Previously LITCHI RTH warning - now a general Litchi thread

[solentlife]

When using a Phantom 3 Standard or Phantom 3 4K (not to be confused with Phantom 3 Pro), be aware that the aircraft will not return to home automatically if signal is lost while Litchi has some or all control of the aircraft, it will hover instead. The following flight modes are affected: VR with Immersive/Joystick Head Tracking active, Follow, Focus and Track. All other aircraft models and flight modes are unaffected by this issue.

I have decided to give Litchi a go and downloaded it to my Nexus 7 ...

I am concerned about this warning above ...

With Go ... if I lose signal - it auto returns to home ... so I feel reasonably safe.

But here it says that Litchi will not RTH if part or all Litchi control of AC... it will hover.

This confuses me as I thought whole point of Litchi was autonomous flight ?

Is it saying that if I am flying manually and lose signal - Litchi does not allow initiation of RTH ? That I would have to flick S2 to manually trigger it ? But how if signal is lost ?

It get into this hover - what do you do then if its out of sight and far away ?

Nigel

 

[solentlife]

What if I switch off tablet ? Would AC then be able to RTH by using S2 ?

Nigel

 

[With The Birds]

From user accounts in the threads it seems waypoint missions will continue to execute with lost signal so a last waypoint placed close to your home point should see you clear of issues.

You should exersize caution with setting slowish speeds between waypoints. If signal is lost on a slow flying leg the mission will continue at the current speed. This could provide that the AC does not have sufficient battery to make it home (or back within connection range).

By all accounts manual flying is not effected by the current DJI Firmware/SDK RTH issue. Call me over cautious but I would test to be sure by turning my RC off with the AC in a hover to ensure RTH behaves as expected. A simple safe experiment that will give you peace of mind.

 

[tevek]

Reading from the limitations for litchi,the above modes and for your phantom, it looks like you can still fly waypoint missions and lose signal and it will continue as normal. Same as my P4 and it does work. During the mission and you want to cancel, flip the switch if you have signal, and it will come back. I am thinking autonomous relates to mission flights.

 

[eljano]

Does it mean that the entire mission is stored in the bird at starting, and not controlled by RC during flying ?

 

[Lunatech]

The following flight modes are affected: VR with Immersive/Joystick Head Tracking active, Follow, Focus and Track. All other aircraft models and flight modes are unaffected by this issue.

From how it reads it will only stop and hover if you loose signal only in one of the modes listed. In all other modes it should RTH. I have Litchi but have never tested the RTH and when it does/doesn't work. I do know from personal experience that when flying a waypoint mission and you loose signal the bird just keeps on flying the mission exactly as you have put it in. Many on here are blaming Litchi for crashing their phantom but more and more are realizing the crash was their mistake. Just make sure you realize the altitude you put for the waypoints is referenced from the take off point. Here is and example. If you put in all your waypoint altitudes at 50 meters and waypoint 5 is on top of a hill 45 meters above where you took off then the Phantom will only be 5 meters above the ground. I hope that makes sense and helps.

 

[tevek]

I

Does it mean that the entire mission is stored in the bird at starting, and not controlled by RC during flying ?

It's in the bird.

 

[solentlife]

I just tested a manual flight with P-GPS ....

Auto take-off .... then sticks forward to see what happens ....

She got to just under 900m and auto RTH started. I got back to about 500m and I cancelled and tried again. Everytime she got around the 850 - 900m mark - she auto initiated auto RTH.

So that's my worry out the door ... she still RTH if out of range in manual flight.

So I tried two flights .... because a guy on YT had his Screen Recorder shut down his Nexus while flying a WPT mission ... the AC completed the mission of course but he had no screen etc.

First flight I did was without Screen Recorder and all was good except .... the MAP screen did not scroll at first .. the AC icon went off screen so I scrolled it by hand ... then it seemed to follow ok. Google maps of course !

