Litchi and fears

[jjpetroski]

So I'm getting ready to take the plunge on the Android version, but I'm concerned about how things can go wrong. Per the instructions:

If signal is lost between the aircraft and the remote controller, the aircraft will continue the Orbit session until it reaches the critical battery level (can be set in DJI Go). It will then land in place automatically, even if your failsafe is Return to Home.

So if I ran Orbit 5 miles away, saved the mission, reran it out of range then I'm toast, right? Let's say it was to orbit a tree in a lake. I would go out and with no override it will run the program and send it right down into the lake since I could not override the orbit setting.

This doesn't sound good.... What else is there I'm not thinking ahead on?

 

[Sagebrush]

I mainly fly Waypoint Missions with Litchi. If contact is lost it'll finish the mission and then do an RTH (if I have that option set). Five miles out? For me that's a moon shot.

SB

 

[jjpetroski]

It's one of those "what if" questions. Launching a saved program that's way out of range for the P3 could technically happen and it sounds like it would not return home.

 

[gavcuk]

As soon as you put it into P mode the mission is over.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jjpetroski]

What if you're out of range for the change to work?

 

[Sagebrush]

What if you're out of range for the change to work?

Then if you run out of battery it's going to land. You might want to check out the Litchi manual.

Help - Litchi

 

[jjpetroski]

(I did) So it confirms my fear. It will sink if my scenario happens. I wonder why the return to home is not activated on Orbit?

 

[Sagebrush]

(I did) So it confirms my fear. It will sink if my scenario happens. I wonder why the return to home is not activated on Orbit?

Dunno, but you could set up an orbit like mission using waypoints with Litchi. Orbit, at least for us IOS users is fairly new.

SB

 

[HWCM]

I debated buy Litchi, I finally did. But the app will not connect to my controller. Many Emails and days of troubleshooting later and Litchi tells me it is not compatible with my phone. HTC ONE M9. So I had to get a refund. **** it. It works great on my tablet, but will not stay connected with the phone.

 

[FantomFlier]

So if I ran Orbit 5 miles away, saved the mission, reran it out of range then I'm toast, right? Let's say it was to orbit a tree in a lake....

The Litchi app is delivered with a free sample of common sense. Use it.

 

[shockwave199]

Don't do an orbit 5 miles away. That's just plain dumb. Drive the 5 miles and do the orbit within range. I don't even know if you're being serious. I hope not. If you are, yes, be nervous and plan on losing your phantom. Maybe even get arrested if it causes injury to someone out there.

 

[shockwave199]

Btw, litchi is an awesome app to help get great film of areas and take the stress off of yourself. You always come home with plenty of great film to use. I use it for flights like the one I did yesterday. This is why I fly with litchi. Not long distance flight, although I get distance sometimes. But not miles. I generally stay within 3k feet so there's no issues and that's plenty most of the time.

 

[Tenly]

Don't do an orbit 5 miles away. That's just plain dumb. Drive the 5 miles and do the orbit within range. I don't even know if you're being serious. I hope not. If you are, yes, be nervous and plan on losing your phantom. Maybe even get arrested if it causes injury to someone out there.

I thought it was pretty obvious that he was using this scenario as an example so he could get the answer to his actual question instead of a bunch of suggestions for other ways to accomplish something.

In any case, there was a bug in the DJI firmware that prevented the Return-To-Home feature from working in the case that you mentioned. It didn't just affect Litchi. It affected Autopilot and all other 3rd party firmwares to. Autopilot has reported that DJI has corrected the error in the most recent firmware release and that Return-To-Home now works properly in these situations.
d
Perhaps, Litchi has just forgotten to update that section of the document? I would contact their support for a clarification. I suspect that you will now be able to run that mission 5 miles away and have your bird come back safely.

I would test it somewhere closer before I trusted it though... Just fly somewhere (more than 20ft away from you), then turn off the remote to simulate a lost connection and then observe what happens when the mission is complete! It will either return home, or hover - right?

Good luck!

 

[Tenly]

did

It's one of those "what if" questions. Launching a saved program that's way out of range for the P3 could technically happen and it sounds like it would not return home.

There is a value that can be set to prevent those missions from running. There is a maximum distance value. In Autopilot, it's user configurable. You could set it at 3 miles and then if you tried to run your Orbit mission from a location greater than 3 miles away - it would just refuse to run. I'm not sure whether the setting is exposed and user adjustable in Litchi or if it is hard-coded like it is in DJI Go. (500m in Go I think...)

 

[shockwave199]

I thought it was pretty obvious that he was using this scenario as an example so he could get the answer to his actual question instead of a bunch of suggestions for other ways to accomplish something.

In any case, there was a bug in the DJI firmware that prevented the Return-To-Home feature from working in the case that you mentioned. It didn't just affect Litchi. It affected Autopilot and all other 3rd party firmwares to. Autopilot has reported that DJI has corrected the error in the most recent firmware release and that Return-To-Home now works properly in these situations.
d
Perhaps, Litchi has just forgotten to update that section of the document? I would contact their support for a clarification. I suspect that you will now be able to run that mission 5 miles away and have your bird come back safely.

I would test it somewhere closer before I trusted it though... Just fly somewhere (more than 20ft away from you), then turn off the remote to simulate a lost connection and then observe what happens when the mission is complete! It will either return home, or hover - right?

Good luck!

The question was about RTH and an orbit. RTH not kicking in is not a bug in this mode. Whether you're in the dji app or any 3rd party app, it's the same behavior. I don't like it either, but that's the way it is. Do an orbit at a distance you know you won't lose signal or you're asking for problems.

 

[jjpetroski]

Tenly, Thank you.
Yes I have common sense, but I'm just trying to understand if a worst case situation could happen and why they'd allow it. You and shockwave helped.​

 

[Wolfiesden]

Many of these apps let you do stupid things. Not just litchi. You simply have to be responsible for proper planning and execution of the missions. Just plan to at least be in range at the closest portion of the orbit ring so you can command a shutdown of the mission when it comes into range. Switching to P or A when its out of range will NOT shut down the mission as the bird can not receive the command. Its running on what it has in memory when it is out of range.

I do, however, agree that orbit lacks some settings it really should, such as "Number of Orbits" that the user could set that would force the end of the mission say, after 3 orbits. Then it could process the End of Mission command (RTH, STAY, LAND, etc) should it be out of range.

 

[shockwave199]

Remember that most all of the features that 3rd party software can offer is really up to what dji allows in their sdk and api. But auto pilot and litchi, for examples, are miles ahead of what you can do with the dji app. Even with some limitations, being able to use 3rd party apps is a major reason why the dji brand is excellent. And it should go without saying, study the software you're using and don't do crazy stuff 20k' out there. But if you just can't help but push the boundaries in spite of everything, give yourself the best chance at success and do an antenna mod with boosters. No guarantees but it'll up your odds.

 

[bKanzi]

Btw, litchi is an awesome app to help get great film of areas and take the stress off of yourself. You always come home with plenty of great film to use. I use it for flights like the one I did yesterday. This is why I fly with litchi. Not long distance flight, although I get distance sometimes. But not miles. I generally stay within 3k feet so there's no issues and that's plenty most of the time.

Nice vid. Hopefully that is not you in the little red car parked soooo crooked in that giant parking spot

 

[shockwave199]

You know I didn't notice what a crappy parking job I did until I was leaving, LOL! It sure was nice to have the place to myself though. Thanks for watching.