Loss of video feed and RC signal

[Fantasmagorico]

Yesterday I was testing the FPV CAMERA app's Mission Control and set a trajectory that took my P3P beyond tall buildings where I lost both the video feed and RC signal. I waited to see if it would complete the mission as advertised . . . and waited . . . and waited until I feared that the battery would run out. The failsafe altitude was set to 300 feet because of buildings around the HP, and I couldn't see it anywhere around me. I decided to press the RTH button on the controller, which started beeping, but after several minutes still the bird was nowhere to be seen. In desperation, I switched to the DJI GO app and . . . lo and behold, I regained video signal and saw that it was approaching the HP spot from the failsafe altitude. I have (1) a concern and (2) a question. Why would the bird not complete the mission? How can the bird have received the order to return if the RC signal had been lost? I know it obeyed RTH and did not complete the mission because of the direction from which it appeared. Also, I find it interesting that I could run the two apps simultaneously, despite FPV CAMERA's instruction not to do so.

 

[skyeboysteve]

When using apps like FPV camera where the mission is uploaded before the mission starts, the P3 doesn't rely on your radio signal, and will continue its mission regardless. If it gets "stuck" like yours seemed to, then in theory it will start returning home once the battery gets low enough.

However, I too lost my P3P last week while using FPV camera. It stopped flying after its first waypoint (was supposed to shoot a 26 shot panorama, but stopped yawing after the second shot). I switched out to P-GPS mode and flew it back towards me. Then decided to restart the mission again. The upload failed, so I decided to just bring the P3 home. I switched to ATTI mode and let it drift back to me in the wind while I descended. As it got closer I started getting low reception warnings. I noticed my altitude was 160 feet (at least 80 feet higher than highest obstacle in a mile radius), and from the video I could tell approximately where I was even though my icon had drifted off the map. I knew I was slightly downwind of home point, and reached up to pan the map so the P3s icon would come back into view--at which point I lost connection completely. I had stopped commanding a descent at 160 feet.

When I found the drone it was less than 400 feet from home point in someone's backyard with a tree about 60 feet tall. According to the onboard .dat file, it had gone into RTH mode soon after I had switched out if F-mode the second time into ATTI mode. I never saw any indication of this nor did the RC beep. The flight path shows that it flew over home point hovered them drifted downwind descending to 160 feet. Hovered again then travelled INTO the wind while descending down to 40 feet in about 20 seconds. The last video feed I saw was when it was at 160 feet while still drifting with the wind.

The .dat file shows I commanded throttle down right through 20 feet, and FPV Camera log shows I had good reception right down to impact, so I'm very confused as to what happened. I don't mean to hijack your thread Fantasmagorico, but I'm wondering if FPV camera had something to do with it--like lagging the signal so badly that I was reacting to information 30 seconds old. In any case I should have had a visual on my drone instead of my head buried in the app trying to figure out what was going on. The uncommanded RTH with no alert bothers me too. As I told DJI, I may need a brain scan; but am still waiting to see what their prognosis is--assuming they'll tell me once they analyze the dat files themselves.


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[telliott67]

I'm having the problem when I turn on my video camera the screen turns gray and it says signal loss


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[Fantasmagorico]

When using apps like FPV camera where the mission is uploaded before the mission starts, the P3 doesn't rely on your radio signal, and will continue its mission regardless. If it gets "stuck" like yours seemed to, then in theory it will start returning home once the battery gets low enough.

However, I too lost my P3P last week while using FPV camera. It stopped flying after its first waypoint (was supposed to shoot a 26 shot panorama, but stopped yawing after the second shot). I switched out to P-GPS mode and flew it back towards me. Then decided to restart the mission again. The upload failed, so I decided to just bring the P3 home. I switched to ATTI mode and let it drift back to me in the wind while I descended. As it got closer I started getting low reception warnings. I noticed my altitude was 160 feet (at least 80 feet higher than highest obstacle in a mile radius), and from the video I could tell approximately where I was even though my icon had drifted off the map. I knew I was slightly downwind of home point, and reached up to pan the map so the P3s icon would come back into view--at which point I lost connection completely. I had stopped commanding a descent at 160 feet.

When I found the drone it was less than 400 feet from home point in someone's backyard with a tree about 60 feet tall. According to the onboard .dat file, it had gone into RTH mode soon after I had switched out if F-mode the second time into ATTI mode. I never saw any indication of this nor did the RC beep. The flight path shows that it flew over home point hovered them drifted downwind descending to 160 feet. Hovered again then travelled INTO the wind while descending down to 40 feet in about 20 seconds. The last video feed I saw was when it was at 160 feet while still drifting with the wind.

The .dat file shows I commanded throttle down right through 20 feet, and FPV Camera log shows I had good reception right down to impact, so I'm very confused as to what happened. I don't mean to hijack your thread Fantasmagorico, but I'm wondering if FPV camera had something to do with it--like lagging the signal so badly that I was reacting to information 30 seconds old. In any case I should have had a visual on my drone instead of my head buried in the app trying to figure out what was going on. The uncommanded RTH with no alert bothers me too. As I told DJI, I may need a brain scan; but am still waiting to see what their prognosis is--assuming they'll tell me once they analyze the dat files themselves.

Sorry about your loss. You may want to share your experience and flight data with Tony Yu, the moderator of the FPV Camera Users Facebook page. He may have an explanation. Good luck.

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[skyeboysteve]

FWIW, I've discovered why one's RC won't beep when in RTH mode. If you changed modes (like from F to ATTI or P-GPS), the beeping will stop. In my case, (once again a series of unfortunate coincidences); I must have changed modes (from F-mode to ATTI) at about the same time my P3 decided to go into RTH mode due to reception loss--loss which I think may have had more to do with strong wifi interference in the area.