That was scary! What did I do wrong?...
I modified a 360 pano plan to basically fly up then over my house then take the pano then move back over our lawn and finish. Not land
- Because I'm within 20m of the drone I don't have RTH enabled otherwise it would just land potentially on my house!
- I move the drone to a location first above my lawn and then to the top of my house. I do this as I'm using the same plan as a manual exposure option and this gives me time to pause the mission and manually change exposure settings
- Then above the house it takes the 360 pano (auto exposure)
- Then flies back over the lawn then waits for me to bring it down.
https://app.dronelink.com/andrew-busst/public/plan/NtCuJ6NkwGx0agXgQTzO
So what went wrong...
- So I started DJI Fly and cleared the takeoff authority (I live within 4 kms of an airport but am shielded.
- I then kept the drone on and started the above plan in Dronelink
- Mavic Mini took off went to the photo point took about three photos then just stopped??
- Wouldn't respond to the sticks, app wouldn't stop or pause the mission was totally locked up.
- So thought OK I'll just turn off dronelink and turn on DJI Fly and bring it down.
- I tried that but still the drone wouldn't respond
- Now I was starting to worry a little, if I couldn't couldn't connect the drone it would run out of battery and land on our roof and probably incur some damage
- So I thought I have to turn off the controller...
- So I did, quickly turning it back on again, like it's supposed to, being less than 20m from me the drone started to try and land right on my roof!
- Luckily the controller connected and I had control again so in the nick of time stopped the RTH and navigated the drone back....Phew
I have had the drone about 9 months and it has never done that before. So are there any logs that can show what I did wrong? It is a real issue if you lose connection to your drone around your house as it will just land if close enough. I ran a similar mission recently and it ran fine. Is there anything in the plan that could have caused the app to lock up?
Any thoughts gratefully received.
Comments
18 comments
I once had a similar problem, the drone was sitting standstill in the air, pretty close to me but it didn't follow the mission for some reaso and it didn't react to the joystics. My heart beats per minute rose from 60 to 160 ;-)
Lots of options went quickly through my mind. All I knew was that the DroneLink connection didn't respond. Should I try to start and switch to DJI FLY and try with that? Before doing so should I have to close DroneLink first? It would seem that having two SWs trying to speak with the drone would not be a good idea. Or, should I reboot the controller or even my mobile? Would the drone still sit there nicely waiting for that 30-60 seconds? Finally I didn't do any of these, but hit the RTH button and that worked.
However, for these kind of stressfull situations it would be good to have (already before the incident) some ABC guidelines from DroneLink what should be done and especially what not to do in cases like these. Is the RTH button the best and most safe option (assuming the RTH location and parameters were set properly)?
That's a problem if the Drone is quite close (within 20m of Launch) it will just land (in my case on a pitched roof so the only thing I could do was to turn off the controller and quickly turn it back on. I'm going to change missions from this point where the drone has to fly just up and take a shot or pano. I'm going to go to the centre of my backyard (lawn) and just send it straight up with no lateral movement which meant if I had to RTH it would just come straight back down onto the lawn.
It's weird how being close is bad in this case. If I was doing a video mission hundreds of meters away it would probably have been much safer as RTH would have returned to launch spot. Also makes me think apart from the straight up scenario any first waypoint / approach / location should probably be more than 20m away as if the drone did glitch at one of those points it would do a normal RTH as a failsafe and not just land on the spot. I'm guessing chances of your drone freezing within 20m if there were no close "points" would be remote?
@dronelink
Basically, my plans are exactly the same as Andrew Busst's. I also want to take 360 panoramic photos with the DJI MM.
I haven't used dronelink until now.
That is why I asked the question today, how do I land after a mission, mind you manually!
For panoramic photos, RTH is not an option because of the 20 meters.
For me there is also the fact that I take a lot of pictures in nature and therefore have to land manually on the hand!
So again the question to dronelink, how do you manually land the drone after a mission! Please explain exactly. Important beginner question!
I haven't tried this option, but I would assume that if I select here "None". the drone would stop in it's place after the mission has been accomplished. Then just take the joysticks and land the drone manually with the DroneLink?
