Flying into a pit

[VegasFlyer]

That was cool. So did you use lichi and manual control too? Judging by the video you could have walked across the road and stood at the fence? It seems as though the fence is fairly close to the edge and will allow for a good LOS? Seems like that road is not heavily traveled too. Thanks for uploading that!!!

I created a Litchi mission because I was worried about LOS. Yep, I could have stood at the fence but you can't see much of anything in front of you. Peace Way is low in traffic and has the only decent stretch to park. Paused the mission near the end of the video just for a minute. I was hoping to get a wind reading. (can't do it in F mode)

Click here for the mission: Mission Hub - Litchi

 

[VegasFlyer]

View attachment 89919 This is the other one

I know about those 2 but I wanted to fly down into the pit as far as I can without worrying about equipment. And I never seem to know when that pit shuts down. I don't want someone yappin in my ear about my activities there. You use Airmap app? How do you like it? I'm tempted to give it a shot because (I think) it allows you to add orbits to your missions.

Edit: Never mind. I must be thinking of another app.

 

[John Locke]

I flew a waypoint mission with Litchi because I have an iPad Mini 2 which isn't very powerful and it frequently drops connection.

FYI, the performance of the iPad Mini2 has nothing to do with you dropping the control connection with the craft. The connection is a function of the controller for both controlling the craft and receiving the video data. All communications with the craft go 100% through the controller. The controller provides the video and telemetry data to the iPad via USB cable, and the iPad decompresses that data and displays it on the screen. Any drops in connection are the result of the controller losing the connection with the craft, which stops the communication with the iPad. iPads do not communicate directly with the craft, the controller does. When the green LED on the controller goes red, that's when the controller has lost a connection with the craft.

The only weakness in the iPad Mini2 is the inability to operate above 90F temperature. The iPad will overheat and the screen will go green or get garbled, so you can't see FPV. This is the iPad's hardware decoding chip overheating, it can no longer handle the extreme task of H.264 decompression to display the video, so it pukes. In those cases you will likely still have a perfectly good connection with the craft, control-wise, and you can continue controlling it via VLOS to bring it home, or enable RTH with the physical button. However, the display will lead you to believe you don't have control because you can't see anything, including telemetry most the time.

I have a Mini2 also, I fly my P3P with it. When it's over 90F I fly from inside my car with the air conditioning running. That alleviates the overheating issues, and you can usually get fairly good range through the windshield, if the craft is in front of the car. Use a windsurfer if you aren't already, it's well worth the $10 to get another mile range that it provides. Make sure you never fly with a case installed on the iPad, that will make it overheat sooner. Always fly with nothing protecting the iPad to maximize cooling.

 

[VegasFlyer]

FYI, the performance of the iPad Mini2 has nothing to do with you dropping the control connection with the craft. The connection is a function of the controller for both controlling the craft and receiving the video data. All communications with the craft go 100% through the controller. The controller provides the video and telemetry data to the iPad via USB cable, and the iPad decompresses that data and displays it on the screen. Any drops in connection are the result of the controller losing the connection with the craft, which stops the communication with the iPad. iPads do not communicate directly with the craft, the controller does. When the green LED on the controller goes red, that's when the controller has lost a connection with the craft.

The only weakness in the iPad Mini2 is the inability to operate above 90F temperature. The iPad will overheat and the screen will go green or get garbled, so you can't see FPV. This is the iPad's hardware decoding chip overheating, it can no longer handle the extreme task of H.264 decompression to display the video, so it pukes. In those cases you will likely still have a perfectly good connection with the craft, control-wise, and you can continue controlling it via VLOS to bring it home, or enable RTH with the physical button. However, the display will lead you to believe you don't have control because you can't see anything, including telemetry most the time.

I have a Mini2 also, I fly my P3P with it. When it's over 90F I fly from inside my car with the air conditioning running. That alleviates the overheating issues, and you can usually get fairly good range through the windshield, if the craft is in front of the car. Use a windsurfer if you aren't already, it's well worth the $10 to get another mile range that it provides. Make sure you never fly with a case installed on the iPad, that will make it overheat sooner. Always fly with nothing protecting the iPad to maximize cooling.

Ahh, a nuts and bolts guy! That was the best response I've seen to a problem in my short time on here. Reminds me of my days doing tech support when DOS was king. Thank You!

Now...

I've pretty much surmised as much but I was hoping for a reply like yours to confirm my beliefs. In my head I knew the app was merely acting upon the data it receives but I've only been flying since June so I wasn't 100% sure. Plus, I'm not a fan of Apple products. Anyway, up until recently I frequently received Mobile device CPU fully loaded. Related performance will be affected. warnings. It's damned hot here from June-September so I figured the issue was heat-related. On a day that was about 110-112, the Mini2 said "Screw you! I'm HOT!" and shut off completely. Message received. I knew the iPad wasn't in control and my bird was in sight, so no panic. I don't need to view what's being recorded; I'm mainly interested in where I'm at in the mission and the other flight info, so I tend to keep the mission map maximized. I'm data guy. I need my numbers and stats and I'm not too happy when I don't get them.

I have a room full of computers so I understand the need to keep stuff cool as much as possible. I only use the Mini2 for flying and it never wears a jacket. The one thing I haven't mentioned are the damned app crashes. Within a minute or two after disconnect, Litchi crashes. This is the part I hate the most. It's happened the past 2 days and the temp was ~85. By the way, I take it you aren't using Litchi?

I purchased a SKYREAT Copper Parabolic Antenna Signal Range Booster when I bought everything else so I've never tried flying without it. If you say it helps, well, that's good enough for me.

 

[VegasFlyer]

That was cool. So did you use lichi and manual control too? Judging by the video you could have walked across the road and stood at the fence? It seems as though the fence is fairly close to the edge and will allow for a good LOS? Seems like that road is not heavily traveled too. Thanks for uploading that!!!

