Home Lock FAIL

[resulto]

So today I was out flying around and experimenting with home lock. For the most part, it worked great but at one point, I put it in home lock, pulled the pitch stick toward me and the phantom flew away from me (almost crashing into a tree line).

Has anyone experienced home lock failing? Have any insight as to things to be aware of when switching the bird into HL mode?

* Note * Though I was well outside of the 10m radius when I put the P2VP into HL mode, I had been flying it toward me and away from me through the course of my tests. Some of the times I flew it back to me in HL, I brought it in much closer than 10m. Could that have something to do with the HL getting fouled up? Does it, can it, reset and grab a false home point? It should be said that after recovering it from the near collision and flying it back into the safety of the openness of the field I was in, I switched it into Return Home mode and it responded correctly (flew toward the home point I had set).

Just curious what I can watch out for so that I don't end up in a bad situation next time I'm out flying and decide to throw the Phantom into HL mode.

Thanks!

 

[knowonecares]

Home Lock works from 10m out, if you bring it closer than 10m it will automatically switch to Course Lock, CL is set during the first series of rapid green flashes after power on, where it will lock in your Orientation, the direction the front of your quad points. So maybe when it got too close it switched to CL, but your CL's Forward was different than your HL's Forward. I'm no expert, but that's how I understand it, I try to keep HL and CL with the same Forward Orientation.

 

[Meta4]

Was your Phantom more than 10 metres away from the home point?

Home lock flying requires that 6 or more GPS satellites are found and the aircraft is further than 10m away from the home point.

Before you do the home lock flight, you have to fly the aircraft out of the 10m range around home point, and then flip the switch S2 to Home Lock position to fly in home lock when all the requirements are met. If you have already toggled the switch S2 to Home Lock position when the aircraft is still in 10m range around home point, and this is the first time you are going to fly in home lock during the current flight, then if all the requirements are met, MC will change into home lock automatically when quad-rotor flies out the 10m range around home point.

When you are flying in home lock mode, if the aircraft is back into the 10m range around home point, or you switch into ATTI. Mode, or the GPS signal becomes weak, MC will fly in course lock by the current forward direction automatically. But this forward direction is NOT the recorded forward direction. If you open the course lock now, MC will fly in course lock still by the earlier recorded forward direction.

When quad-rotor is flying by home lock far away from you and the home point, please do not toggle the IOC switch many times quickly so as to avoid the change of home point without your attention.

 

[eseckinger]

Sounds like u had it on course lock maybe by accident.

 

[BlackTracer]

Was your Phantom more than 10 metres away from the home point?
Home lock flying requires that 6 or more GPS satellites are found and the aircraft is further than 10m away from the home point.
Before you do the home lock flight, you have to fly the aircraft out of the 10m range around home point, and then flip the switch S2 to Home Lock position to fly in home lock when all the requirements are met. If you have already toggled the switch S2 to Home Lock position when the aircraft is still in 10m range around home point, and this is the first time you are going to fly in home lock during the current flight, then if all the requirements are met, MC will change into home lock automatically when quad-rotor flies out the 10m range around home point.
When you are flying in home lock mode, if the aircraft is back into the 10m range around home point, or you switch into ATTI. Mode, or the GPS signal becomes weak, MC will fly in course lock by the current forward direction automatically. But this forward direction is NOT the recorded forward direction. If you open the course lock now, MC will fly in course lock still by the earlier recorded forward direction.
When quad-rotor is flying by home lock far away from you and the home point, please do not toggle the IOC switch many times quickly so as to avoid the change of home point without your attention.

Let me add that if you are in HL and outside the 10m radius, then fly inside the 10m radius, then fly back outside the 10m radius, you must reselect HL with S2 else it remains in CL. Meta4 may have said this above but my brain hurt after about 3/4 of that post!!!

