Litchi...

[bsartist]

When setting up a mission on the hub I see my ground elevation is 251m at my first waypoint. I know everything during the route is based on this but does that mean I need to set the first waypoint to 351m to be up 328 ft ? or do i set it for 100m ? Thanks guys just a little confused before I crash this thing haha

Waypoints are AGL. Not ASL. And I BELIEVE it's based on AGL at takeoff point. Not first waypoint. Which may be different. But I'm not 100% positive on this. In my recent mission I started at my lawn which is 800 ft ASL. But I set my waypoints at 220 ft elevation to stay above the trees.

 

[sebastianshaffer21]

Very nice...is the gimbal Still controllable while on a mission? If not out of range....also....on these missions if I wanna take the standard out 2 miles and back hypothetically,obvious lose signal, it will go and come back? And I can set the camera angles etc while setting up the mission?? Sorry I'm just very interested...

Yep as long as you have signal

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[sebastianshaffer21]

View attachment 74254

Start it up on normal wifi then connect your drone it has a verification process

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[Loz]

Waypoints are AGL. Not ASL. And I BELIEVE it's based on AGL at takeoff point. Not first waypoint. Which may be different. But I'm not 100% positive on this. In my recent mission I started at my lawn which is 800 ft ASL. But I set my waypoints at 220 ft elevation to stay above the trees.

Correct Waypoint heights are AGL, relative to Home / Takeoff position.

For example if you take off from a place that is 6000ft ASL and fly up 100ft, aircraft height is 100 ft and its altitude would be 6100 ft. Waypoint to fly to that height would be set at 100ft.

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[ShaneStudy87]

Ok thats what I was thinking because the other way is a lot of trouble and not user friendly at all. I didn't get the notice again until today about APPLICATION NOT LICENSED....I switched over to my home network and i'm guessing it connected....Went back and flew it for about 5 minutes in the front yard for the first time....Is it safe to be flying get the APPLICATION NOT LICENSED error ???? wanna try a mission

 

[floridajustin]

i got 2,800ft out with my P3S on Litchi today before loosing signal and a RTH did automatically initiate.

That's weird. I did a Litchi waypoint flight yesterday and when I lost signal, it kept going on it's intended mission until it was done.

 

[smiller]

When discussing Litch behavior it's important to note the flight mode. A Litchi waypoint mission will continue until completion even upon LOS, as long as you don't hit a low battery warning. But in normal/FPV mode Litchi will RTH upon LOS.

 

[ShaneStudy87]

When discussing Litch behavior it's important to note the flight mode. A Litchi waypoint mission will continue until completion even upon LOS, as long as you don't hit a low battery warning. But in normal/FPV mode Litchi will RTH upon LOS.

Yeah I read that in the manual...does litchi seem stronger as far as signal goes ? I wouldn't think so but have no experience with the software

 

[JohnnyB]

Waypoints are AGL. Not ASL. And I BELIEVE it's based on AGL at takeoff point. Not first waypoint. Which may be different. But I'm not 100% positive on this. In my recent mission I started at my lawn which is 800 ft ASL. But I set my waypoints at 220 ft elevation to stay above the trees.

Yes you set a waypoint AGL, but when you click on that waypoint and the waypoint window opens, it will also show ASL. Pay attention to this reading and do the math.. it could save u some $ someday. You could have your first waypoint set at 250' AGL (at your takeoff location) and open that waypoint window, and it show 800' ASL...(under the slide bar for setting altitude) Next waypoint, same on AGL, which would be level over from your first waypoint set at 250' AGL, but then you open that waypoint window and it may say 1000' ASL meaning the ground raised 200' in elevation, then your only 50' off the ground at that point. There's enough info in litchi alone to plan a safe mission, just do the math.

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[JohnnyB]

Yeah I read that in the manual...does litchi seem stronger as far as signal goes ? I wouldn't think so but have no experience with the software

Your remotes TX output and the antenna/booster you use decides signal strength. Here are the phantom remotes output power...

