Litchi waypoints gimbal is glitchy

[JGuff330]

I did a 2 mile waypoint mission in the litchi app. i set all the waypoints for the gimbal to interpolate and attached different waypoints to different POI. Sometimes the camera would not be looking down at the POI and would be looking straight out at the horizon. I would manually move the gimbal down and the gimbal would jerk back up at the horizon. It ruined a pretty cool route.

 

[JGuff330]

I did a 2 mile waypoint mission in the litchi app. i set all the waypoints for the gimbal to interpolate and attached different waypoints to different POI. Sometimes the camera would not be looking down at the POI and would be looking straight out at the horizon. I would manually move the gimbal down and the gimbal would jerk back up at the horizon. It ruined a pretty cool route.

UPDATE: I did another litchi waypoint mission and this time I didn't manually mess with the gimbal at all, I just let it fly and come back. It seems like the root issue is that when it should be looking down at the POI (which is set a few feet off the ground), it's actually looking straight out at the horizon. Any ideas?

 

[JR Vaughn]

I did read in the manual that Litchi will control the gimble 'as long as the Phantom is within range of the rc remote'. I am at a loss to why Litchi can control heading, altitude, etc autonomously when out of range but not gimble pitch.........any ideas anyone?


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[JGuff330]

If you set it to interpolate, you can then adjust the gimbal pitch for it to manually look down on waypoints. I think my issue may have been because I set it to interpolate instead of focus POI. I'm gonna make some adjustments and test again this afternoon.

 

[birdingbilly]

You are correct in your last post. Interpolate will do just that i.e it will move the gimbal between the two waypoint settings based on the flight direction and gimbal angle that you have manually set - if you want the gimbal to focus on a POI you have to select POI. Just to correct one other point from above - you do not need to have connection with the RC for Litchi to control the gimbal. When you set the drone off on a Litchi mission it uploads all the instructions to the drone so even if the drone looses connection with the RC it will just continue with the mission.

 

[maseman88]

I use focus POI

 

[Corey Tucker]

Just to correct one other point from above - you do not need to have connection with the RC for Litchi to control the gimbal.

That sounds like it makes sense, but I don't think it works that way. I've been trying to figure this out, but I've tested several flights where every single waypoint was set to interpolate and the angle would change from waypoint to waypoint. It would work just like I wanted, right up until it went out of range. Then the camera would freeze where ever it was. As soon as it got back in range, the camera would start moving again like it was supposed to.

I've also tried setting it to focus on POI, but that doesn't seem to work either, but now i'm thinking that's because it was out of range too.

The ONLYthing i've got to work successfully is to set an action at each waypoint and tell the camera which way to point. thats just a big pain cuz it takes so long to add that to every single waypoint. so when you have a bunch...painful

 

[gtpark]

t. It would work just like I wanted, right up until it went out of range. Then the camera would freeze where ever it was. As soon as it got back in range, the camera would start moving again like it was supposed to.
l

This freeze is on the recorded video off the SD card?

 

[Corey Tucker]

This freeze is on the recorded video off the SD card?

no, i mean the camera would stop moving to the angles i told it to. it would keep recording just fine. it only tilts the camera when i'm in range of it with the controller.

 

[gtpark]

no, i mean the camera would stop moving to the angles i told it to. it would keep recording just fine. it only tilts the camera when i'm in range of it with the controller.

I don't mean "did recording freeze". I meant did the recording off the SD card show that the gimbal froze. In other words did the recorded video show that the gimbal did not move to different preprogramed POIs/Focus Points when the craft went out of range of the controller?

Also if you think it did; how looking at the video off the SD can you tell at what point the craft went out of controller range?

 

[Corey Tucker]

ok so i don't know exact to the second moment it went out of range and when the camera stopped moving. but when it first started flying, i was watching the camera moving just like i wanted while it was in range. but later when watching the video, i noticed that right about the time the video cut out during the mission, that's when the camera stopped tilting.

oh, and then half way during the mission, it got close to me again. so i also noticed that halfway thru watching the video after the flight, the camera moved about that time too. so from everything i can tell, it's only moving around when close to me.

 

[birdingbilly]

The gimbal on my P4 definitely continues to do as it should (both interpolation and POI focus) when the drone is out of range - I am 100% certain of that.

 

[Melvoid]

Just to be clear, Does the waypoint function also record the camera angle? I want to do a real estate property from different altitudes. Will it remember the camera angles or do I have to do those manually. I have not yet tried waypoints.

 

[JGuff330]

If you're within RC range then yes. But if you're doing that kind of work it would probably work better to do it manually and maybe clip some orbit shots together.

