RTH Battery Level (mini)
It appears that my mavic mini initiates automatic RTH when the battery level depletes to 25%. And when that happens, my mission cancels and everything is screwed up. That's a lot of battery left. I'd prefer this to be 15% or even 10% as I won't be flying in a situation where I couldn't immediately land. Is there any way I could change this or even override it with certain commands within my mission?
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Use this command:
I can't seem to be able to change the battery threshold on the mini. The mission always ends
at 20%.
I just flew the same mission and changed settings to "Exclusive" Off and "Required" On, as another post suggested and I got this error message: Apparently the Mini does not support changing the battery threshold.
My MA2 will go about 15 to 17 minutes or so before RTH for a battery swap by default. With this low battery warning command added and set to the lowest which is 15%, it will RTH for a battery swap around 22 minutes or so. Battery indicates roughly 17% when it does initiate RTH. Since the Mini and the MA2 use the same DJI Fly app I’d assume it should work as Jim stated. Even though the Fly app doesn’t have this feature like the DJI Go app, it works with my MA2. I’ve never tried it with my Mini so I’m Curious now. 😳…
My mini goes for about 13 to 15 minutes depending on wind. I have 3 out 4 of the setup possibilities. Tomorrow I will try the 4th.
The mini doesn’t support this command.
Jim, I just started flying again after a slight hiatus and am flying the Mini 2. In the past my RTH automatically initiated at 19 or 20 %, I do not remember which. But now I went to 17% and it still did not initiate and I activated manually. Did something change in my absence? If so how and where do I adjust it.
I don’t think anything has changed since it’s all in the firmware on any drone which uses the DJI Fly app. DJI App always triggers at 20% but I’ve seen it at 17% to 20% when using DL for a long time. I believe it could be due to the battery efficiency when using DL but just a guess. Also my previous comment about it working with my MA2 was incorrect. Seemed like it was working but since then with all my flights I believe the variance is due to each batteries efficiency which are different.
Mike, look at the beginning of this thread. Jim answers someone flying the mini and says to change the low battery command. It is a different drone, the mini 2, so maybe the threshold is different because the batteries are supposed to be more efficient and last longer, I will experiment today.
I think the best way to deal with the low battery rth issue with the mini is to set the planner to the battery level that auto triggers return to home and then plan around this number. If you always fly in a small area you should always be safe, but I prefer to know, or at least have a better idea, of how long a mission I can plan in a specific area and where the drone likely to be if the mission takes more juice than planned. The number set in the planner does not affect the drone, it just helps you plan better.
I tend to keep an eye on both these figures circled in red, and where the drone is in the sky, the reson the right hand one is 00:00 at the minute is i'm indoors and home location isn't set
I read the comment from Jim but you can see he corrected it. The DL Low battery command won’t work on any DJI Fly app operated drone. I tried many, many times when I first started using DL and it has never worked.
The manual for my MA2 and Mavic Mini don’t indicate at what percentage the RTH’s triggers. However, I know both of my drones have always triggered first low battery at exactly 20% when using the DJI Fly app. Second critical low battery at 10%. It’s Always right on the money. I don’t think any of the drones which use the DJI Fly app are different. Never had an issue with it not making it back to Home-Point even if at a farther distance when it triggers. About the lowest I can remember was somewhere around 12%. As always you can initiate RTH for a battery swap sooner if needed anyway. Not sure why it indicates 17% to 20% while using DL but it’s been this way for me a long time.
Am I wrong? I thought while flying with Dronelink, when the battery hit 20% it would return home? People have posted that they wish they had control of that because they were very close to finishing a mission and the drone returned home. I found where you can change the percentage but it does not work, I changed it from 10% to 18% and I flew it to 16% and made it back with about 8% and the fast beeping emergency sound. I also thought that on my Mini 1 I could pause the mission by hitting the RTH once quickly and the mission would be paused, but with the Mini 2 I have to hit the pause button on my phone. In an emergency the pause button on the RC is easier to hit because it is right next to your thumb and sticks out, I do not even have to look. So what happens in an emergency (like if I fall down a flight of steps and can not get to my controller) the drone keeps flying until it drops out of the sky? This is not the kind of thing I want to experiment with. I could, when the battery gets low, return to my yard and just let it hover and see what happens, but that's not a true test because Dronelink recognizes that I have take over manually. Or maybe make a program that comes back home and just hovers at a lo altitude and see what happens. I have never had any luck with getting drone to just hover automatically though. I will try that I think.