GL300A &B are P3 remotes and the GL300C is P4. That output plus the 5dB stock antenna, or a higher dB mod antenna = signal strength/range/penetration.

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[bsartist]

First of all, let me say that you have a great spot there. Mountains and a nice body of water! The best of both worlds.

I see the gimbal twitching that you refer to. What was your mission speed? It looked fairly fast. For a flight like that, I would set the speed at 10 - 12 MPH, and you can always speed it up in post editing if necessary. The twitching does not appear to be a problem per se, but is simply Litchi's algorithms making camera pitch adjustments based on the point of interest (house) and how far the copter is from it. You may eliminate some or most of this twitching by selecting 'Interpolate' under the POI settings for each of the waypoints you created. Copter speed is the big thing though, and you may want to slow it down a bit.

Here is the link to my above mission on the Litchi Hub. It was a very fun project between planning, executing - several times and several tweaks to get it right - and finally, editing. There are other videos on my channel as well - all with Litchi - and hopefully more soon weather / temps permitting: Mission Hub - Litchi

I checked out the mission. It looks like the interpolate buttons are not active. Does that mean you did not use interpolate? Or is that an artifact of some sort caused by sharing the mission or somesuch?

Man you got zero twitching in your video! The video of mine you saw has I think only one twitch, but other runs of the same mission has at least a half dozen and it kind of ruins it. I guess it will be interesting for me to tweak things and keep rerunning it as a way to learn. I will try dropping the speed. I will also try culling out some waypoints. Change one thing at a time though.

As a still photographer, tilted horizons in my work drive me nuts and get straightened right away. Harder to straighten in video. Although this is where shooting in 2.7k and then doing a crop/straighten in post and output to 1080p would help. Unfortunately I don't currently have the horsepower to edit 2.7k. Anyhow. I will have to find the threads that talk about the horizon problem. I really thought that is what the gimbal was supposed to handle. I guess it's not a calibration issue or you would have solved it.

 

[bsartist]

Yes you set a waypoint AGL, but when you click on that waypoint and the waypoint window opens, it will also show ASL. Pay attention to this reading and do the math.. it could save u some $ someday. You could have your first waypoint set at 250' AGL (at your takeoff location) and open that waypoint window, and it show 800' ASL...(under the slide bar for setting altitude) Next waypoint, same on AGL, which would be level over from your first waypoint set at 250' AGL, but then you open that waypoint window and it may say 1000' ASL meaning the ground raised 200' in elevation, then your only 50' off the ground at that point. There's enough info in litchi alone to plan a safe mission, just do the math.

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Can you confirm that the waypoints are relative to takeoff point and not the first waypoint? This distinction matters if you set the first waypoint at some point where the ground level is different.

 

[ftttu]

Can you confirm that the waypoints are relative to takeoff point and not the first waypoint? This distinction matters if you set the first waypoint at some point where the ground level is different.

From Litchi Help: "Waypoint Settings...Altitude: Waypoint altitude relative to the elevation of the aircraft where it took off."

 

[bsartist]

From Litchi Help: "Waypoint Settings...Altitude: Waypoint altitude relative to the elevation of the aircraft where it took off."

Wow. Mea culpa. Not sure how I missed that. Thanx.

 

[JohnnyB]

From Litchi Help: "Waypoint Settings...Altitude: Waypoint altitude relative to the elevation of the aircraft where it took off."

Thanx for the help.. fell asleep.
This is why it's important to set your first waypoint relatively close to take off location so the first waypoints altitude will be referenced correctly with your "0" powerup/takeoff altitude, and it will give you your first "ASL" reading to reference the rest of the mission off of.

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[UAVpilotMK]

I am relatively new to flying. I have had my phantom 4 for three months now. I find litchi very reliable and have had no problems.


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[JohnnyB]

I am relatively new to flying. I have had my phantom 4 for three months now. I find litchi very reliable and have had no problems.


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Welcome to the forum MK.

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[Brockrock]

I checked out the mission. It looks like the interpolate buttons are not active. Does that mean you did not use interpolate? Or is that an artifact of some sort caused by sharing the mission or somesuch?

