Hello ,

The Mavic Mini is the first drone I have ever purchased. So, Im new in the drone hooby.
The other night, I got the idea to fly at night to take video of the Christmas lights at my house.

So, I when outside and as soon as I tooke off, I got error message for the IMU. I quickly landed it. I tried it again and the drone was crazy. Drifiting, not hoovering and all the sudden it it flew itself into the outside wall of my house at full speed. Gladly, i was flying like 5 ft from the ground and nothing happen.

Has anybody experienced this while flying at night? What do you think what the cause of the drones behavior? Does the sensor work at night in the dark?

Any tips?

Thanks

Hello and good day Goofy Pilot. Thank you for reaching out and for the inquiry. Hope that you'll get the best recommendation in regards on flying at night. However, we would like to inform you that the sensors of the drone may not work properly if there would be not enough light while flying. Thank you for understanding and always have a safe flight.

Any tips?

As a new drone owner, avoid flying at night with poor lighting. Don't fly at night and you'll save yourself a headache from the drone behaving erratically due to poor conditions.  

Sorry to hear of your experience.  

It sounds to me like maybe you didn't wait for the GPS sats to get locked in with a good signal before your launched.

Drones like the Mavic Mini have 2 ways of being able to stabilize themselves.  The first is GPS and the second is the down facing visual sensing system.  

If you didn't wait for GPS to get locked in before trying to fly and did so in the dark, then the Mini was flying blind and had no way to be able to stabilize itself and keep it hovering in one location.

On a GPS based drone like the Mini, it is always best to wait for GPS to get locked in and mark the home point before launching.  This is especially critical in low lighting situations like you described.

The above is just a hunch.  If you would like more a more detailed analysis, you can upload the FlightRecord from your phone to the following website and then paste the resulting URL in a reply here.

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

KlooGee Posted at 12-8 16:32
Sorry to hear of your experience.  

It sounds to me like maybe you didn't wait for the GPS sats to get locked in with a good signal before your launched.

great information. I think it was probably the GPS

Good thing I was flying with the propellers cage.


Thanks you

I am also a new Mini owner.  I have not been able to fly outdoors yet due to nasty weather.  However, I've done a reasonable amount of indoor flying, mainly inside of the water treatment plant where I work.

When I start things up, I get a warning that no GPS is available, fly with caution.  So that means that the unit is only operating based on its downward-looking optical sensors,  It steadies itself based on what it "sees", looking down.  This has caused me some issues when flying over water in our filters because the optical system sees reflections, etc., instead of a good pattern.  It makes it difficult or impossible for it to judge the height of the drone over the surface.  And they warn you about this in the instructions.

I've had the drone suddenly fly upwards and get "stuck" against the ceiling and entrapped in some roof joists, etc.  Pretty scary when this happened directly over an operating water filter!

But the main point I wanted to make was that the other night, I tried to lift off in our office, but I didn't have the lights in the office turned on.  I got a warning saying that there wasn't enough light.  And that makes sense.

If the drone doesn't have access to the GPS system AND doesn't have enough light or good optical surfaces to "look down at", it will have no way to hold position when hovering, or judge its own movement when flying.

I do like your idea of getting some Christmas light video!  Perhaps, with good GPS lock, some night flying will be possible.  I think this could make for a very beautiful video.  Good luck with it!

KlooGee Posted at 12-8 16:32
Sorry to hear of your experience.  

It sounds to me like maybe you didn't wait for the GPS sats to get locked in with a good signal before your launched.

UPDATE:

I follow your advice. I waited until I had 12 satellites locked in.

Went outside and was able to take some video. Didnt fly to high though due to 9mph winds making it a littl more unstable.

But I didnt have as erratic flight as before.

Goofy Pilot Posted at 12-9 08:15
UPDATE:

I follow your advice. I waited until I had 12 satellites locked in.

Good to read,
Make sure you read the manual completely and understand well the GPS and Downwards vision system parts.
I know is not a super nice engaging manual, but is all there.
The downwards system may not work correctly or at all under certain circumstances, poor light, repetitive pattern, homogenous colors, water, snow and mirror or reflective surfaces, but also flying at some speed, you may think the downward vision will stop you from hitting the floor, but going a bit fast and it wont work.
GPS is the most critical one, and if there is no GPS lock with enough sats, plus the downwars vision struggles at all, you will go in to Atti mode and most likely crash it.
Is happening to many users so better safe than sorry.

Goofy Pilot Posted at 12-9 08:15
UPDATE:

I follow your advice. I waited until I had 12 satellites locked in.

Glad to hear it went well this time!  I hope you have many fun and safe flights ahead!

It seems like you had a GPS problem since the sensor probably not effective when the craft is flying high nevertheless flying at night.

I flew my Mini almost 60 hours in the dark, till now absolutely no problems with that. Important is that you wait for GPS lock before take off.