Disconnected - RTH worked

[RVD98072]

I was flying today on a pretty new battery (just got it a week or so ago and only had 2 flights on it).

I wasn't going too crazy in terms of speed (never full throttle) and was more or less just easing it out there and once I reached around 2200 feet or so away, it started giving disconnect type errors but it came back again a few seconds later. When I started to get this message as well as a few other errors (iirc, video signal lost, rc signal lost) I turned back. I also got an error message stating that it was switched to ATTI mode (which is fine as I'm comfortable flying in ATTI) but then changed back to GPS again.

As I was turning back to return, I got disconnected again (3rd time i believe) and at that point it didn't come back again for a few minutes. I pushed RTH and the RC made the expected beeps for RTH engagement.

I was happy to see a minute or so later that it was back. As it was coming down to home, connection was re-established and I took it out to RTH mode and just landed myself.

I briefly considered going back up and continuing the flight since the battery still had plenty of charge left but decided not to tempt fate too much and just landed and pulled the battery and moved on to another battery.

I flew on 2 more batteries and it was fine...no more problems. I did go and disconnect and reconnect the usb cable just to be safe. i am using an ipad mini 4 (cellular version but not actually subscribed to any cell service) connected to my phone's internet via wifi.

healthydrones link: HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Is it just a problem with distance? Is this pretty common?

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Hard to say as location is everything. I see it is a valley, was it lower than you expected and not in LOS of the signal? Also, it looks like your home point was next to a large all steel building. I would try flying in some rural areas without a lot of signal "noise" or steel around and see if things improve.

 

[RodPad]

Health Drones doesn't show "Lost RC Signal", It never shows "Weak RC signal".
You only see "signal lost, aircraft going home". It looks like you said you triggered RTH with the remote. What you lost was your data being sent back. It looks like you had full control the whole time. The RTH would kick in automatically on "Lost Rc Signal"

UPDATE:
Healthy Drones and playing back the Flight Log does not show "Weak Rc Signal" or "Lost Rc Signal". It looks like you said you triggered RTH with the remote. What you lost was your data being sent back. It looks like you had full control the whole time. The RTH would kick in automatically on "Lost Rc Signal"

Question for anybody, if you loose your data from the Phantom on a A or P. Is that part of the light bridge? Do you loose data and video at the same time.

To add to using the same battery for another flight. I flew 8 mins on Saturday. Sunday I heard a Grey Squirrel in a tree, wanted to get some shots of him. I did my normal start up routine knowing I had not a full charged battery. As you can see I made it about a minute and had Critical Battery Error. Hum Health Drones displays no problem with the battery. That screen showing the cells make no sense to me..

HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

 

[RVD98072]

Yes, unfortunately now that I am using my iPad Mini 4, I don't have any way to record the screen on my flights so I don't recall the exact error message.

I got some error messages regarding the video and RC connection with the aircraft and when I didn't regain connection after about 20 seconds or so of me trying to fly it closer, I pushed RTH on the RC.

I was glad to see that it worked.

 

[RodPad]

Hum, not sure what you are saying, maybe you were recording (saving) the info on your IPad. But if you replay back your flight log back on your mobile same-o, the "Weak Rc Signal" will not be logged the "Lost Rc Signal" will. But I am not sure if that is logged if RTH is not activated?

 

[RVD98072]

I'm just saying that until this past week, I used an android tablet (Nexus 9) with a screen recorder so I always recorded the screen so that I can see exactly what messages were displayed when, etc. I am not aware of such an app for my ipad mini 4 (not jailbroken) so I did not know what the exact message was but I just remember it was something along the lines of having a problem with the RC signal.

From the flight logs, it looks like the message was "Weak Rc Signal" but I didn't know that at the time I wrote the post because I forgot (again, because I don't have a screen recorder) and I didn't take the time to read through the flight logs and I didn't know if the flight logs record the same message that is displayed on the screen.

From my perspective, I got a message that said "Disconnected" and the screen was not showing video, etc. and when it didn't recover after 10-20 seconds or so, I pressed RTH on the remote (held it down as per the manual) and it worked well so I was happy to see that.

