Does anyone have experience setting up a long range litchi waypoint mission on a P3Std?
I have a separate tract of land 2.4mi across a wooded area where we are building a house, and would like to fly it over, take a few pics and fly back.
Thinking that a flight height of 175ft is sufficient for the duration with no obstructions from point A to B.
Thoughts?

Should work if you dont hang around too long at the destination. Try this link: https://flylitchi.com/hub  , if you haven't already done it. Easy to preplan mission and gives estimated flight times, altitudes etc, Beware of strong winds on way back.  Flight time should be around 14 minutes. I wouldn't push it much past that time.

Make sure you have smart battery on in the dji app. I have flown many long distance missions without an issue. I have however had the smart battery function return the aircraft even on a 14 minute flight. It calculates distance, wind & air speed. When the aircraft reaches a point where it must start returning or will lose battery power short of completed mission, It automatically sends home.

Are we sure the smart RTH will work in a waypoint mission??

stuka75 Posted at 2018-2-18 15:19
Should work if you dont hang around too long at the destination. Try this link: https://flylitchi.com/hub  , if you haven't already done it. Easy to preplan mission and gives estimated flight times, altitudes etc, Beware of strong winds on way back.  Flight time should be around 14 minutes. I wouldn't push it much past that time.

I did map it out on the hub and it shows a 12 minute round trip flight time. You mentioned that the hub shows, estimated flight times and altitudes? Haven't seen the altitudes piece of the hub info. Is there something I'm missing? Or is there something I need to enable on the site?

Thanks for the insight.

KSims01 Posted at 2018-2-19 18:53
I did map it out on the hub and it shows a 12 minute round trip flight time. You mentioned that the hub shows, estimated flight times and altitudes? Haven't seen the altitudes piece of the hub info. Is there something I'm missing? Or is there something I need to enable on the site?

Thanks for the insight.

You need to create an account and log in. No ads, costs etc. Once logged in, everytime you drop a waypoint a page comes up where you choose actions for that waypoint. Such as height direction camera action. Keep in mind this does not take into account winds speed and direction

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-2-19 23:34
Smart-RTH works during s waypoint mission.  It will abort the mission & engage RTH.  It errors on the conservative side & will often engage during linger missions even when unnecessary.

thanks. I did not know that. And I forgot about being able to turn off smart RTH.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-2-19 23:43
With a good condition & fully charged battery your P3 Standard can reliably complete missions of 40,000' duration flying @ 30 mph in moderate winds.   You will need to disable Smart-RTH  to complete missions of this length.  The flight below was flown by a P3S & was 40,813' in total mission length.

https://youtu.be/K-Ct5V2YK1M

40000 what? miles, seconds? forgive ignorance

ArgenBrewer Posted at 2018-2-20 09:16
40000 what? miles, seconds? forgive ignorance

feet

the '

indicates feet

hope that helps

40,000 feet, which is about 7.5 miles. I've also got some flights out past the 5 mile mark myself.

Another consideration is how long do you want the drone out of communication with the controller. The lower you fly, the quicker they lose communication with each other. When they lose communication, the drone will still run it's programmed course, you just have that few minutes of crossing your fingers that it will finish and come back.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-2-19 23:43
With a good condition & fully charged battery your P3 Standard can reliably complete missions of 40,000' duration flying @ 30 mph in moderate winds.   You will need to disable Smart-RTH  to complete missions of this length.  The flight below was flown by a P3S & was 40,813' in total mission length.

https://youtu.be/K-Ct5V2YK1M

Great video.

What was your flight speed there?

Thanks for sharing.

Les Deplorables!!!!!

Gotta love it!!!!

DJT

Knobbynomates Posted at 2018-2-20 09:27
feet

the '

Thank you, i`m from the other side of the world and using another metric system, hence the confusion.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-2-20 11:15
Thanks!  The mission ran at 30 mph which is the speed I run all my long range missions.  30 mph seems to be the best in terms of battery efficiency.

