Need help to understand what happened

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Hi everyone,
I'm still shaking about what just happened. It is 9:50, pitch black and i am trying to take video of a city about 2000ft away from my house. I turned off my lights to improve the picture quality. Suddenly while doing a waypoint timelapse, litchi says "disconnected". I pressed RTH and it did, and I had to jump into the water around my dock because the home point was set a few feet to the side. The P4 is fine and after i restarted the transmitter my phone just went black. No shutting down, or anything. It is a galaxy s6 by the way running android marshmallow. It reconnected after I started it up with no issues. So WHAT HAPPENED??
 
Sounds like your RC became disconnected from the AC. But that would be no reason to RTH since the AC would continue with its mission even without a signal.
 
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I think the only thing you can do is write it off as a "hiccup". Your fail safe measures all worked like they should. I wouldn't worry about it happening again. If it does, then Houston, we have a problem.
 
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Prob gonna have to load your flight on here to let someone check it out. How high were you at 2,000ft out? How many feet did the RTH miss by? It can be off a little bit but should not be more than just a few feet I think. Glad you saved it man!
 
no errors or anything just suddenly disconnected like what if I'm out 2 miles away and rth won't get back in time it's a big problem
 
This is my opinion and I stand by it.
........................................................
So, you spent $1300+ for the drone and more $$$ for extra battery, a case maybe, ND filters but you still use a PHONE as your display...a DROID that is full of apps, bloatware, pictures, etc.
Go get an iPad Air 2 and ONLY use it for drone, nothing else. I know, heard this before "I have no money to buy it, I hate Apple, I never had any problem before...". Is your drone and your choice but don't want you be posting next I LOST MY DRONE.
One of my flying buddies (has a P4 and a Droid tablet) had the same problem a few days ago, the tablet went dead/dark and he panicked. Since we never fly 2 people in the same time, I told him to STOP and don't touch any thing (drone was at over 1 mile away), he looked at me like crazy...I took my Air 2 pad and put it on the RC mount, connected to USB port and in 2 second the connection/image was back. Outside was about 108F and his tablet overheated like many do.
It takes a lot of chip processing power = heat to process and display the camera image and not all tablets can handle it. I know, more $$$ in the hobby, but the pad can be used for something else when you done with the drone.
 
This is my opinion and I stand by it.
........................................................
So, you spent $1300+ for the drone and more $$$ for extra battery, a case maybe, ND filters but you still use a PHONE as your display...a DROID that is full of apps, bloatware, pictures, etc.
Go get an iPad Air 2 and ONLY use it for drone, nothing else. I know, heard this before "I have no money to buy it, I hate Apple, I never had any problem before...". Is your drone and your choice but don't want you be posting next I LOST MY DRONE.
One of my flying buddies (has a P4 and a Droid tablet) had the same problem a few days ago, the tablet went dead/dark and he panicked. Since we never fly 2 people in the same time, I told him to STOP and don't touch any thing (drone was at over 1 mile away), he looked at me like crazy...I took my Air 2 pad and put it on the RC mount, connected to USB port and in 2 second the connection/image was back. Outside was about 108F and his tablet overheated like many do.
It takes a lot of chip processing power = heat to process and display the camera image and not all tablets can handle it. I know, more $$$ in the hobby, but the pad can be used for something else when you done with the drone.
Wow! I am glad to hear you say this Dacon! Thats exactly what I did from the very start is buy a dedicated Air 2 for my P4 back in March! It has been flawless!
 
iPads crash & overheat too. The bird would have completed it's mission as programmed. The device should have been rebooted while the mission completed. The RC was still connected so, had the pilot not panicked, even without the display he could have taken control once it was back from the mission.

This is my opinion and I stand by it.
........................................................
So, you spent $1300+ for the drone and more $$$ for extra battery, a case maybe, ND filters but you still use a PHONE as your display...a DROID that is full of apps, bloatware, pictures, etc.
Go get an iPad Air 2 and ONLY use it for drone, nothing else. I know, heard this before "I have no money to buy it, I hate Apple, I never had any problem before...". Is your drone and your choice but don't want you be posting next I LOST MY DRONE.
One of my flying buddies (has a P4 and a Droid tablet) had the same problem a few days ago, the tablet went dead/dark and he panicked. Since we never fly 2 people in the same time, I told him to STOP and don't touch any thing (drone was at over 1 mile away), he looked at me like crazy...I took my Air 2 pad and put it on the RC mount, connected to USB port and in 2 second the connection/image was back. Outside was about 108F and his tablet overheated like many do.
It takes a lot of chip processing power = heat to process and display the camera image and not all tablets can handle it. I know, more $$$ in the hobby, but the pad can be used for something else when you done with the drone.
 
