Strange return to home activity

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So last night, for the first time I experienced losing control of my p1 and watching it return to home.

Good lord, it was a horrifying experience and I was sure I was going to lose it, as it was up in the air 3-4 mins longer than I ever have it in the air, and by that time it's flashing red constantly. My heart has never pumped so fast.

Long story short, I have had these blue lights on the p1, and one of the soldered connections came loose, so I immediately ordered new lights. I put them on, connected them and went for a test flight.

I maintained LOS the entire flight (including the rth). I think that a combination of low tx batteries and underestimating how fast it is in atti mode led to it getting way too far away.

Basically, I was flying as I normally do, and I saw what I thought was red flashing rapidly, so I immediately panicked and tried coming back as fast I could in atti mode. (I'll go ahead and come clean here, i'm red/green colorblind, and all of the led lights, whether red, yellow or green ,look very similar)

It looked like it was coming back, and then it started flying further away(i'm colorblind but I do have 20/20 vision). At this point I immediately switched to IOC home lock and tried to fly it back while watching it go back and forth in the distance. After a 30-60 secs or so I realized it was already in RTH.

@ 2:23-2:26 you'll see the p1 do the 180 that I absolutely didn't do. This was obviously the RTH activating, but after that it seemed to fly towards home, then away, then farther away etc. The last part of the video it finally flew right towards home, until it was very close and then I flipped x1 back and forth quickly to regain control. I knew the battery was horribly low, so I made sure the drone was on very low throttle, only descending.

After google mapping the whole experience while looking at the video, I took it 4000 to 4200 (which is dumb, and i've done before without consequence) feet away...and after RTH initiated the drone flew another 500-700 feet away before finally flying in one direction.


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Why did it freak out and fly farther away after RTH initiated? I don't ever want to rely on RTH, and this is the first time I have... But my trust in it is much less now. That being said, I'm amazed it did return home, and that it is still in my possession

@ 2:23 it turns around and starts flying back to home
@ 2:40 it stops and starts going backwards while ascending(it looks like)
@ 3:40 it was roughly 5,000 feet away
@ 4:05 it finally starts RTH in a straight reliable line
@ 6:56 I flipped x1 back and forth to regain control and start descending

Any theory as to why it fumbled around back and forth for a minute and 30 secs? But then finally returned without flaw? There was some towers nearby, that was my only thought as to why it fumbled back and forth.

After all this....I will still say technology is effing amazing.
 
Theres been a few mishaps like this Iv read on other forms I haven't been there yet I used the RTH feature once and it came home safe. There could B alot of different thing that could cause this im sure you know WIFI weather how old is the batterys in the remote but all in all glad she came back home......
 
Excellent post. Thanks. I think part of the answer you're looking for may lie in your post. Read up on Home Lock and Course lock. It doesn't always fly a straight line back to you depending on the settings.

The P1 is still a great bird to fly. Just flew mine about 30 minutes ago.
Glad it turned out good for you.

I'd like to know what battery you had in it and what the voltage level was when you hooked up back up to recharge. Sounds like you squeezed the daylights out of that charge :)

Oh...did you happen to feel the motors immediately after landing by any chance? When you run the battery really low, the motors will get hotter. V = I × R and all that technical stuff.

PS.....
After watching the video I'm thinking you may had had something else going on there.
Have you checked your compass mod values lately? Anytime you add or remove anything to the Phantom you might want to recalibrate it.
If that were my Phantom, I'd open it up and check the GPS connection. There is a known issue with the GPS plug and socket.
 
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Well since this has happened, I have flown it several times... and one night I decided to just go for it and truly test the rth over and over and over... at first my heart was pumping like a million times per min...i'd turn the controller off...watch the yellow light start flashing...and it returned flawlessly several times. (correction it would get basically right over my head and i'd flip x1 a couple times to regain control)


A month later..in the end I chalk it up to I basically had too many beers, and went in to a full panic fight or flight(haha) mode, and was doing all kinds of dumb things like switching back and forth between home lock, as well as atti to try to bring it back faster. Looking back now at the video, I think that the flying further away was all me. After all.... none of us want to watch our drones fly away or fall out of the sky, and when anything close to that happens it's an extreme adrenaline rush (at least for me)

What I should've done was just...simply turn the controller off.

What i've learned is...don't panic so badly. What will happen will happen. Panicking will only lead to a greater chance of something bad happening.


Stay calm....and turn off the controller :p
 

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