One more question, when you disabled the RTH feature within DJI - Go app, did you then open up your apps and 'kill' dji prior to running your mission, as Litchi recommends? Or did you leave it up in the background?
Thanks

KSims01 Posted at 2018-3-5 13:47
One more question, when you disabled the RTH feature within DJI - Go app, did you then open up your apps and 'kill' dji prior to running your mission, as Litchi recommends? Or did you leave it up in the background?
Thanks

I am not answering for DirtyBird, but I also use Litchi for long range missions, and I turn off the RTH too. I know how far I can go, and this avoids an aborted mission just because DJI GO app thinks it is time to come home (actually it is set in the firmware  in the Phantom, by the GO app). But I always have a 100% charged battery starting out and monitor my voltage. Some might think this is risky, and yes it is, but I found this out the hard way running the same mission I always used to, and all of the sudden my drone is coming home before it should. It was after an update (can't remember which one now, but it was a long time ago). Most of my missions will also lose the signal, but it has never failed me. And yes, you have to "Force-stop" the GO app to avoid any issues with Litchi. As long as your mission uploads correctly, it won't matter it the Litchi app crashed or not, but why invite trouble. I have had issues both ways when first using both apps. Now I always kill the app I am not going to use and all is good. About the RTH thing. Litchi told me the they cannot bypass DJI's firmware settings on this feature. But as mentioned, you can toggle the "smart RTH" off in the GO app, and your good.

RicardoGray Posted at 2018-3-5 14:51
I am not answering for DirtyBird, but I also use Litchi for long range missions, and I turn off the RTH too. I know how far I can go, and this avoids an aborted mission just because DJI GO app thinks it is time to come home (actually it is set in the firmware  in the Phantom, by the GO app). But I always have a 100% charged battery starting out and monitor my voltage. Some might think this is risky, and yes it is, but I found this out the hard way running the same mission I always used to, and all of the sudden my drone is coming home before it should. It was after an update (can't remember which one now, but it was a long time ago). Most of my missions will also lose the signal, but it has never failed me. And yes, you have to "Force-stop" the GO app to avoid any issues with Litchi. As long as your mission uploads correctly, it won't matter it the Litchi app crashed or not, but why invite trouble. I have had issues both ways when first using both apps. Now I always kill the app I am not going to use and all is good. About the RTH thing. Litchi told me the they cannot bypass DJI's firmware settings on this feature. But as mentioned, you can toggle the "smart RTH" off in the GO app, and your good.

Hahaha.... well, as luck would have it, I tried my first long flight, which routes down our adjacent road and across country to the build site and back.
I disabled the RTH feature before starting this flight.
Funny thing is, after take off and ascent to flying altitude, we take off in the car to ensure it follows the route before it cuts across the woods, videos and returns to the take off position and of course, I lose sight of it, but, can watch it on video. About 8 minutes in, we don't see the unit and return to our house and there it is, sitting on the  asphalt in front of the take off point.
What did I miss??

KSims01 Posted at 2018-3-5 15:21
Hahaha.... well, as luck would have it, I tried my first long flight, which routes down our adjacent road and across country to the build site and back.
I disabled the RTH feature before starting this flight.
Funny thing is, after take off and ascent to flying altitude, we take off in the car to ensure it follows the route before it cuts across the woods, videos and returns to the take off position and of course, I lose sight of it, but, can watch it on video. About 8 minutes in, we don't see the unit and return to our house and there it is, sitting on the  asphalt in front of the take off point.

Not sure, did you instruct it to land when finished? You say you were watching video.....did it run the mission as programmed? I guess what did it not do?

And thanks DirtyBird for pointing out that Litchi now has the switch you can toggle the smart RTH within the app. I failed to remember that. No longer do you have to just use the GO app to do this. And do remember Like both of us have stated, when this feature is turned off, you are in complete control of watching your voltage and ensuring you have enough power to get back home. You have no safety net here anymore. I never totally relied on it to begin with, but it is nice for beginners for sure that may not remember to keep an eye on the battery. But it is just good common sense as far as I am concerned.