The RTH behavior is entirely controlled by DJI and the firmware. There are commands to set the threshold that work with some drones, but all those are doing is exposing the same APIs that the UI uses. If the UI doesn’t have the option or can’t set a specific value, then neither can a command.
It should RTH at low battery Bob as long as the RTH state is set to that in Fly app. You can check the next time and see what it indicates to make sure. As I mentioned, DJI Fly app is spot on at 20% so not sure why DL app varies. Regardless of why its different with DL, it should always RTH if set that way. As far as the pause /RTH button, that should work as well just lIke with most or all of the other Mavic series. PDF manuals I’ve have indicate this for both of mine.
RTH button on the controller of my mini 2 works fine
Can you pause the mission? The RTH works fine but the pause does not.
Bob Scheffler
I've found the pause button works on some drones but not others. If you want to stop the mission the most reliable way is to use the mode switch to change modes.
Unfortunately the Mavic Mini doesn’t have a speed mode switch so not possible to pause that way. Mini 2 does though and Regardless of which drone the Pause/RTH button should work the same. My MM pause button works so hopefully not another issue Bob. You know what some people say, if they didn’t have any bad luck they would not have any luck at all. 🤪 Try it with the DJJ Fly app and see if it’s working.
Mike, I flew a simple circle mission with DJI and pause on the RC did pause mission but did not let me resume the mission. The same button does not work with DL. If button held down it does initiate RTH.
Strange that it does with DL. Incase you didn’t know though, once the pause button has been pressed you will need to push the sticks at least two maybe three times. Happen to me a long time ago and I could not get it to move. After moving the sticks those few times it then releases the pause which they call brake. I’m guessing it’s set up this way so an accidental bump won’t get it moving again until you push sticks a couple times. Probably Useful with drones like my MA2 or MP and other series drones which can fly waypoints when using hyper-lapse mode. Next time try pushing the sticks a couple times or so and see if it takes the brake off. The issue when using DL doesn’t make sense because the controller should work the same as with DJI.
I just flew a mission that I made just to test the RTH flying with dronelink. I made it so it would fly some distance away and circle until the battery was low and then fly back to my yard and hover. At 40% I got a message that said, "low battery threshold failed " and just sat at140 feet and hovered. I manually flew it back and let it hover about 7 feet off ground and 61 feet away. At 20% low battery sound started. At 10% the speed of sound got faster. At 7% RTH was activated and it started to ascend to RTH altitude of 140 feet. I stopped the RTH and let it hover 4 feet off ground. At 0% it landed. Do you think that the RTH would act sooner if I was further? What's the low battery threshold msg.
I just tested moving further away and the RTH activated at 15% not 14% so it appears the drone is working correctly. This is a hand me down drone that was crashed by the previous owner who gave up on fixing it so I am not exactly sure what he did to it. It does appear to be working properly though. I have been experimenting with the zoom function and DL. If I start a mission with DJI fly and set the zoom at 4x and I swap over to DL it stays in 4x. BUT, if the video starts and stops the zoom also stops. I remember you told me how to make a continuous video but I lost your instructions, can you tell them to me again?
For continuous video I put my video camera component list at very beginning of plan, top of card before anything else. This way once the plan executes from about 3’ above ground it starts video and runs throughout the entire plan non stop. Hope that’s what your looking for. Only issue I see is if it works then once it’s set at whatever times zoom your stuck with it and will not look anything like the mission preview. But testing is fun. ✌🏼lol…
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