We have a FAQ on this exact topic. Bottom line, avail yourself of the hardware buttons on your RC.
Did I understand correctly, you can also control the drone manually with the Dronelink Android app?
Yes
OK - thanks
Is there a link to a picture description of each & every one of the icons, buttons, sliders, graphic depictions, words, commands, etc., that explain what they are, what they do, & maybe even when & how they should be used. Like the Mavic Mini Manual has for the DJI Fly App. This would most certainly seem to be a must? Thanks
@Steve Shackelford
I would wish that too!
Today I had a problem similar to Andrew Busst ... Nothing worked, and that on my first flight with Dronelink.
1. Test flight a disaster
https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360049189934
We do not have a full, written manual right now.
@Jim McAndrew
That it is a shame. Dronelink is not that fully developed yet!
A manual and a reference to the error message should already be available!
Today I had a problem similar to Andrew Busst, nothing works anymore!
There is a simulator within Dronelink (Web), and one should assume, if it works in the simulator without problems, that it will also work in real life while flying, during a mission ...
Just a comment about using hardware buttons, I felt like I was in an impossible situation, the normal quick press of the RTH button did nothing and as I had no control I was reluctant to press the RTH fully for 3 seconds as if I still didn't have control the drone would have landed/crashed on the roof. I had to take a leap of faith and restart the controller which reconnected control.
As above if within 20m from Launch you just need to mitigate that your drone will never be above something that it can't land on. If you did that it wouldn't matter what sort of problem you were having a controller restart would bring the drone safely home. A long press on RTH might also but as I say I wasn't initially game enough to try that given where the drone was and fact I had no control.
Presently, I'm having much more fun "trying" to construct plans (mission is the actual fling of the plan, I think I read?)... then watching how it is carried out on the simulated video, or even Google Earth. But it is a totally diffent feeling hitting the start of a mission at the flying field. Learning by doing with my $400 Mavic Mini at stake is not a fun experience. Sooo... I am taking baby steps on the plans... extremely simple, not high & under a minute or so...lol. Today I almost hit a tree??? because the map is not totally accurate?? And still, my FPV is only working 10% of the time. Strange. Not good. Just a short description of the icons on the would be good (PDF?)
Steve - I probably also have more fun doing the plans and simulating those on Google Earth that the actual flying :-D, which is quite an adrenaline rush because of the uncertainties there are in the technical side. Before I put the drone up to the sky, I very carefully simulate the plans to minimize my risks. So far my Mini is still intact, but I am aware that there also have been some good luck on my side.
Mini is such a small bird on the sky that sometimes it is just impossible to see it with my eyes and verify that all is good and it is where it is supposed to be, therefore I have plans to put some bright tape and maybe flashing leds to make it more visible.
To not sound too negative, I really have enjoyed this versatile DroneLink SW and all the new possibilities it adds for my Mini, but I also understand that this SW is not yet fully ready and there are risks (SW is not yet robust/reliable enough imho) that I try to mimimize as well as possible.
@Andrew Busst
As already written, yesterday I had a similar experience to yours. For me, the Dronelink Android app closed by itself, and nothing worked anymore ...
@Dronelink
It's too dangerous for me to try something like that again. You really have to work on the security that the control of the drone remains permanent and permanent!
@Tero
I increased the visibility of the DJI MM with a red skin, and as I read in a forum, red should also protect against bird attacks.
Flashing lights LEDs are recommended in various forums to increase visibility, but as I've read, they can also affect photos and video recordings.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/93ur8r656i1r8xs/IMG_20200812_115515%5B1%5D.jpg?dl=0
I did flew an Orbit with one POI, I was ready to interrupt the flight as soon as it finished the mission by taking over the landing. Yes, pressing the RTH within 20m will land it away from actual home, But, just moving the joysticks, without starting DJI Fly, i was ablt to fly the MM back and land.
Hey Stephen
Yes I agree that what would normally happen but with my case absolutely no response from controller so was reluctant to test the RTH being so close to the roof. I must test that out but will somehow have to make the drone lock up again like it did which thankfully I have not yet been able to recreate! :-)
Please sign in to leave a comment.