RicardoGray Posted at 2018-3-6 07:41
Not sure, did you instruct it to land when finished? You say you were watching video.....did it run the mission as programmed? I guess what did it not do?

And thanks DirtyBird for pointing out that Litchi now has the switch you can toggle the smart RTH within the app. I failed to remember that. No longer do you have to just use the GO app to do this. And do remember Like both of us have stated, when this feature is turned off, you are in complete control of watching your voltage and ensuring you have enough power to get back home. You have no safety net here anymore. I never totally relied on it to begin with, but it is nice for beginners for sure that may not remember to keep an eye on the battery. But it is just good common sense as far as I am concerned.

Wife and I were chasing it down the road in an effort to ensure it's safe passage, but, did lose radio contact a few minutes in, so that is where I thought it had shortened its route. Knee-jerk posting.
After looking at Airdata logs/routes, it appears that it did run the entire route successfully. However, it finished the route  MUCH faster than Litchi Hub estimated. The estimate was around 14 minutes round trip but actually ran it in around 8 minutes with 54% battery life left.
Can't confirm for certain at this point, as the video didn't start as configured in the Hub. Will manually start the video next time.

RicardoGray Posted at 2018-3-6 07:41
Not sure, did you instruct it to land when finished? You say you were watching video.....did it run the mission as programmed? I guess what did it not do?

And thanks DirtyBird for pointing out that Litchi now has the switch you can toggle the smart RTH within the app. I failed to remember that. No longer do you have to just use the GO app to do this. And do remember Like both of us have stated, when this feature is turned off, you are in complete control of watching your voltage and ensuring you have enough power to get back home. You have no safety net here anymore. I never totally relied on it to begin with, but it is nice for beginners for sure that may not remember to keep an eye on the battery. But it is just good common sense as far as I am concerned.

Have to ask....
Where did you get the US FLAG you so proudly display on your flying machine??
I'd LOVE to have one.....

"When off & running the Go app you will still have your battery bar across the top & a pop up will alert you when the flight computer calculates it's time to come home.  It just won't happen automatically. "

Ok, assume smart RTH is turned off on a waypoint mission. Once the ac is out of signal/video range, all the telemetry is no longer being relayed. There is no way to determine if mission is to be aborted, let alone actually manually aborting. Or have I missed something?

KSims01 Posted at 2018-3-6 08:24
Have to ask....
Where did you get the US FLAG you so proudly display on your flying machine??
I'd LOVE to have one.....

Yeah, I think Litchi does a pretty good job at estimating flight time, but you have to understand you may encounter winds along the way that may either help or hinder you. I always start my video when I take off (not automatically, but that isn't a bad idea either) because a lot of missions I do I know that I am going to lose my signal, and it is really cool to see the footage afterwards. I have a couple flights I do where I know the terrain, and have flown numerous times. I have a flight where I go over a pretty large cliff and down over the water, and no way could I have a signal, but it is probably a 100' foot drop and I cruise over the water about 40' from the surface and then back up over the bluff, where it will re-gain the signal and video. Litchi is just so cool for this type of thing.

So, thanks for the kind words on my US-flag skin. I really like it too. I actually purchased it off a website on Ebay and it came from China! LOL I think it costs me a whole $8. But they are all over out there ,and very easy to put on.

stuka75 Posted at 2018-3-6 10:01
"When off & running the Go app you will still have your battery bar across the top & a pop up will alert you when the flight computer calculates it's time to come home.  It just won't happen automatically. "

Ok, assume smart RTH is turned off on a waypoint mission. Once the ac is out of signal/video range, all the telemetry is no longer being relayed. There is no way to determine if mission is to be aborted, let alone actually manually aborting. Or have I missed something?