Man you got zero twitching in your video! The video of mine you saw has I think only one twitch, but other runs of the same mission has at least a half dozen and it kind of ruins it. I guess it will be interesting for me to tweak things and keep rerunning it as a way to learn. I will try dropping the speed. I will also try culling out some waypoints. Change one thing at a time though.

As a still photographer, tilted horizons in my work drive me nuts and get straightened right away. Harder to straighten in video. Although this is where shooting in 2.7k and then doing a crop/straighten in post and output to 1080p would help. Unfortunately I don't currently have the horsepower to edit 2.7k. Anyhow. I will have to find the threads that talk about the horizon problem. I really thought that is what the gimbal was supposed to handle. I guess it's not a calibration issue or you would have solved it.

Yes. You saw that correctly. Sorry for not mentioning that before, since I recommended "Interpolate' to you... I selected 'Focus POI' at each Waypoint on this mission. I have used 'Interpolate' on some missions in the past - as well as this one, in fact - but I really saw very little difference. Part of that may be that I do relatively short and slow mission - 5 - 15 minutes - and typically have short legs between many Waypoints.

I look forward to your re-posting that property boundary mission of yours with a bit slower speed - maybe 12 MPH. I would bet that will make it smoother. Also, since you live in a mountainous area, upper level wind gusts can cause the camera to twitch slightly as the gimbal attempts to compensate, but again, setting the speed to something like 12 MPH should allow the gimbal controller to react to this in a smoother fashion.

You do learn by repeatedly tweaking your missions. That one that I posted above was the result of flying and tweaking that mission probably 5 - 8 times. That's one thing that I really like about Litchi's waypoint mode. Once you have a firm grasp on Litchi's behaviors and settings, creating and flying waypoint missions adds a new dimension of 'trial and error' (flying and tweaking) to make this hobby that much more interesting.

 

[Brockrock]

Ok thats what I was thinking because the other way is a lot of trouble and not user friendly at all. I didn't get the notice again until today about APPLICATION NOT LICENSED....I switched over to my home network and i'm guessing it connected....Went back and flew it for about 5 minutes in the front yard for the first time....Is it safe to be flying get the APPLICATION NOT LICENSED error ???? wanna try a mission

I have read your posts about how you acquired the Litchi software and some of the issues that you have had, and I am a bit confused. I think that acquiring this software any way other than downloading it from the proper source (either for iOS or Android) would not be recommended. For what Litchi offers, it is very cheap in my opinion, and I would never consider trusting my system to anything but properly downloaded and licensed software. In no way meant to be a judgement, but rather solid advice for a fellow enthusiast.

 

[bsartist]

Yes. You saw that correctly. Sorry for not mentioning that before, since I recommended "Interpolate' to you... I selected 'Focus POI' at each Waypoint on this mission. I have used 'Interpolate' on some missions in the past - as well as this one, in fact - but I really saw very little difference. Part of that may be that I do relatively short and slow mission - 5 - 15 minutes - and typically have short legs between many Waypoints.

I look forward to your re-posting that property boundary mission of yours with a bit slower speed - maybe 12 MPH. I would bet that will make it smoother. Also, since you live in a mountainous area, upper level wind gusts can cause the camera to twitch slightly as the gimbal attempts to compensate, but again, setting the speed to something like 12 MPH should allow the gimbal controller to react to this in a smoother fashion.

You do learn by repeatedly tweaking your missions. That one that I posted above was the result of flying and tweaking that mission probably 5 - 8 times. That's one thing that I really like about Litchi's waypoint mode. Once you have a firm grasp on Litchi's behaviors and settings, creating and flying waypoint missions adds a new dimension of 'trial and error' (flying and tweaking) to make this hobby that much more interesting.

I re-ran the mission at 11 miles per hour. Seems a bit better although it's not always reproducible. There were one or two noticeable gimbal movements but not the real jump like the last run. Also at the last waypoint it should have been pitched up to -1% to point an another POI a little off in the distance but it never quite pitched up that high. Don't know why. Here is the link. I caught a morning after a nice ice/snow fall