When flying a Litchi Mission in P4P+ and you lose signal...

[Skyler King III]

When flying a Litchi Mission in P4P+ and you lose signal, and you have sufficient battery and you have enable return to home on loss of signal, when flying the Litchi Mission and you lose signal, will it continue mission or will it stop and RTH ?

 

[smiller]

A Litchi waypoint mission will continue to completion, even upon loss of signal. You will lose any interpolated gimbal movements (if you are using those), but if using POI-only the mission will complete normally. The drone will contine to its final waypoint in any event.

Waypoint missions are almost completely autonomous (movement data is uploaded to the aircraft just before the mission begins), in fact I once had Litchi freeze and my tablet crash to the point of rebooting during a Litchi waypoint mission, but the P4P went on its merry way and completed the mission without interruption. By the time it got back I had the app up and running again and landed normally, but those were a few anxious moments!

 

[royster]

Members with much more knowledge than I will pipe in here, but, as far as i know, on loosing signal Litchi will complete the mission, if you hit return to home mid-mission, I'd assume the bird would do as told & return to home, no?

 

[smiller]

if you hit return to home mid-mission, I'd assume the bird would do as told & return to home, no?

Yes, assuming you have RTH set to 'Return to Home' and not 'Hover' in the Litchi app. This is definitely something to check before flight (aircraft must be connected to change or check this setting.)

 

[Skyler King III]

A Litchi waypoint mission will continue to completion, even upon loss of signal. You will lose any interpolated gimbal movements (if you are using those), but if using POI-only the mission will complete normally. The drone will contine to its final waypoint in any event.

Waypoint missions are almost completely autonomous (movement data is uploaded to the aircraft just before the mission begins), in fact I once had Litchi freeze and my tablet crash to the point of rebooting during a Litchi waypoint mission, but the P4P went on its merry way and completed the mission without interruption. By the time it got back I had the app up and running again and landed normally, but those were a few anxious moments!

And while on the mission, which calculates to about 10 minutes, if you get to initial (30%) battery warning, will I know it if signal is lost and will RTH/Auto-landing work if the batter gets "low" and it's on a mission?

 

[Skyler King III]

Yes, assuming you have RTH set to 'Return to home' and not 'Hover' in the Litchi app. This is definiteky something to check before flight (aircraft must be connected to change or check this setting.)

Correct, I have set it to RTH, not hover

 

[tevek]

Members with much more knowledge than I will pipe in here, but, as far as i know, on loosing signal Litchi will complete the mission, if you hit return to home mid-mission, I'd assume the bird would do as told & return to home, no?

My experience is that you can cancel the mission at any time (as long as you have a connection) and RTH as per normal. I haven't tried hitting the RTH during a mission though. Might give that a try.

 

[smiller]

And while on the mission, which calculates to about 10 minutes, if you get to initial (30%) battery warning, will I know it if signal is lost and will RTH/Auto-landing work if the batter gets "low" and it's on a mission?

The app displays signal strength so you will know if signal is lost. If signal is lost then you won't know anything else because, well, you don't have any signal. But RTH should be initiated at LOS (unless you are on a waypoint mission which will attempt to complete, as above.)

In any event the unit will RTH at 30% battery and auto-land at 10% (those are the defaults but can be changed.) To change these values you need to press on the battery icon on the display, they're not in the general settings (one of many strange ways of Litchi.)

 

[Skyler King III]

My experience is that you can cancel the mission at any time (as long as you have a connection) and RTH as per normal. I haven't tried hitting the RTH during a mission though. Might give that a try.

Am I correct in saying that if lose signal, the RTH BUTTON would not be effective?

 

[qtonic]

Does the Litchi app not need to be installed on the P4P+ in order to fly missions? I thought apps could not be side-loaded.

 

[Skyler King III]

The app displays signal strength so you will know if signal is lost. If signal is lost then you won't know anything else because, well, you don't have any signal. But RTH should be initiated at LOS (unless you are on a waypoint mission which will attempt to complete, as above.)

In any event the unit will RTH at 30% battery and auto-land at 10% (those are the defaults but can be changed.) To change these values you need to press on the battery icon on the display, they're not in the general settings (one of many strange ways of Litchi.)

Thanks for that tip on battery icon. Only seems to work if connected so it might be aircraft specific

 

[Skyler King III]

Does the Litchi app not need to be installed on the P4P+ in order to fly missions? I thought apps could not be side-loaded.

I was wondering about that also, I have a P4 and P4Pro+. How do I get Litchi onto the P4P+ ?

 

[tevek]

To to be honest I have never thought of that. I often lose signal on one particular mission that I fly but can still follow it on the map and not worry about it. Using the dji go app is a different story with a connection loss. Good question.

 

[smiller]

Am I correct in saying that if lose signal, the RTH BUTTON would not be effective?

If you lose signal (lose the connection to the aircraft) then you can issue no commands and receive no feedback (or one or both may be unreliable if signal is marginal.) But if RTH is set correctly the aircraft will RTH upon loss of signal and you will probably regain the link on the way back, and can then cancel RTH if desired.

 

[smiller]

I was wondering about that also, I have a P4 and P4Pro+. How do I get Litchi onto the P4P+ ?

You don't. You cannot install 3rd party apps on a P4P+.

 

[normr]

On a mission when you lose signal, it will RTH as set


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[smiller]

On a mission when you lose signal, it will RTH as set

No, that's incorrect. On a Litchi waypoint mission the aircraft will complete the mission even if signal is lost. The only thing that would cause RTH during a waypoint mission is low battery, or if you cancelled the mission and manually commanded RTH (and of course you won't be doing the latter if signal is lost.)

The ability to continue a mission even after LOS is a powerful but potentially dangerous feature so the operator should fully understand all the potential issues.

 

[smokinsound]

You don't. You cannot install 3rd party apps on a P4P+.

This ^^ ... The thread was confusing the crap out of me, because of all the people offering advice, when you can't even install litchi, or ANY apps on the P4P+ controller, at this time.

 

[normr]

No, that's incorrect. On a Litchi waypoint mission the aircraft will complete the mission even if signal is lost. The only thing that would cause RTH during a waypoint mission is low battery, or if you cancelled the mission and manually commanded RTH (and of course you won't be doing the latter if signal is lost.)

The ability to continue a mission even after LOS is a powerful but potentially dangerous feature so the operator should fully understand all the potential issues.

I stand corrected, I shouldn't have posted that. Please delete my post


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[ftttu]

I'm pretty sure it is the same for P4 and P4P, but in my experience with Litchi, I will get a mission abort with auto RTH on long missions due to low battery when the bird, itself, detects it may not be able to make it back at a certain battery level.

Sometimes, the bird can make it the entire mission, but other times it can't. A headwind, and aging battery or a mission bordering on the battery's charge will give me that auto RTH.