Yes to your point, there is no way of knowing what is going on if you lose video feed. But, if the mission is loaded to the aircraft, it will attempt to finish. Only thing that will cause an abort is you run out of power (battery) and it decides to land or if you hit a tree or something. You must be aware of where  you are flying and any obstacles you may encounter. A lot of times I will run a mission but keep it up in the air,and then look the actual footage I took, and make adjustments to altitude if necessary. A lot of times I can lower the height to get a better view of what I'm looking at. Of course if you do have any signal, and toggle the function switch from "f" to "p", and it picks up the signal just for a moment, that will take it out of the mission. The aircraft will now just sit there and take any commands you might give it, or even trigger a RTH. But for the most part the Litchi mission is very reliable. I know I have flown over 60+ missions without 1-failure.
If you don't want to turn off the smart-RTH, you don't have to. This is not a requirement for Litchi. If you like that safety-net, leave it on. It only effects those that are going out there long distances and don't want the mission aborted due to an override by the firmware. If left on it will protect you if you get out there and aren't really sure of your self. I think that the firmware makes a decision as best it can, but a lot depends on how fully a battery you have and how much you are pushing your phantom. Ultimately it comes down to battery voltages. Does this make sense to you?

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-3-6 17:52
Here is a P4 with high-capacity battery flying a 55,101' Litchi mission (16% remaining upon return):

https://youtu.be/WJHGiWKBQP0

Impressive.
Well done.
Don't think I can match that with a P3S.......
From where do you get your music?
Just ran another mission and manually started the recording. Recording stopped prior to it actually flying away for some reason, and restarted after it returned home.
Not sure what is causing that.......



Maybe the fact that I had 'auto record' =on within litchi? Not sure.
Ideas?

KSims01 Posted at 2018-3-7 05:28
Impressive.
Well done.
Don't think I can match that with a P3S.......

Now this is really strange. It appears that the bird stopped as soon as it lost its download link. It should have completed its mission but didn't.


Here is the actual mission route it should have taken:
Expected litchi route.

KSims01 Posted at 2018-3-7 10:28
Now this is really strange. It appears that the bird stopped as soon as it lost its download link. It should have completed its mission but didn't.
[view_image]

I reached out to Litchi support and here is their response:

MAR 07, 2018  |  08:54PM UTC
Litchi replied:
Hi,
The DJI firmware controls the drone in waypoint mode, so we don’t know all the reasons that could cause it to stop because that code is invisible to us.
That being said, it’s possible it would stop because of detecting an obstacle (even if there isn’t one, keep in mind the system isn’t perfect). Other reason could include entering a no fly zone.
Kind Regards,
Litchi

Just ran another mission and manually started the recording. Recording stopped prior to it actually flying away for some reason, and restarted after it returned home.
Not sure what is causing that....... Maybe the fact that I had 'auto record' =on within litchi? Not sure.
Ideas?

If you have auto record on, and press the record button again, you will actually stop the recording.

I use auto record and then just use a (free) video trimmer to edit out the beginning and end. That way I never have to worry about remembering to start or stop a recording.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-3-8 23:05
If you have auto record & voice announcements enabled you will hear it say "Recording started" when you lift off & "Recording stopped" when you land.

My music is selected from my personal music library of upwards of 15,000 tracks. I kind of like the Epic Music genre & try to select tracks that highlight the video. My newer videos usually include the track info in the end credits. As long as you aren't monetizing your videos you can use many copyrighted songs.  The copyright holder automatically gets any proceeds from advertisements.

Just a quick question for you regarding lost communication with the controller. No matter my configuration, when trying to fly a long flight, as soon as the unit loses communication it stops and hovers instead of completing the mission, as if I am flying it manually. This mission is approximately 26'k which is well within range, so I disabled the smart return to home, as I didn't see the need with this route.
How are you able to complete a 40'k run without the same issues?
I'm just not sure what is preventing it from completing the run.

My last time out, my wife and I followed along with it just to see it complete the run, but, as it closed to within a couple hundred feet of the recording destination, it turned and started home with 64% battery life and when returning, it had 32% remaining.
It appears that the safe return is still enabled.

Thoughts? What the heck am I missing???

Just curious. Why are people using the smart hub or whatever it's called? I plot all of my waypoint missions on the app (on an iPad mini). It shows all of the relevant info like flight times etc.

As for the RTH on loss of signal thing, don't you have to turn that off in the Go app?  The other thing, isn't there a max distance between waypoints? Are you sure you inserting enough of them so it does not turn back to the closer one?