 

[Prowler]

I have had home Lock fail on me a few times. Was nowhere near the 30 ft from home point. I was about 400 ft out each time. I lost home lock and then my orientation doing FPV. Screen locked up on me as I was too far for FPV, pulled back on stick but did not hear the drone coming home, so after a couple of minutes I went to fail safe. Thank DJI for 'fail safe'. I had to use it to come home, each time it worked. without 'fail safe' I would have had a lost drone. Have no ideal why it happened. After reviewing video I saw I was not coming home when I pulled the stick down toward home. So some how it lost home lock.

 

[max]

I am about 90% sure this has happened to me one or two times. Each time I questioned my sanity. But like you said, I pulled down on the stick and the quad went in the exact opposite direction I expected (away from me). Hasn't happened again in some time (months). I have updated firmware, so maaayyyyybe related.

These days I use HL less, as it is the slowest way to travel of all! Slower than GPS mode and even slower than RTH speed.

 

[eseckinger]

I am about 90% sure this has happened to me one or two times. Each time I questioned my sanity. But like you said, I pulled down on the stick and the quad went in the exact opposite direction I expected (away from me). Hasn't happened again in some time (months). I have updated firmware, so maaayyyyybe related.

These days I use HL less, as it is the slowest way to travel of all! Slower than GPS mode and even slower than RTH speed.

IF when you use Home Lock it is slower than RTH something is wrong with your bird.

 

[max]

I am about 90% sure this has happened to me one or two times. Each time I questioned my sanity. But like you said, I pulled down on the stick and the quad went in the exact opposite direction I expected (away from me). Hasn't happened again in some time (months). I have updated firmware, so maaayyyyybe related.

These days I use HL less, as it is the slowest way to travel of all! Slower than GPS mode and even slower than RTH speed.

IF when you use Home Lock it is slower than RTH something is wrong with your bird.

Can you please actually try it with your bird to be sure? I get 12 mph in home lock. I've confirmed it many times. I downgraded to 1.08 and still got 12 mph in home lock. I made a thread about it but got no good replies.

 

[max]

I am about 90% sure this has happened to me one or two times. Each time I questioned my sanity. But like you said, I pulled down on the stick and the quad went in the exact opposite direction I expected (away from me). Hasn't happened again in some time (months). I have updated firmware, so maaayyyyybe related.

These days I use HL less, as it is the slowest way to travel of all! Slower than GPS mode and even slower than RTH speed.

I just remembered I actually made a post about this when it happened to me!:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=26324

 

[resulto]

Let me add that if you are in HL and outside the 10m radius, then fly inside the 10m radius, then fly back outside the 10m radius, you must reselect HL with S2 else it remains in CL. Meta4 may have said this above but my brain hurt after about 3/4 of that post!!!

Thanks for all the responses!

Based on what I observed with regards to GPS, I think it is unlikely that my "malfunction" was due to weak GPS/No GPS lock. I think that BlackTracer's theory may be what happened. I was flying toward and away from me repeatedly up and down a large field getting used to home lock. I would fly out, put it into home lock, fly it back toward me...out again sometimes taking it off home lock and putting it back into home lock... I'm thinking that what might have happened is a scenario like BlackTracer explained.

Looking at the video, again, I realized that this would make perfect sense. The bird got GPS lock initially and was launched with an orientation perpendicular to the course that I had been flying so if it did go into CL from HL then the orientation would have been immediately offset by 90 degrees which is consistent with what I saw happening... at first, the bird went "left" (from my perspective) instead of coming toward me when I pulled back on the pitch stick (which would be consistent with it having gotten into CL mode) I then got into a situation where I either disabled HL in an attempt to regain control or something further was wrong with the HL mode because the next time I pulled back on the pitch stick the bird flew away from me (opposite of home lock) which could have meant that by that time, the bird was facing me, was in GPS mode and I was telling it to fly "backwards".

Of course, I can't remember exactly what I did or did not do with the S2 switch when I first saw it behaving erratically but I'm going to try and reproduce the issue in a more controlled environment and see if I can't reproduce the same behavior.

Thanks for all the insight!