What does 72% Battery at Maximum Distance mean?

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On my P3S I often see this notification in AirData. The percentage will vary a little (eg., 65%) and the distance will vary as well, but as soon as this point is reached (Battery at Maximum Distance) the AC will start RTH. I usually cancel it when it gets near and usually have quite a bit of battery left to continue flying around. Does this mean that the AC has calculated that it needs to Return Home so that it has enough battery left to land? Can this threshold be changed?

Here are some examples:

06m 59s 29.2m 189m 72% Battery at maximum distance

08m 14s 27.7m 196m 65% Battery at maximum distance

Today when I got home I turned on max distance and set it to 500m. Previously max distance was turned off so hopefully this will help. I'll see if there is any change next time I fly.


Chris
 
On my P3S I often see this notification in AirData. The percentage will vary a little (eg., 65%) and the distance will vary as well, but as soon as this point is reached (Battery at Maximum Distance) the AC will start RTH. I usually cancel it when it gets near and usually have quite a bit of battery left to continue flying around. Does this mean that the AC has calculated that it needs to Return Home so that it has enough battery left to land? Can this threshold be changed?

Here are some examples:

06m 59s 29.2m 189m 72% Battery at maximum distance

08m 14s 27.7m 196m 65% Battery at maximum distance

Today when I got home I turned on max distance and set it to 500m. Previously max distance was turned off so hopefully this will help. I'll see if there is any change next time I fly.


Chris
Yip can turn off,yes you correct, it's predicted it's enough to get home,was it windy or working harder than normal
Screenshot_20181108-092654.jpg
Screenshot_20181108-092621.jpg
 
Maybe it is calculating that it will take more battery to return home than it actually does? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what your saying because I'm new
You didn't misunderstand and thanks for your reply. That's what I was thinking too.
 
Yip can turn off,yes you correct, it's predicted it's enough to get home,was it windy or working harder than normalView attachment 105105View attachment 105106
Thanks for the reply and the screen shots. It helped a lot. I had not turned off Smart Return Home but just set the Distance limit to 500m but I changed it back. I also am going to leave Smart Return Home on and only turn it off if it interferes with a shot.

And yes, it was windy and gusty - the max gust speed was 50km/h so that is why it probably calculated that it should return. I deliberately launched in windy/gusty conditions (off a treed snowmobile trail) to see how much it would affect the P3S. I was surprised how well the AC handled the gusty wind. I have been practicing in these conditions so that when I encounter them, especially when I am out on the lake ice in a month or so, I will be better prepared to deal with sudden wind gusts that can often happen. The hardest part was bringing it in for a hand catch as it was getting moved around a bit by the wind.

Chris
 
Thanks for the reply and the screen shots. It helped a lot. I had not turned off Smart Return Home but just set the Distance limit to 500m but I changed it back. I also am going to leave Smart Return Home on and only turn it off if it interferes with a shot.

And yes, it was windy and gusty - the max gust speed was 50km/h so that is why it probably calculated that it should return. I deliberately launched in windy/gusty conditions (off a treed snowmobile trail) to see how much it would affect the P3S. I was surprised how well the AC handled the gusty wind. I have been practicing in these conditions so that when I encounter them, especially when I am out on the lake ice in a month or so, I will be better prepared to deal with sudden wind gusts that can often happen. The hardest part was bringing it in for a hand catch as it was getting moved around a bit by the wind.

Chris
Yes it calculated it had just enough battery to return home and those figures are quite accurate. Im sure you've learned to fly into the wind to start a long flight so you have a tail wind coming home ;)
 
On my P3S I often see this notification in AirData. The percentage will vary a little (eg., 65%) and the distance will vary as well, but as soon as this point is reached (Battery at Maximum Distance) the AC will start RTH. I usually cancel it when it gets near and usually have quite a bit of battery left to continue flying around. Does this mean that the AC has calculated that it needs to Return Home so that it has enough battery left to land?
No ... it's simply telling you that when your Phantom was at the most distant point of the flight, that's what the battery level was.
It's unrelated to returning home.
You could fly 1000 ft at the start of a flight and then come back in to 100 ft for the rest of the flight and it would show you something like:
01m 00s 20.0m 300m 95% Battery at maximum distance
 
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Yes it calculated it had just enough battery to return home and those figures are quite accurate. Im sure you've learned to fly into the wind to start a long flight so you have a tail wind coming home ;)
In all of the cases when I get the Battery at Maximum Distance, I still have lots of battery left even after returning to near the home point so in my case the figures are not accurate.

I never fly out of visual line of sight with either of my drones and therefore have never done a long distance flight. The farthest I've ever gone has been 457m and that was straight out over a lake with no wind. Most of my flights are under or just over 200m in distance and around 30m in height so I really don't need to worry about flying into the wind as I can always see my AC. As well, I always check UAV forecast before flight at the location. I am just testing out flight in windy gusty conditions so that I am better able to deal with wind when I need to.

Chris
 
No ... it's simply telling you that when your Phantom was at the most distant point of the flight, that's what the battery level was.
It's unrelated to returning home.
You could fly 1000 ft at the start of a flight and then come back in to 100 ft for the rest of the flight and it would show you something like:
01m 00s 20.0m 300m 95% Battery at maximum distance

Thanks for the clarification Meta.

The RTH was likely caused by other factors. On the flight I did today, the signal strength became poor right before RTH initiated so that would explain why the AC went into RTH, but on a flight I did this past Sunday, the signal remained strong throughout the flight but RTH initiated at 195m out. This flight was off a beach in an area where I commonly get strong interference warnings (likely WiFi from nearby homes) when flying with GO, however not with Litchi which was the app I was using at the time.

Regardless, it is comforting to know my P3S is behaving as it should and is initiating RTH due to signal quality problems or WiFi interference.

Chris
 

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