Texas-Mark Posted at 2018-3-19 17:05
Just curious. Why are people using the smart hub or whatever it's called? I plot all of my waypoint missions on the app (on an iPad mini). It shows all of the relevant info like flight times etc.

As for the RTH on loss of signal thing, don't you have to turn that off in the Go app?  The other thing, isn't there a max distance between waypoints? Are you sure you inserting enough of them so it does not turn back to the closer one?

With regards to using the litchi hub for waypoint programming, its quite useful for us that don't use a tablet. I use my phone for inflight use only.
As for the Go app, I haven't found a way to turn off the RTH on signal loss. The only action I see with regards to signal loss is designated for manual flying only, not waypoint flying and even then, there isn't a way to turn it off only change the action to 'hover' or 'power down'.
It just seems that there is something I'm missing somewhere.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-3-20 00:59
Hmmm...I don't know why you would be having this issue?  In a Litchi waypoint mission the bird should continue even if RC contact is lost.  Which model aircraft are you flying?  You may want to post this question to the developer on the Litchi group over on Facebook.

I'm flying a P3S.

I don't have a facebook acct, so that isn't an option.

This exact thing happened to me yesterday. I sent my bird on a 4,000 feet mission using the waypoints with Litchi. I wasnt aware of the distance scenario between waypoints, so I'm going to give it a shot with more waypoints. what exactly the min. distance between waypoints if you know? But ya my bird returned home also after it reached the farthest waypoint. obviously i did lose connection around 1400 feet, why didnt it come home then instead of going another 1800 feet then decide "hay RTH !!! Dont know but the waypoint distance is a start. please let me know if you figured this out. last months long distance missions this never happened, Litchi just kept the mission going until finished.

Dirty Bird Posted at 2018-3-20 15:30
A P3S should not be a problem as I fly a pair of them all the time without issue.  Maybe try something simple like uninstalling/reinstalling the Litchi app?

I finally was able to get past the problem of the bird stopping once it got out of range of the controller. It was a simple matter of uninstalling and reinstalling litchi. Excellent call.

Have you ever seen an issue with the gimbal not having a full range of motion  during a waypoint mission? I have several routes in which the gimbal angle will not
move to -90 degrees? I can use the scroll wheel to manually move the camera
to the desired angle so I know there isn't anything physically preventing it
from looking straight down.



I have a mission where I can't get the camera to angle down far enough to
catch a particular view of the POI, so I thought I would try to move the
camera to a 90 degree angle prior to reaching the destination and allow it
to return to view the POI, which I currently have set at -60 feet below the
take off elevation. For some reason it will not remain focused on the POI.
I've tried multiple different routes around the POI and never can get it to
angle far enough down. With it being surrounded by woods, I'm limited as to
the shots I can obtain.

I exchanged email with litchi support today and they are saying it performs as expected in their simulator.

Any idea?

KSims01 Posted at 2018-4-10 14:34
I finally was able to get past the problem of the bird stopping once it got out of range of the controller. It was a simple matter of uninstalling and reinstalling litchi. Excellent call.

Have you ever seen an issue with the gimbal not having a full range of motion  during a waypoint mission? I have several routes in which the gimbal angle will not

When you set your POI, it defaults to 3 feet above the spot. You can try lowering that and even going to a small negative number if that does not work.
edit - I see you say you have something set to -60. That is going to mess up yout POI as it will be looking at an angle blow ground

Texas-Mark Posted at 2018-4-10 15:18
When you set your POI, it defaults to 3 feet above the spot. You can try lowering that and even going to a negative number if that does not work.

Thanks for the response.

I've actually moved it to -60 and although the angle within the Hub changes, the actual gimbal angle doesn't change during flight.
I'm now at -220 feet and about to send it out for another try.

I'll update when it returns home.
No dice. Still doesn't seem to be panning down at all when arriving at either of the POI's.