 

[Quinten]

This happened to me yesterday. Flew out about 2k feet and started to get weak rc signal message so I decided to turn it around and fly back. Hallways back I get a disconnected signal with no hopes of it being reconnected. But it was actually still connected as I was pressing the stick for it to move forward, then I regained visual on it and noticed it was still following the commands from my remote although it said disconnected. When I got the bird back overhead that's when it reconnected.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[rene van der meer]

I'm just saying that until this past week, I used an android tablet (Nexus 9) with a screen recorder so I always recorded the screen so that I can see exactly what messages were displayed when, etc. .....

That is a good idea!
What screen recorder are you using?
How much data does a 20 min flight take on the Nexus?

 

[RVD98072]

That is a good idea!
What screen recorder are you using?
How much data does a 20 min flight take on the Nexus?

I use a free app on android called AZ screen recorder (or something like that).

It has a few different options. If you record in 1080p with full stereo audio the file will be pretty big (probably around 2 gigs or so) but if you go with a more reasonable resolution, it a few hundred mb in terms of file size. I always just download the file off the tablet when I'm done anyway.

 

[daverich4]

I'm just saying that until this past week, I used an android tablet (Nexus 9) with a screen recorder so I always recorded the screen so that I can see exactly what messages were displayed when, etc. I am not aware of such an app for my ipad mini 4 (not jailbroken) so I did not know what the exact message was but I just remember it was something along the lines of having a problem with the RC signal.

I don't know if this would help but you can do a screen capture on an IOS device:

Press and hold the sleep/wake button on the top-right of the device, then press and release the home button

 

[Air Ontario]

I was flying today on a pretty new battery (just got it a week or so ago and only had 2 flights on it).

I wasn't going too crazy in terms of speed (never full throttle) and was more or less just easing it out there and once I reached around 2200 feet or so away, it started giving disconnect type errors but it came back again a few seconds later. When I started to get this message as well as a few other errors (iirc, video signal lost, rc signal lost) I turned back. I also got an error message stating that it was switched to ATTI mode (which is fine as I'm comfortable flying in ATTI) but then changed back to GPS again.

As I was turning back to return, I got disconnected again (3rd time i believe) and at that point it didn't come back again for a few minutes. I pushed RTH and the RC made the expected beeps for RTH engagement.

I was happy to see a minute or so later that it was back. As it was coming down to home, connection was re-established and I took it out to RTH mode and just landed myself.

I briefly considered going back up and continuing the flight since the battery still had plenty of charge left but decided not to tempt fate too much and just landed and pulled the battery and moved on to another battery.

I flew on 2 more batteries and it was fine...no more problems. I did go and disconnect and reconnect the usb cable just to be safe. i am using an ipad mini 4 (cellular version but not actually subscribed to any cell service) connected to my phone's internet via wifi.

healthydrones link: HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Is it just a problem with distance? Is this pretty common?

Looks like either the high power transmission lines in front of you or maybe the ComCast building has a transmitter? Either way LOS thru cross country electrical transmission lines can cause big issues.

Also, just a heads up, there appears to be a helipad 400' from your launch site.

 

[Mark Klee]

A similar thing happened to me today. About 300m out lost my connection, then my DJIGo app shut down and my iPad went blank. The Drone was not in view and I wasn't 100% sure which direction it was facing OR if it would remember the RTH point if the app was shut down and it wasn't connected. I was afraid to press the RTH for fear it didn't know where it was. Big time stress level.

The low battery sound only heightened my stress. BUT, it eventually flew back and all ended well. Anybody ever had an issue with the app closing and/or their iPad shutting down? It happened 3 times to me today.

 

[rene van der meer]

A similar thing happened to me today. About 300m out lost my connection, then my DJIGo app shut down and my iPad went blank. The Drone was not in view and I wasn't 100% sure which direction it was facing OR if it would remember the RTH point if the app was shut down and it wasn't connected. I was afraid to press the RTH for fear it didn't know where it was. Big time stress level.

The low battery sound only heightened my stress. BUT, it eventually flew back and all ended well. Anybody ever had an issue with the app closing and/or their iPad shutting down? It happened 3 times to me today.

