% of your total flight time remaining. LiPo batteries have a very steep discharge curve at the far end. That 20% isn't even close to 5 minutes remaining flight time.
It's tempting to stretch your flight times to the max, but you really need to consider 20% to be flat, pushing beyond that will drop fast and damage the life of the battery, and at $100+ per battery you don't want to damage them if you can avoid it.


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