Terrified of Litchi

[rmb]

I have been flying DJI copters since day one. And although there are always ups and downs I have always been a firm believer in exercising great caution when using 3rd party apps. That said I really believe that as an aerial cinematographer who spends most of his time in remote places that autonomous flying options would up my game as I can begin getting video from places out of reach. But again, I have been reluctant to turn over flight control to an app much less a 3rd party app.

Are these fears irrational? Should I just do it? And if yes, if anyone has a link or 2 to a really good youtube tutorial I would appreciate it as I have seen many that are really not wonderful.

Thanks, rb

 

[Fly Dawg]

From personal experience, as I fly exclusively with Litchi, I as many others around praise it. You may or may not find many tutorials on it, however if you ask your questions here, you will likely get the answer to any of them. I do still have DJI GO, however. I use it only for maintenance features that are not available in Litchi. To me, at least from flying with it for so long, I much prefer it over GO anyway. As far as your fears go, from my side, they are not irrational, as they were most likely that way when you first started flying anyway, wouldn't you agree?

 

[BigAl07]

Litchi is a BLAST to play with. The more you use it, the more you WANT to use it. The better you get the more you do.

Litchi, just like DJI Go's autonomous features, are only as good and safe as YOU are. It's up to you to research, test and tweak the flight plan to make it safe.

Here's a GREAT video by one of our members. It was done over a year ago so no telling what kind of AMAZING shots he's done since then:

Follow-The-Leader by Dirty Bird

 

[rmb]

as your fears go, from my side, they are not irrational, as they were most likely that way when you first started flying anyway, wouldn't you agree?

Very much agreed as it was a voodoo science then. Thank you Fly Dawg for you thoughtful response.

 

[rmb]

Here's a GREAT video

I saw that video and had my heart in my throat the entire time. Yikes. he is either a totally pro or totally crazy. Most-likely both

 

[rmb]

So my first couple of questions relates to the fact that I will be using Litchi predominantly for waypoint (autonomous) flights. I have noticed that when setting up the waypoints and choosing the "curve" size that unlike what I have seen in tutorials, the blue curve line does not seem to show up. Other than that you're right it seems very intuitive. My second question is that when I set up a mission that takes me out of range (let say around a mountain) I assume that that does not trigger an RTH event? And if that is the case, what does?

 

[RodPad]

Because of tall trees around my house every flight I do I loose signal, that's why I bought litchi. I have made some mistakes, they have always been related to.

I got in a hurry.

RTH, Litchi.

Search Results for Query: rth, litchi | DJI Phantom Drone Forum

Rod

 

[Fly Dawg]

My second question is that when I set up a mission that takes me out of range (let say around a mountain) I assume that that does not trigger an RTH event? And if that is the case, what does?

If you have a waypoint mission loaded and running, in the event of lost signal, it will complete the pre-programmed mission. Just remember to set either your first or last waypoint close to you. If you choose to set the first waypoint close by, set the final action of the mission to "return to first waypoint". You are correct, there is no "RTH" in a waypoint mission.

 

[RodPad]

I'm still confused, what about Low battery RTH, that I make sure is off in DJI-Go. That's why I posted a link instead of an answer.

Rod

 

[Fly Dawg]

I'm still confused, what about Low battery RTH,

Battery related issues, such as Low or Critical, will behave just as they do in GO. If I am not mistaken, these values that are set by the user are stored on the Aircraft. I have not personally been in such a situation, but that is the answer I received quite a while back from an email to Litchi about that, just because I was curious more than anything else.

 

[RodPad]

Battery related issues, such as Low or Critical, will behave just as they do in GO. If I am not mistaken, these values that are set by the user are stored on the Aircraft. I have not personally been in such a situation, but that is the answer I received quite a while back from an email to Litchi about that, just because I was curious more than anything else.

They are ignored while in a mission?
Meaning in a mission, what I think has been referred as smart RTH, batter gets low enough that the Phantom calculates that it must RTH otherwise its not going to make it back. The mission continues on anyway?

Rod

 

[Fly Dawg]

They are ignored while in a mission?

No, battery levels are not ignored in a mission. They perform in the same manner and are set for the aircraft using GO. Litchi has no such settings for low and critical battery. As I said before, the settings from GO are stored on the aircraft and will overide everything else in a battery issue. A lost signal will not affect the mission completion.

 

[RodPad]

Hum,

@rmb asked

"My second question is that when I set up a mission that takes me out of range (let say around a mountain) I assume that that does not trigger an RTH event? And if that is the case, what does? "

I guess I was trying to give a warning to @rmb of what else could cause RTH.
I think, but I'm still not sure. If the setting in DJI-Go (Smart RTH option is on). A low enough battery can activate RTH and override a Litchi mission which then could cause an unexpected RTH.

