Hey guys,
I was fortunate to have recieved my Mavic Pro about a week ago & have flown it atleast ten times now. Not my first drone and have plenty of videos on my @geefilmworkz instagram page to back up my experience.
After receiving my Mavic, Updating firmware, & calibrating everything, i flew it inside of my home and it was as stable as if it were sitting on a tripod. all systems go! I then took it outside for a quick fly around and was pleased at the performance. I then decided there was a location i had heard about and took it there to shoot. Upon take off at the location, the controller immediately deadsticked (neither controller stick was working) and hovered in place. I hit the RTF function and it complied. I then removed the battery, repowered everything off and on. Upon the 2nd lift off, I had control of the Mavic and began flying away from my lift off spot when i noticed it would not ascend and actually started trying to descend. (over water) I immediately fought the descent by trying to ascend and it stayed at it's current level and i directed it back toward land. it was too low to land anywhere safely so i then hit the RTF function and it began to rise but under some trees. I was able to direct it away from harm, but still with minimum control. At this time my Mavic is flying above me, i'm using the controller to bring it down, but it's responding extremely slow and then all of a sudden begins spinning around in place while descending. It gets to a level where i can grab it with my right hand so i do so. At this time, the Mavic begans to idle and try and pull away from my grip. i then set the controller down and reach over the top to take the battery off to stop it and am sliced by the blade. (OUCH!!!) I wait a few seconds, suck the dripping blood off my finger and reach over and remove the battery. i then leave the location. wait to get home & bandaged up, before i test it again at home. takes off and flies as if nothing ever happened.
the next morning, i take it out to a country club and fly it over the greens and got amazingly beautiful footage. Stable as can be, flew for the full time of about 26 minutes or so.
determined to see if there was a location issue, i return back to the waterfall area i wanted to shoot previously and sure enough. I lifted off & immediately had no control of the drone. fortunately it hovered right over the landing and i was prepared to video this time. It hovered there for the full length of the battery charge & then i placed my small camera bag underneath it to land on when the battery died. later that night i flew it in a beautiful area in the city i live in. the prompts on the controller alerted me of what the concerns for flying in that area were and if i had permission to shoot there, to which i had to answer in the affirmative before i could fly there. Neither of those or any warnings were apparent at the other location.
i will post a couple of the clips from that deadstick issue on my Youtube page-Geefilmworkz (ps, with the back order the way it is, i've delayed sending back to DJI or creating an RMA as of yet. But i am and will soon)
Someone on another thread hypothesized VPS issues. I wonder if VPS is confused by the deck pattern below it. You might want to try going back there and disable VPS and see if the problem re-occurs. Also, I would encourage you to open a case with DJI and upload your logs. All of us waiting for our Mavics would sure appreciate it!
Right then don't fly near water falls ,metal gates,motor bikes,buildings, in fact nothing made of metal or any water. That mavic just doesn't like that area at all I would try flying somewhere else and try the waterfall again and see if it does it again.and if it does then you know what the problem is.
The battery doesn't die and then the Mavic drops. The battery, smart battery, slowly loses it's charge and the Mavic will come down slowly as the motors slow down from lack of power. This is what will happen if it knows it won't make it to home. It'll calculate how much juice it needs from the height it is at. When it gets to that point it will land instead of continuing to go home.
This is just getting ridiculous. He is outside in (presumably) a park, away from interference sources, with full GPS lock and still cannot control the drone?
As others said, it would be very interesting to see if he encounters the same issue at that spot with VPS turned off.
Seriously, has anyone lost control when it was 300, 400, 500, feet or higher? Just wondering how it does when it's up there. Most of the problems I have seen seem to be close to the ground, around 50 feet or less.
It was stuck in return to home. Hit pause button to disable and land manually. Clearly, we did not read the manual becore flying. The sticks are SUPPOSED to be dead on return to home. Smells like operator error. Would have been nice to see what the obstacle avoidance was seeing, if only they had hit the pause key.
exactly, i'm sorry if i misconstrued that fact. it slowly landed on my manfrotto camera bag as i didn't know what it'd do. didn't want to mess up the gimbal or anything else for that matter. It landed safely exactly where it took off from.
i've flown it every where and at all heights, the only time i incurred loss of control of the Mavic was at that location. I will keep trying different locations, but i'm over flying it there. What i may do is take my Chroma Drone over and see if it has any complications. keep you posted
dana5 Posted at 2016-11-7 21:50
It was stuck in return to home. Hit pause button to disable and land manually. Clearly, we did not r ...
haven't gotten your Mavic yet? I cycled it in and out of RTF & there was no control. the drone was completely non responsive to any commands from the controller, including Pause. lol remember I put it in RTF because of Deadstick, not the other way around. at the point of take off it was non responsive. for the sake of the shot i wanted to take at the waterfall, i wish it was operator error so i could go back and shoot it. but per my statements earlier, this was my 2nd trip to that location after flying it other working areas.