 

[Larry56]

I use focus POI

Focus POI hasn't been working on my P4 after the last official update and latest beta. I set up the focus POIs in a mission (not using interpolate) and the camera angle never changes. If I set the camera angle manually in the mission and use interpolate, then it appears to work most of the time. I question my gimbal is having issues but it works if set up manually or flown manually. Using the POI feature in mission does not change the camera pitch like it used to. Is the program glitchy or do I have a bad gimbal? My gimbal has full movement when flown manually or when I set up a mission with manually set pitch angles most of the time. When using the POI with height calculations in a mission, it doesn't work to change the camera pitch at all. Camera never even changes pitch to focus on POI. Is anyone else having this issue and is it an issue with the newest program or do I need to send my drone in for repair? Not to be repetitive but it does have full motion otherwise, during normal flight whether using DJI or Litchi. That's what makes me think it's the latest Litchi software, official release and beta. Suggestions?

 

[Larry56]

Focus POI hasn't been working on my P4 after the last official update and latest beta. I set up the focus POIs in a mission (not using interpolate) and the camera angle never changes. If I set the camera angle manually in the mission and use interpolate, then it appears to work most of the time. I question my gimbal is having issues but it works if set up manually or flown manually. Using the POI feature in mission does not change the camera pitch like it used to. Is the program glitchy or do I have a bad gimbal? My gimbal has full movement when flown manually or when I set up a mission with manually set pitch angles most of the time. When using the POI with height calculations in a mission, it doesn't work to change the camera pitch at all. Camera never even changes pitch to focus on POI. Is anyone else having this issue and is it an issue with the newest program or do I need to send my drone in for repair? Not to be repetitive but it does have full motion otherwise, during normal flight whether using DJI or Litchi. That's what makes me think it's the latest Litchi software, official release and beta. Suggestions?

UPDATE: I just tried Waypoint with an all interpolated flight and set the gimbal to some really negative settings. Did not change the pitch at all. I have it set to CUSTOM and interpolate between all waypoints. No camera angle changes, except for the very first one as it began its mission. Then I tried Orbit around my house, the camera pitch changed, pointing downward at my house so I know Litchi has control of the gimbal pitch. What's going on? This has happened in the last official release as well as the last 2 betas. I had no issues with it before that. I have a Phantom 4 if that makes a difference. Does Litchi check this site?

 

[Ibmftw]

Can you set up a brand new quick 4 way point mission with the Waypoints perhaps 50ft apart, set all the of the Waypoints gimbal pitch parameter to interpolate, set wp1 to 0 degrees, wp2 to -90 deg, wp3 to 0 deg and wp4 to -90 deg. Now on "mission settings" under "default gimbal pitch mode" choose "interpolate" and run the mission.

Can you do that and come back and tell me what happened?

 

[Larry56]

Ok, I'll try that now and report back. The mission I was flying, actually several older missions now, all used to work without editing anything. If I understand correctly, interpolate gradually changes the gimbal pitch to the next waypoint if it too is interpolate, while POI changes it slightly more abruptly. Fair statement? I've flown the same missions (older saved) on the new software and the gimbal didn't behave the same, didn't budge at all. But let me go try this quick test and I'll report back. Thanks.

 

[Larry56]

Ok, I'll try that now and report back. The mission I was flying, actually several older missions now, all used to work without editing anything. If I understand correctly, interpolate gradually changes the gimbal pitch to the next waypoint if it too is interpolate, while POI changes it slightly more abruptly. Fair statement? I've flown the same missions (older saved) on the new software and the gimbal didn't behave the same, didn't budge at all. But let me go try this quick test and I'll report back. Thanks.

UPDATE: Ok, I tried the test and it worked perfectly, as I expected. It started at 0% at WP1, slowly aimed down to -90% before reaching WP2, aimed up to 0% at WP3, and slowly aimed back down to -90% at WP4. All movements beautifully smooth. So does it have to do with waypoints created and saved before the software update? Or did I have the initial default setting wrong? What's the secret? And thanks for making me do that as at least I know it's not my Phantom or Litchi. Does it have to do with mixing POIs with Interpolates? I swear I've done that before and achieved gimbal pitch changes. What should I be looking for to correct my older saved waypoint missions? Again, thanks so far for your help. You're a genius!

 

[Larry56]

Ok, I tried the test and it worked perfectly, as I expected. It started at 0% at WP1, slowly aimed down to -90% before reaching WP2, aimed up to 0% at WP3, and slowly aimed back down to -90% at WP4. All movements beautifully smooth. So does it have to do with waypoints created and saved before the software update? Or did I have the initial default setting wrong? What's the secret? And thanks for making me do that as at least I know it's not my Phantom or Litchi. Does it have to do with mixing POIs with Interpolates? I swear I've done that before and achieved gimbal pitch changes. What should I be looking for to correct my older saved waypoint missions? Again, thanks so far for your help. You're a genius!

I should say as "would" be expected, I wasn't expecting it to work. So I'm unaware of a setting obviously.