Please Clarify.

Rod

 

[Fly Dawg]

A low enough battery can activate RTH and override a Litchi mission which then could cause an unexpected RTH.

In that case, it would not be an "unexpected" RTH, if you already knew that those settings from GO were "Active" while using Litchi, which they are. The aircraft determines the battery levels onboard, relying upon the settings that you made in the GO app. As I said, there are no settings for that in Litchi itself, so whatever your settings were in GO, Litchi will be the same. Similar to your RTH altitude, which you can change in Litchi, and if you do, when you fly again with GO, you would need to look back at those settings again. The settings you make in GO, will overide a Litchi mission and also are the same for FPV, as far as battery levels go.

 

[tevek]

As @Fly Dawg has mentioned there are a number of settings in Litchi that are mirrored from the GO app, fairly certain that if you try and change max altitude and distance in Litchi, it will revert to the GO settings. SmartRTH will interrupt your mission depending on battery load, calculated distance etc and I always turn it off in the app. P4P owners are no longer able to switch that setting off and there are a number of annoyed people out there at the moment as it is cutting short their flights in either FPV or WPs.

 

[RodPad]

Thanks, you guys!

If a new Litchi user such as @rmb and still myself (using Litchi since December). If you don't know or understand this. I still view it as a "unexpected" RTH.

Just the threads on RTH and only DJI-Go has been confusing enough.

Rod

 

[rmb]

Fantastic response guys. Thank you. I just did my first VERY short flight and then edited the waypoints and ran it a couple of more times. So far so go. I can see how this came become addicting. I also see how I have to be careful not to let it corrupt me as I am an FAA 107 pilot and should never even consider flying without VOS. But... .

Here's one more for you. What happens when you are flying a Mavic of PH4P with obstacle avoidance and your waypoint brings you too close to an object. On a traditional flight, it will stop and hover waiting for the pilot to negotiate the obstacle. What would happen on a remote flight where you don't have video feed to know that happened? For instance that Crazy "Follow the Leader" Video. What would happen if he came too close to a building 2 miles away? Speaking of that video. I assume based on the length and duration of that flight, he must have returned with less than 10% of battery, so what I am hearing from everyone is that he must have somehow disabled the smart RTH feature in the GoApp before going over to Litchi

 

[tevek]

Fantastic response guys. Thank you. I just did my first VERY short flight and then edited the waypoints and ran it a couple of more times. So far so go. I can see how this came become addicting. I also see how I have to be careful not to let it corrupt me as I am an FAA 107 pilot and should never even consider flying without VOS. But... .

Here's one more for you. What happens when you are flying a Mavic of PH4P with obstacle avoidance and your waypoint brings you too close to an object. On a traditional flight, it will stop and hover waiting for the pilot to negotiate the obstacle. What would happen on a remote flight where you don't have video feed to know that happened? For instance that Crazy "Follow the Leader" Video. What would happen if he came too close to a building 2 miles away? Speaking of that video. I assume based on the length and duration of that flight, he must have returned with less than 10% of battery, so what I am hearing from everyone is that he must have somehow disabled the smart RTH feature in the GoApp before going over to Litchi

Despite setting my RTH obstacle check to on, I have only ever seen it react to obstacles by ascending once or twice and where I live amongst the trees, that will always end badly. I don't use OA during my missions as either the sun may affect the flight by either slowing it down or making it stop altogether. I have seen a video on this forum where active OA worked by climbing over fences and smaller shrubs on its way during a mission. In that case, the pilot could only view the video from the microSD card when the drone finally returned as he had no vision for part of the trip. So I guess it works, not for me though.
As for 'that video', from memory neither of the drones had OA (PS3 or P3P?), so there would have been tears if the mission went wrong and as an aside OA doesn't work in weak light. He would turned smartRTH off to get back at 10%, and as others have said elsewhere, this particular pilot is very experienced and a top feeder in the drone world.

 

[rmb]

How about a manual return to home? Let's say you are on a waypoint mission and you've just lost video signal and you wanted to abort. If you hit the RTH button on the controller, will Litch abort the mission and trigger the bird to RTH?

 

[tevek]

How about a manual return to home? Let's say you are on a waypoint mission and you've just lost video signal and you wanted to abort. If you hit the RTH button on the controller, will Litch abort the mission and trigger the bird to RTH?

If you have control signal yes. You have to cancel the mission, flick from P to S on a P4 and fly normally or hit the RTH and it will come back.