The route is here if you'd like to review:

https://flylitchi.com/hub?m=14vppktoDX

I've tried moving the POI's, tried using the interpolation to different angles, but, nothing seems to work during a waypoint mission. Manually it all works fine.
Can't figure it out.

Are you using interpolate mode at your waypoints? If so, I believe you have to switch to POI (momentarily) and then back to interpolate in order for the gimbal angle to actually reflect the angle change you made to the to the POI. At least it does doing it on the app.

Dirty Bird Posted at 4-10 17:44
Glad you resolved the problem with the bird completing the missions.

On vertical gimbal panning, first this feature (and speed changes) requires RC contact.  These features are not uploaded to the aircraft when the mission is loaded.  I always found vertically panning manually or towards a POI to be unreliable.  Eventually I opted to set the vertical camera position manually at the beginning of my flights and leave it there for the duration of the mission.

I know this thread is several months old, but I just learned about Litchi. You say that speed is not uploaded to the drone, what about altitude changes? I mean, if you set each waypoint to xx over ground level, will that be uploaded upon start of the mission, or will the drone continue in current altitude if it loses connection to RC?

Somebody once said "It's always better to post in an exiting thread than to start a new thread."  So well done!

You can't "set each waypoint to xx over ground level."  You are setting each waypoint to xx over launch level.  Launch level is not ground level unless you live in the flatlands.  The ground level may vary dramatically so you must take that into consideration.  

Yes, your mission is uploaded to your AC.  And that's it.   Whatever your mission is (i.e. whatever you programmed it to do) is what it will do.  Your connection or lack thereof will not influence the mission.  If you have a connection, you can cancel the mission if you wish.  If you don't have a connection, you cannot cancel the mission and the mission will continue while you stand there helplessly - hoping it returns.  A live GPS tracker can help your anxiety during these types of flights.  

Good luck.

Mark The Droner Posted at 12-18 15:21
Somebody once said "It's always better to post in an exiting thread than to start a new thread."  So well done!

You can't "set each waypoint to xx over ground level."  You are setting each waypoint to xx over launch level.  Launch level is not ground level unless you live in the flatlands.  The ground level may vary dramatically so you must take that into consideration.  

So, what is the setting "above ground" for? I have noticed that when you active that, the altitude does change according to ground level in the Misison Hub. (I haven't actually flown any missions yet).

Dirty Bird Posted at 12-18 17:51
Initial mission speed, altitude changes, POIs, horizontal focusing towards a POI, waypoint actions, all that is uploaded with the mission.  The only two things I am aware of that require an active RC connection are speed changes & vertical camera focus.

Error on the high side for waypoint altitude.  You can always adjust down & refly the mission.  Better to error high.  

Thank you! I recently bought a Spark to start learning, before getting a bigger drone, so no long distance missions for me yet, but still... same rules goes for the Spark, though the missions will have to be way shorter obviously.

BrianSC Posted at 12-19 03:12
So, what is the setting "above ground" for? I have noticed that when you active that, the altitude does change according to ground level in the Misison Hub. (I haven't actually flown any missions yet).

[view_image]

I have the older Litchi so I cannot answer that.  Maybe I'm wrong.  :-D

Maybe the aircraft automatically adjusts its elevation because it knows the ground level at a given place as it flies?  Seems unlikely though - especially on a Spark.  I haven't heard or read anything about that.  But I guess it's possible.

Another possibility is the "altitude" is above sea level (AMSL) and "above ground" is above ground level (AGL) or rather, above launch level as one would expect.

You better do some research to be sure.  Maybe somebody else here knows something.  

Edit:  found this which might be relevant:  https://sparkpilots.com/threads/ ... -mobile-apps.10470/

Good luck.  

BrianSC Posted at 12-19 03:12
So, what is the setting "above ground" for? I have noticed that when you active that, the altitude does change according to ground level in the Misison Hub. (I haven't actually flown any missions yet).

[view_image]

When you set a given altitude for any way point, Litchi will correct that altitude for ground level changes in relation to the homepoint. Keep in mind to achieve an altitude change between waypoints, it is a gradual altitude change between waypoints.