I read another thread and apparently the fix is doing the stick cal REALLY SLOW like move it so % increase one by one slowly .. apparently that fixed the issue for that guy ..
Would you please export the flight data when it happened through the Assistant 2? You could upload it to dropbox and provide us the link. Our engineer will analyze your data.Also please sync your flight records on the DJI GO APP, please provide us your account username and the time it happened.
fans11982671 Posted at 2016-11-7 21:10
haven't gotten your Mavic yet? I cycled it in and out of RTF & there was no control. the drone was ...
Sorry. All I heard in the video was the beep, beep, beep of the return to home being on, and never saw the pilot press the pause. Just wondering if it was tried or not. I think the mav was confused by the confined space of being surrounded by pilot, trash can and fence. To the mav's credit, the hover position was rock solid. It was too scared to move.
ENG101 Posted at 2016-11-8 05:28
Does the "LANDING" on the RC means it is in RTH mode?
Yes, LANDING means it was in RTH Mode, hence the beep, beep, beep during the entire video. In RTH, the sticks do not function, so the behavior seems completely normal. If this happens to anyone else, please press the pause button (red button, down and right of the left stick) to disable RTF, as the manual states, and then land, with a down left stick, or preferrably, the landing features, where you slide to confirm.
If you are game to do some experimenting, it would be interesting to rule out a couple things. If so, I would use a battery without a lot of power (maybe 25-30%) and see if it will repeat and then do the following:
1. Slide a piece of cardboard (or some other surface) under the Mavic to change the surface "texture" and see if that impacts the downward sensors. Maybe it doesn't like what it "sees" after takeoff.
2. Did YOU move out of the area to see if there was something interfering with the controller that you could get away from? It seemed like you were on the deck with the Mavic the whole time, but it may not have shown up in the video if you moved to other locations. I'm just wondered if anything would change if you walked away from it 10 feet or 50 feet.
3. Did you try using just the controls on the phone to command it. I don't have mine yet, but I believe you can initiate an RTH from the controller AND the phone. I seem to recall some people saying the controller was dead, but the phone allowed them to land.
If you are not willing to "experiment" with your $1k drone, I completely understand. I'm not encouraging it, just asking if you are willing to try a couple things if you plan to fly it more anyway. I'm a technician by trade, so troubleshooting a repeatable flaw is something I jump at... but I may be hesitant in this case as well. Again, I would definitely have a depleted battery in case it just locks in place again or decides to take-off.
Entirely up to you, please let us know if you do any more testing.
dana5 Posted at 2016-11-8 13:52
Yes, LANDING means it was in RTH Mode, hence the beep, beep, beep during the entire video. In RTH, ...
Are you blind? The drone stop responding to everything (including RTH), he then pressed the RTH/PAUSE button, and despite the fact that it was in RTH mode, it didn't landed and the RTH couldn't be canceled.
It happened the same to me... but mine tried to land (in the grass), I couldn't cancel it and the drone didn't responded to anything (neither the PAUSE button), I regained the control only after it tuched the grass/terrain.
dana5 Posted at 2016-11-8 13:48
Sorry. All I heard in the video was the beep, beep, beep of the return to home being on, and never ...
What are you talking about? He presses the button at 00:28.
Are you people watching the video.. or you are like commenting randomly while eating a donuts?
I was in the mountains this past weekend and I lost all stick control at 390 feet altitude and about 450 feet out from home point. Moving the sticks did absolutely nothing.
I could initiate RTH which I did. I thought as it got closer I would regain stick control but no luck.
I stopped RTH and then turned off the controller which re-initiated RTH. I restarted the controller and just before it crashed into our cabin's roof I regained control and was able to safely land it.
I uploaded my logs to HealthyDrones and synced my flight records on the DJI GO APP. I have tried to pull the flight logs off using DJI Assistant 2 on a Mac, but DJI Assistant will not work. It sees the controller and the Mavic and what firmware level they are on, but pullings flight logs off failes everytime and so does firmware refresh. I am on the latest firmware.
giusis00 Posted at 2016-11-8 09:22
Are you blind? The drone stop responding to everything (including RTH), he then pressed the RTH/PA ...
Yes, I see him press the RTH, but not the pause. If in RTH, it's not going to do anything. I never saw him exit RTH and try to land using the landing feature. I still think the Mav was confused by all the surrounding obstructions.