I purchased the phantom 3 for about a month before I had a wltoys V303 which certainly can not compare with the phantom 3 but I must say that the wltoys had a precise return home almost to the centimeter hardly wrong step and the landing was very smooth, the phantom after many trials the wrong return from the take-off point of 2 meters so if you plan to take off from small dots and no other possibility of landing, if you find yourself with a dead battery you have to have a lot of practice in doing it off where no risk of breaking then landing the return home is very fast you risk breaking the cart

WOW ! only 2 meters. I will do IMU if my bird even has a bump and I always calibrate compass before every flight, further, I always have 15 - 18 satellites and home point lock, yet it will land 10 - 12 meters away…….nothing like DJI's video tutorial whereas it shows it returning home and landing on a 45cm diameter pedestal.  

Two metres is within the accuracy you can expect from GPS and is quite normal.
Small differences are not an issue particularly if you understand that you can resume control at any time and land or catch yourself.

I agree that tolerance of two meters are the rule, then I have to congratulate the engineers who wltoys with a drone from less than 300 euro can maintain accuracy to almost cm and uses less than half of the satellites, what is have many satellites if accuracy in flight and the return home are worse or lower ???? I'd like to hear one of the technicians dji

greenbean Posted at 2015-6-15 15:52
WOW ! only 2 meters. I will do IMU if my bird even has a bump and I always calibrate compass before  ...

I am sorry for the DJI but being an expert on video it is clear that the return from them registered and without doubt a takeoff sent to contario could bet on this old tricks of the trade, if they want to show me otherwise can do it with a only sequence began and ended home

asfodelo42 Posted at 2015-6-15 21:37
I am sorry for the DJI but being an expert on video it is clear that the return from them register ...

I'm sorry for the DJI but being an expert on video it is clear that the return from their registered and no doubt sent a takeoff on the contrary could bet on this old tricks of the trade, if they want to show me otherwise can do this with a unique sequence is initiated andIt ended at home

greenbean Posted at 2015-6-15 15:52
WOW ! only 2 meters. I will do IMU if my bird even has a bump and I always calibrate compass before  ...

Greenbean,

A Return-to-Home (RTH) landing that is 10-12 meters (33-40 feet) from Home Point is TOO far for a "true RTH" with compass calibrated and a good GPS home point lock before take-off.  If my Phantom 3 is more than 20 meters (66 feet) away from the Home Point when you trigger a RTH, my Phantom 3 usually lands within 5 feet of Home Point.

HOWEVER, please note that if you trigger a RTH when the Phantom 3 is less than 20 meters (66 feet) out from the Home Point, the Phantom 3 will just land where it is instead of rising to RTH height, flying back to home point and descending.  I HATE HATE HATE that particular RTH behavior that DJI decided to program into the firmware without documenting it fully in the Owner's Manual.  The only place you will find this particular RTH behavior (landing at current location when P3 is less than 20 meters from home point) documented is in the Firmware Release notes for the Inspire 1 - a different DJI product that uses the same DJI Pilot App. Referencing only the Phantom 3 Owner's Manual and Phantom 3 firmware notes, P3 users would be clueless about this behavior.

asfodelo42 Posted at 2015-6-15 21:33
I agree that tolerance of two meters are the rule, then I have to congratulate the engineers who wlt ...

there is no toy on the market with accuracy under 2m, this is impossible since the GPS accuracy is like 5m ! in good conditions. You must have a military grade toy

Daninho Posted at 2015-6-15 22:00
there is no toy on the market with accuracy under 2m, this is impossible since the GPS accuracy is ...

then you have not read what I wrote earlier, I hope to find the video made my wltoys W303, I tried for months in the open countryside and the drone fell exactly on the starting point can for the moment documentation page on line, again
the wltoys w 303 can rientare on the exact spot where it started

asfodelo42 Posted at 2015-6-15 22:10
then you have not read what I wrote earlier, I hope to find the video made my wltoys W303, I tried ...

than it uses other technics in combination with gps or it was coincidence

greenbean Posted at 2015-6-15 15:52
WOW ! only 2 meters. I will do IMU if my bird even has a bump and I always calibrate compass before  ...

I cut myself a small square of plywood to use as my "landing pad." It was about  12"x12" and turned out to be much too small. So I cut another one 2-feet x 2-feet. Works great for takeoff - not so much for landing!

I have one of those gimbal-guards on the bottom, so I'm not too worried about setting the thing down and jamming something up against the camera/gimbal. However...

If you get just the tiniest hint of "off" whatever you're trying to land on, it becomes much, much easier for the Phantom to tip over. I finally decided it works better if it tips over in the grass than tipping over on something more solid - even the square of plywood. I've actually gotten pretty comfortable landing on the sidewalk, quiet street, driveway, etc.

Hovering very close to the ground seems somewhat problematic. I guess it's just some sort of ground effect or similar. My landings are generally moderately slow but steady from five or six feet down to the ground. My personal comfort level is to get through those last few inches fairly quickly without slamming it onto the ground. It seems like if I futz with it for the last few inches that ground effect syndrome gets annoying. My idea is "...don't be fast, but be firm."