As you can see here, I did experience some LOS. Left image is from takeoff to LOS and the right is after regaining signal. Not as bad as I thought it might be.

 

[John Locke]

Ahh, a nuts and bolts guy! That was the best response I've seen to a problem in my short time on here. Reminds me of my days doing tech support when DOS was king. Thank You!

Now...

I've pretty much surmised as much but I was hoping for a reply like yours to confirm my beliefs. In my head I knew the app was merely acting upon the data it receives but I've only been flying since June so I wasn't 100% sure. Plus, I'm not a fan of Apple products. Anyway, up until recently I frequently received Mobile device CPU fully loaded. Related performance will be affected. warnings. It's damned hot here from June-September so I figured the issue was heat-related. On a day that was about 110-112, the Mini2 said "Screw you! I'm HOT!" and shut off completely. Message received. I knew the iPad wasn't in control and my bird was in sight, so no panic. I don't need to view what's being recorded; I'm mainly interested in where I'm at in the mission and the other flight info, so I tend to keep the mission map maximized. I'm data guy. I need my numbers and stats and I'm not too happy when I don't get them.

I have a room full of computers so I understand the need to keep stuff cool as much as possible. I only use the Mini2 for flying and it never wears a jacket. The one thing I haven't mentioned are the damned app crashes. Within a minute or two after disconnect, Litchi crashes. This is the part I hate the most. It's happened the past 2 days and the temp was ~85. By the way, I take it you aren't using Litchi?

I purchased a SKYREAT Copper Parabolic Antenna Signal Range Booster when I bought everything else so I've never tried flying without it. If you say it helps, well, that's good enough for me.

Yes, I use Litchi for waypoint missions, it's a good app, however I've never used Litchi when it's hot on my Mini2. So Litchi may act different than Go4 when the decompression circuit overheats, it may just crash as you stated. I'm not a fan of iPads either, I'm a Android fan, but I've learned that when it comes to flying DJI craft the iPad line works the best (long story). Other than overheating I've never had the Go4 app crash, or Litchi either in the 2.5yrs I've been flying DJI with IOS devices. Today I'm using an Air2 to fly P4 and P4P, my Mini2 is dedicated to fly my Mavic, which I don't fly much.

I frankly don't think the DJI Android software team is able to create a flawless app, as good as the DJI IOS team can. I think this is primarily due to the luxury of IOS being more stable, using an "Apple" h/w architecture and having only ONE manufacturer, Apple. With Android it becomes more difficult with many CPU architectures and a dozen h/w manufacturers. It seems quite telling, that even when DJI has a fixed architecture in their Crystal Sky tablets for display, they don't allow third party Android apps to be loaded. This tells me they aren't capable from a technical point of view to fully understand the Android OS, like many cellphone manufacturers do. IMO, this is enough evidence to stay away from Android when it comes to DJI, so I use Apple, and it's been reliable, but more expensive. Maybe with time this will change, because I would like to use Android devices. Since the new S8 phone has 1200nit brightness now, I see a day soon that Android tablets will have 1000+ nit brightness, which would be welcomed. If that happens I'll have to rethink my setup to get a brighter display without giving up Litchi, and other third party apps.

 

[Tim Dawes]

If you upload the video to You tube just copy the link and paste it here.

 

[VegasFlyer]

If you upload the video to You tube just copy the link and paste it here.

I uploaded the video to Vimeo and posted a link to this thread. Let me know if you can't find it.

 

[VegasFlyer]

Yes, I use Litchi for waypoint missions, it's a good app, however I've never used Litchi when it's hot on my Mini2. So Litchi may act different than Go4 when the decompression circuit overheats, it may just crash as you stated. I'm not a fan of iPads either, I'm a Android fan, but I've learned that when it comes to flying DJI craft the iPad line works the best (long story). Other than overheating I've never had the Go4 app crash, or Litchi either in the 2.5yrs I've been flying DJI with IOS devices. Today I'm using an Air2 to fly P4 and P4P, my Mini2 is dedicated to fly my Mavic, which I don't fly much.

I frankly don't think the DJI Android software team is able to create a flawless app, as good as the DJI IOS team can. I think this is primarily due to the luxury of IOS being more stable, using an "Apple" h/w architecture and having only ONE manufacturer, Apple. With Android it becomes more difficult with many CPU architectures and a dozen h/w manufacturers. It seems quite telling, that even when DJI has a fixed architecture in their Crystal Sky tablets for display, they don't allow third party Android apps to be loaded. This tells me they aren't capable from a technical point of view to fully understand the Android OS, like many cellphone manufacturers do. IMO, this is enough evidence to stay away from Android when it comes to DJI, so I use Apple, and it's been reliable, but more expensive. Maybe with time this will change, because I would like to use Android devices. Since the new S8 phone has 1200nit brightness now, I see a day soon that Android tablets will have 1000+ nit brightness, which would be welcomed. If that happens I'll have to rethink my setup to get a brighter display without giving up Litchi, and other third party apps.

As you stated, Apple products are way too expensive and the price is the same no matter where you buy them. They don't allow anyone to discount their h/w. I build my own desktops so they're useless to me. I could rant about Apple for days on end.

I tried another couple of flights with the temp in the mid-70's and I didn't lose connection this time but the app crashed almost 4 minutes into the flight. One thing I've noticed is that the app only crashes when flying a waypoint mission. I have no idea what's going on. I can't see buying a new tablet so I guess I'll have to buy the Android version of Litchi. I'll miss the screen size but at least the S7 will be powerful enough to run the app and I'll be able to record the screen too which is something I can't do now. By the way, what other third party apps do you use?