follow mode test
I previously reported possible issues with the option on the follow mode. I tried some more testing today and I tried at least 6 times and could not get the follow mode to even work. I finally had to change the battery so I shut everything down, even on my phone, and re-tried with a fresh battery. It worked. I noticed one thing different, when it worked I received the msg. about the altitude, when it was not working I did not get that message. It seems as though something was running in the background of the phone which was interfering with the Dronelink program. I tested program with no options and all options and worked with both. It appears that if you choose one option (the first) you have to pick them all, is this true. Also when I was operating with all options when I sticked up the AC just spun uncontrollably until the RTH button was hit.
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I just came back from testing the follow/altitude feature. It seemed to be working but I am not 100% sure what I should expect. It did not lose altitude like before when it went from 130 feet to 80 feet, it went quite a bit higher. Again I started in a field in a gully, I measured using the drone, the field is roughly 43' below street level. So I started in the field at 130', I walked up the hill and the drone went to 180' but it still looked like it was at 130'. Is the program using the home base altitude and adding to it? Hence 130' now becomes 180' because I walked up 50'? That would mean that the drone was actually at 130' even though it says 180'.
Second issue was I was testing the return to home feature. I disabled it and waited for the power to run down and I rcvd. the low battery sound and the drone started to return home. I disabled the RTH and the drone stopped and just hovered but then I almost lost the drone. As soon as I started to land it I lost almost all stick control, it was like everything I did with the sticks took seconds for it to respond, it eventually started spinning wildly and I just missed the school roof a pine tree and a car but I got it down safely, I cringe watching the video. After picking up the drone I noticed the RC said, "Telemetry delayed". Is that why I had very little stick control?
I do not know how to post a screen share so you can see the Dronelink user interface. Does it allow you to see what's on my screen? That would be great.
This article shows how to do it.
As far as RTH, we moved away from changing the Smart RTH behavior in favor of Dynamic Home Point, so not really concerned with that anymore - the user can decide their own RTH settings.
If you had reached the edge of signal range, then yes, you stick input would have been spotty.
I was nowhere near the edge of signal range. The drone was 130' in the air and 80' away from me. I tried to duplicate the same thing but this time in an open field in case I lost control but it worked fine. I will check out that article.
Jim, I only have ver. 10 on my phone so I can not take a video of my phone screen. I have the icon for screen record but it does nothing. I posted my near crash. I cropped out everything except the end where the drone ran out of power and started to return home. I was testing elevation and started at 130' and when this video starts my RC said I was at 180'. My RTH elevation is set at 140' and the drone looked to me like it was at 130' and started to reduce altitude and head to home so that is when I hit the RTH button to cancel and then started to return the drone to land. The video obviously only shows the drone's view but you can see how long I was struggling to gain control and how close I came to crashing. https://youtu.be/mPV0WFywC6A
One thing to note on the elevation is it is based on the barometric altimeter, which can drift as much as +/-5 meters (in our tests). The reason I am looking for a screenshot is because the app will show you the configured follow distance in the top left (the mode card with the play button), and if there is an altitude offset (from altitude tracking), it will be in parenthesis to the right. For example, it might show something like 130 ft (+15). The altitude shown in the bottom center is the reading from the barometric altimeter (above the takeoff location + drifting), but it should always read equal to the numbers in the top left added together (even if that isn't the actual altitude above ground due to drifting, or GPS altitude inaccuracy from the phone's sensor, which can also be several meters off).
As far as the landing behavior, DJI will force the aircraft down when you hit the critical battery level (configured in DJI Fly). When this is happening you get some control over left/right, but you generally can't stop the vertical motion on the sticks as it is considered an emergency landing. This is all built in to the firmware / RC and we have zero control over it.
Jim I was able get screen recording to work and I will do a couple more tests as soon as the weather here clears, we are having a NorEaster, lots of wind, rain and snow. I don't know what you mean by "(the mode card with the play button)". Sorry for my ignorance in a lot of this stuff I am new at drone flying and learning stuff every day. For example; I did not know that elevation could vary so much. As far as the battery situation, I have flown it many times, with DJI Fly and Dronelink, to the point where it says battery level is low and will return home but I have never lost stick control except in the other video I posted of the drone spinning wildly. In that case though my battery was not low, I had just hit the up stick. Both of these instances I have not been able to recreate them.
Jim I flew 2 follow missions yesterday and I have the screenshots and the videos for both. Both missions started out the same the follow program stopped working about 50 seconds into flight. The drone just hovered and I had to re-set the mission. In the second mission I had an issue I had not seen. In "screenshot2" at about 10:50 I received a warning that Dronelink was not responding. I had no control of the drone, not even RTH. I had to shut down everything and then open DJI Fly in order to re-gain control. Also the mapbox square and the drone video screen were alternately going black. When one worked the other did not and vis-a-versa. Doing screenshots and videos must use a lot of power in the phone because I believe I started with 70% phone battery and by the second mission at approximately 12:03 my phone went completely dead and I had a black screen. The RC still had power so I could land the drone but that was a little scary. Do you know what would happen if the RC lost power? Here are the links to the 4 videos:
Followfail1:
https://youtu.be/r6R2k-EhLws
Screenshot1:
https://youtu.be/1VsJxg_qaak
Followfail2:
https://youtu.be/qR1mv_pZwbI
Screenshot2:
https://youtu.be/StuwLGn-a54
Sounds like your phone is tool old/slow to be running dronelink and screen recording at the same time. The whole purpose of having you do the screen recording was to make sure you were actually getting altitude tracking enabled, which you are, as seen here:
The number in () is the altitude offset (how much change in altitude your phone has recorded since it started).
If the RC loses power it is the same as if the RC loses connection, the drone initiates RTH.
So would that also explain the black map box and the view from the drone alternating back and forth? Although during the flying I do not recall those boxes going black. When my phone died I just had a black screen but in the recording there are numbers for altitude and other numbers.
I will just have to deal with the slow phone until this one dies I am stuck with it.
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