I few months ago I also experienced that the app suddenly shut down, but my (android) phone did not. After restarting the app everything was OK again. Did you try that?
You should keep the drone in sight.
The RC still had a connection with the drone. So if you couldn't restart the app, you should hit the RTH button which you can't miss, because it is next to on/off switch

 

[Mark Klee]

Yeah, my first reaction was to hit the RTH, which I did. But then I was concerned that since the app had shut down and the iPad had turned off that it might not know where the home location was - I'm assuming now that the home location is stored on the drone itself? Because I couldn't reconnect the app at all. Ohhh, I guess just b/c I couldn't reconnect the app doesn't mean I lost RC connection, huh, duh! ... but I was also afraid to fly b/c I wasn't sure of the direction the drone was pointing.

 

[rene van der meer]

Yeah, my first reaction was to hit the RTH, which I did. But then I was concerned that since the app had shut down and the iPad had turned off that it might not know where the home location was - I'm assuming now that the home location is stored on the drone itself? Because I couldn't reconnect the app at all. Ohhh, I guess just b/c I couldn't reconnect the app doesn't mean I lost RC connection, huh, duh! ... but I was also afraid to fly b/c I wasn't sure of the direction the drone was pointing.

Yep. The home location is stored on the AC.
You should familiarize yourself with the Phantom. Read the manual and watch the video's.
You can also practice basic functions with the simulator on the app.
ps. What do you mean with b/c?
Happy flying

 

[Soup]

Howdy:

This is my first post to the forum, and I had this same problem. First on my P3 4k, now my P3A.

I had a P3 4K, and it would often loose FPV. The status would go gray, it would read "Disconnected", the map would not show where the bird was, no information on distance, height etc. I thought it was the phone I was using, so I tried my work phone, wife's phone, friend's phone, and a tablet... all same problem. I had to make sure I was always in line of sight because I would loose FPV so often I could not use DJI GO to get it back. So adios P3 4K, time for a change. The P3 4K TX connected to my phone via wifi, so I wanted a Pro or Adv to wire in, maybe that would do it.

So today I brought home a brand spanking new P3 Advanced. I took it out on a test flight, and it worked great. On my second flight I decided to try out this super cool light bridge I have been hearing so much about, folks on here have been talking about the great distances they have been achieving so I decided to see if I could get on out there. I took it up to 350 feet and flew straight out. I got all the way to 3500 feet and without warning, the DGI GO app lost FPV. The status box went gray and read "disconnected", no flight height, distance etc. No video on the screen, no nuth'n. I could not use the map to fly back, there was no orange line to follow, no red triangle showing my unit. I tuned off DJI GO, and I turned it back on, no change. I made sure I was not behind anything to block my signal, I double checked my antenna. I waited for the RTH to come on, nothing. I hit the RTH myself and it started beeping, nothing on the DJI GO screen though. I ran inside to grab the car keys as I felt I was about to go out on a search and recovery. I then heard and saw P3A coming home, and it made a perfect landing.

At no time was I able to reconnect with the P3A via DJI GO, even when it was 10 feet away landing.

I uploaded the flight to Healthy Drones, and it seems I had a solid green signal strength up to the point it disconnected, and then all data stopped. They flight was not logged or recorded at that point.

I would really like to avoid this problem.... excuse my noobness.

Thanks

 

[rene van der meer]

Howdy:

....
At no time was I able to reconnect with the P3A via DJI GO, even when it was 10 feet away landing.

I uploaded the flight to Healthy Drones, and it seems I had a solid green signal strength up to the point it disconnected, and then all data stopped. They flight was not logged or recorded at that point.

I would really like to avoid this problem.... excuse my noobness.

Thanks

Soup,
Did you go up 3500 ft? I never tried that, but the distance should not be a problem.
If you went straight up, you might have some signal loss due to the antenna orientation.

 

[Soup]

Soup,
Did you go up 3500 ft? I never tried that, but the distance should not be a problem.
If you went straight up, you might have some signal loss due to the antenna orientation.

I went out in distance 3,500 feet, and I went up 350 feet.
I am sorry I did not explain well, that does seem confusing in my body of text.

 

[RodPad]

Could you still see the bird LOS (Line of sight)?

Send a link for your (Healthy Drones)

 

[adfischer]

I have had my Go app disconnect before and had to disconnect and reconnect the USB cable to get it to connect again. I would be curious what your controller status light color was. Was the controller beeping?