I haven't broken a prop yet landing in the grass. I stressed one of the props one day when the landing gear got hung up on the side of the board and the Phantom flipped over. Replaced the prop and quit landing like that!

david.p.mann@ea Posted at 2015-6-15 21:43
Greenbean,

A Return-to-Home (RTH) landing that is 10-12 meters (33-40 feet) from Home Point is TO ...

I immediately opened my electronic version of my manual. I just knew I was going to be able to prove you wrong. YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON!

The behavior you describe (just landing when close by) has been referenced time and time and time again, but you're absolutely correct. I couldn't find that behavior referenced anywhere in the Phantom manual.

Thus far I've kept my Phantom very close to home. One day, in a really big, open field, I got mine up to about 130 feet. Yesterday, while filming an old house (a local landmark - on the registry of homes type of place) I had it about 200 feet away and a little less than 100 feet up. I tend thus far to "...keep it close to hand!"

After all the fuss I've heard about RTH problems and the Vision Positioning System (VPS), I turned off the VPS (I've *never* flown indoors with anything except a micro-quad) and I've never touched anything remotely related to the RTH functions.

I try to keep an eye on the battery life in the upper corner of the pilot app. Just below the upper part there's a really thin (I'm saying thin!) line. It's supposed to provide information like - remaining flight time, an estimate of when the battery reaches a level where you should be returning home, etc. This is not too badly documented in the manual. However, during actual use, unless you're running a really big and well-shaded mobile device, it's really hard to see the fine detail on this line.

My personal preference is to try to avoid letting the battery level get very low - with the exception of having the phantom just a few feet away from me. I don't want the ugly surprise of an automatic or semi-automatic RTH just in time to discover there may not be enough power to get back somewhere and land, heaven forbid the battery is so low it lands wherever it is - and that it's  a couple of blocks over in the middle of the canal.....

Speaking of battery warnings - when I first got my Phantom I distinctly remember hearing this soft female voice warning me about a low battery. My phantom was very close by, but I think that was the 30% level warning and I landed immediately rather than take any chances. Somewhere around that time (I think) was when an update took place and I've never heard the voice again.

Is the voice warning still there? Perhaps I've just not gone low enough again, but I haven't heard Miss DJI in a long, long time!

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-6-15 22:21
I cut myself a small square of plywood to use as my "landing pad." It was about  12"x12" and turne ...

I make my shots in the mountains or at sea trà the rocks, so if the phantom dji
It is not accurate in return I always worry about do rientare with minimum battery level, because then I have to find a good spot and correct the landing, if it were to land for low battery could break propellers
finding obstacles in the ground, the point is that we should talk to those responsible for dji that the promises made in their videos are not true

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-6-15 22:37
I immediately opened my electronic version of my manual. I just knew I was going to be able to pro ...

you have two types of alarm
1) Battery level that you can adjust the app
2) voice that warns you that within a few seconds if you do not stomp the phantom will do it automatically

Daninho Posted at 2015-6-15 22:18
than it uses other technics in combination with gps or it was coincidence

I used quite frequently the return home and I have to say it was always very precise, it was rather difficult to calibrate the magnetic compass was necessary to turn the drone holding very firm and parallel to the ground for the horizontal and vertical precisely if I was not precise the led memorized the point, sometimes lost several minutes for this operation

david.p.mann@ea Posted at 2015-6-15 21:43
Greenbean,

A Return-to-Home (RTH) landing that is 10-12 meters (33-40 feet) from Home Point is TO ...

That would explain it. I am exceptional green to drone use and only received my P3P last week...only been flying close to my home and when I'd bring it back to my yard I'd hit RTH to see if it would rise to programed height and then land. I will do appropriate testing again when/if this rain ever stops.
Thanks for the info.

aburkefl@gmail. Posted at 2015-6-15 22:21
I cut myself a small square of plywood to use as my "landing pad." It was about  12"x12" and turne ...

Just pluck it out of the air,  I did a lot of landings with my vision 2 plus. once in a while it would tip over after landing due to rough terrain or a gust of wind , I thought well that's not really going to hurt anything except an occasional prop. Wrong, not,  one day I went to fly and I noticed a motor seemed loose. The plastic structure around where the motor bolts was cracked, even a light prop strike as the motors are spooling down can shatter the plastic around the motor mounts, to much shock force, A foam sheet landing pad might help some

Daninho Posted at 2015-6-15 22:00
there is no toy on the market with accuracy under 2m, this is impossible since the GPS accuracy is ...

With pure GPS, yes. But combined, multi-constellation GPS/GLONASS (like the one inside P3) receiver is achieving at least twice the accuracy of pure GPS receiver in the same conditions.

This is one of the most impressive projects I have seen in while! Did you post this at Wltoys https://wltoys.shop/?

Hang on rccars, this was last visited back in 2015, SIX years ago. I doubt anybody in it is still alive let alone interested!