Second flight I started my DU screen recorder all appeared to be fine ... BUT I had the DJI camera switching on and off intermittently during flight ... so maybe there is some conflict there ? I have videos to upload so will process and link.

Overall ? Until I test on other functions - I have to get to a better place to do it away from all the trees etc. - I am reasonably happy with it ... at least video seemed to be without obvious lag ...

Nigel

 

[Storm]

If your just flying around it will RTH if you have set to RTH. It's only the follow, focus or track modes that will just stop and hover. It's the same with the go app with follow me mode.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[solentlife]

That's what I am coming to realise ....

I hope that my questions also help others who are similarly looking to change to Litchi after the awful mess DJI have created with their Go app on Android.

Nigel

 

[eljano]

Nigel, is DU Screen Recorder better than AZ Screen Recorder ?

 

[solentlife]

Certainly better than Mobizen !!

As to AZ .... I don't know .... sorry.

I just had a 1950m flight and lost my Screen recording because screen was cold and I couldn't swipe !! And then tablet rebooted with all the messing around !! But yes - I like it. But then I would say that !!

Nigel

 

[mikep2323]

Just wanted to throw my experience out there for you. I have a lot of flight time with lithium and I rarely have any problems with rth but there was one time that it didn't work like it was supposed to and man I had a lump in my throat. So I had just updated stuff and I usually will just fly out straight and do a distance test at my job. I was out over 7000 feet and lost signal and usually rth will kick in and I don't worry but this time it didn't. My screen froze and usually I don't lose the video feed and I'll see the camera on the Phantom turn and start coming back to me. This time I got nothing so I didn't know what to do. I was so far out and it was over trees and there would have been no way for me to find it. So what I did was just pulled back on stick and prayed that it would come back. I did this for awhile and still nothing but a frozen screen. I was about to jump in my car and try to drive closer to see if it would connect again and just when I was about to get in car it connected again and I brought it back and landed. Wow was I relieved. I pop out the video and when I lost signal and froze I still had complete control over it but being out so far I didn't know I did. After watching video I saw that it never turned around to come back home and the only reason it did was because I pulled back on stick. If I never pulled back on stick it would have probably just stayed where it was till battery got low and landed. Besides that time I've flown well over 100x with litchi and really never had a problem with it rth. If I don't have a fully charged battery it will keep trying to land also so just make sure your fully charged up before flying.
My whole point was to share my experience and to let you know what to do if that situation presents it's self. I've actually had the go app do that once also where It says no signal but I still had full control. That time I was in Los and saw I was controlling it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T807A using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[eljano]

Hi Mike, was it with DJIgo or Litchi ?

 

[solentlife]

Here's strange flight recording .. where for some reason DJI camera keeps stopping ...

Nigel

 

[solentlife]

Mike ... I had similar other day with Go ... but rebooted Tablet and regained control.

The other thing of course is S2 switch !! Use the RC to command RTH.

Nigel

 

[solentlife]

Litchi flight log shows 5956 ft on last manual flight range test .... and then auto RTH ....

That'll do.

Nigel

 

[solentlife]

I have now decided to update to 1.8.10 FW as I had reasonable success with it before and it was only Go 3.1.2 that gave me trouble.

Will report back about its performance with Litchi.

Nigel

 

[kavy]

I have now decided to update to 1.8.10 FW as I had reasonable success with it before and it was only Go 3.1.2 that gave me trouble.

Will report back about its performance with Litchi.

Nigel

I found I had less issues on 1.8.10 with Litchi. Only thing i noticed was with the increased warm up on the new firmware I would jump the gun with starting the litchi app and get the not connected screen. So I would have to start the process from the start to make it connect.

 

[mikep2323]

Hi Mike, was it with DJIgo or Litchi ?

That was with both, it happened 1x with each app. It was just weird that it happened. I have 175 flights and that was about the only problems I've ever had. I had a few others but it was a bad connection on my remote and after I took it apart and really did all connections everything was fine.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T807A using PhantomPilots mobile app