This is my opinion and I stand by it.
........................................................
So, you spent $1300+ for the drone and more $$$ for extra battery, a case maybe, ND filters but you still use a PHONE as your display...a DROID that is full of apps, bloatware, pictures, etc.
Go get an iPad Air 2 and ONLY use it for drone, nothing else. I know, heard this before "I have no money to buy it, I hate Apple, I never had any problem before...". Is your drone and your choice but don't want you be posting next I LOST MY DRONE.
One of my flying buddies (has a P4 and a Droid tablet) had the same problem a few days ago, the tablet went dead/dark and he panicked. Since we never fly 2 people in the same time, I told him to STOP and don't touch any thing (drone was at over 1 mile away), he looked at me like crazy...I took my Air 2 pad and put it on the RC mount, connected to USB port and in 2 second the connection/image was back. Outside was about 108F and his tablet overheated like many do.
It takes a lot of chip processing power = heat to process and display the camera image and not all tablets can handle it. I know, more $$$ in the hobby, but the pad can be used for something else when you done with the drone.

Someone on DJI forums was complaining about his ipad over heating and loosing video. ;)
 
All tablets "can" over heat but the older the tablet the more "stressed" it becomes trying to process the amount of data you're pushing through it. The better the processor the better your chances are.

I fully support the "use the tablet for this purpose and only this purpose" concept. That's exactly how we run our equipment and it's worked flawlessly for literally several hundred flights.

What's important to take away from this is knowing WHAT to do in a bad situation and how to fly the aircraft w/o the training wheels (tablet) on. Also it's important to always note the home point is not exact and with hobby grade GPS it could be off several feet one way or another.
 
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iPads crash & overheat too. The bird would have completed it's mission as programmed. The device should have been rebooted while the mission completed. The RC was still connected so, had the pilot not panicked, even without the display he could have taken control once it was back from the mission.

If the app crashes are you saying the RC still can control the aircraft? If so, that's really good to know. Flying or landing without the tablet,,, interesting.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
Yes you can fly a Phantom without a display device. You just won't have FPV & telemetry available & have to fly visually. You can still activate RTH via the remote & let the aircraft return home & land itself if need be.

If the app crashes are you saying the RC still can control the aircraft? If so, that's really good to know. Flying or landing without the tablet,,, interesting.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
I'm curious, when it disconnected why didn't you just leave it alone and let it complete the mission? Am I missing something here? As soon at it arrived at the end of the mission land it. Unless the end of the mission is to far away from you to send the UAV.
 
Some people talk rubbish. Apple this and Apple that.
I have been using my Galaxy S5 for over a year without a single problem. Plenty of people have had trouble with Apple and yet they still go on and on about Android being rubbish.
Obviously an expensive quality tablet is the best thing to have but not essential.
One thing I always do with my phone is to put it into aircraft mode so I don't get disturbed.
Oh and I turned auto updates off.
BTW you could have turned on RTH and cancelled again from the transmitter.
 
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If the app crashes are you saying the RC still can control the aircraft?
Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

Yes... Try it. In fact, you should practice flying without the tablet. You should practice all the emergency situations prior to them happening so when they do happen you can bring your bird back.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
Yes... Try it. In fact, you should practice flying without the tablet. You should practice all the emergency situations prior to them happening so when they do happen you can bring your bird back.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

I can control it with the rc and I am fine flying without my phone because I have been flying phantoms since the end of 2013,so I have gotten plenty of practice
 
If the app crashes are you saying the RC still can control the aircraft? If so, that's really good to know. Flying or landing without the tablet,,, interesting.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app


With all due respect you need to get familiar with the aircraft fluently w/o the tablet aiding you. Keep it close and learn to manually "fly the aircraft" so that when something happens you're not totally out of the loop on what to do next.
 
I used my samsung s4 when i first had P4 and it worked fine then when i had enough dosh i got the ioad mini 2 cellular which also works fine. The mini does overheat but if i slide it across the mount so the warm spot isnt in the cusion part of the mount it is fine. Obviously can't do this with the sunshade on.
 

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