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Appreciate ideas - Disconnecting
358 24 1-19 16:23
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garyphayes
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So this is a first for me. Had my Air2s for 5 years, hundreds of flights without issue - great drone. OK three low battery controlled landings but nothing else. So yesterday while running a workshop, on two demonstrations I had multiple disconnections, the worst one being the last where the RTH had it hovering about 1m over the edge of a cliff and would not reconnect!

So I would take off normally, fly out to some features 100-300m away do some moves and then, black and white screen, disconnection and I can hear it returning to home. About 50m away it would reconnect, I cancel RTH and I would continue the demonstration. The first time it did this 3 times, RTH, cancel, go back out to 100m, disconnect, RTH, and so on. The second and last session I was a bit further out, and managed to do the moves, was about to bring it back and 'disconnect' - I waited for it to RTH, but annoyingly my home point was set about 10m away over the edge of a cliff! Yes I had taken off in a rush and homepoint had set incorrectly but, forgiving me this error, on this occasion while the drone was just hovering, unable to land, I tunred the controller, rebooted the app a few times and this time it didn't reconnect, 10m away. Rather than wait for the battery to run out and it descend to oblivion, I precariously reached out and managed to just get it with my finger tips!

But the point of this is - why after 5 years I suddenly get disconnection issue when ZERO has changed with settings ... these were two very wild open locations with no interference -  in fact my two participants had a3s and zero connection issues ... I use my air2s primarily as a lightweight demonstration drone for my workshops, but this was to be frank, rather embarrasing when it happened ...
1-19 16:23
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garyphayes
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Oh worth mentioning when I got back I had a play with the transmission settings, 2.4 only, then 5 only, manual selection, auto of course and still kept disconnecting after 30-50 seconds of flight
1-19 19:59
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JJB*
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Great story  and happy your drone is back in your hands.

But, uh...HP 10 meters away over the cliff, drone RTH to home...hovering at some height (why did it not went lower?) and you were able to grab it with your finger tips.. but to reach 10 meter ?

Good example to be sure that HP is set correctly, and not above water or a cliff etc.
Best to take off at a position not really near waterfront or cliff/canyon ect.

cheers
JJB
1-20 04:35
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garyphayes
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JJB* Posted at 1-20 04:35
Great story  and happy your drone is back in your hands.

But, uh...HP 10 meters away over the cliff, drone RTH to home...hovering at some height (why did it not went lower?) and you were able to grab it with your finger tips.. but to reach 10 meter ?

Thanks - been taking off near to edges of cliffs for 8 years without issue. This was one of many flights and as I said, the home point updated just close to the edge, about 10m away from me, stoof about 9m from the edge - does that make it clearer. Also  you may or may not know but if the landing zone is hazardous on a disconnected return to home, it will hover until the pilot can take control - but if you cannot reconnect with it and it is out of reach, it will run the battery down and then just descend - I was lucky I was just able to reach it ---  BUT this post was about constant disconnection not about home point setting - and such a shame that I have had no ideas from this forum on why, even now say at home it is constantly reconnecting and disconnecting every minute or so ...
1-20 05:08
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JJB*
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garyphayes Posted at 1-20 05:08
Thanks - been taking off near to edges of cliffs for 8 years without issue. This was one of many flights and as I said, the home point updated just close to the edge, about 10m away from me, stoof about 9m from the edge - does that make it clearer. Also  you may or may not know but if the landing zone is hazardous on a disconnected return to home, it will hover until the pilot can take control - but if you cannot reconnect with it and it is out of reach, it will run the battery down and then just descend - I was lucky I was just able to reach it ---  BUT this post was about constant disconnection not about home point setting - and such a shame that I have had no ideas from this forum on why, even now say at home it is constantly reconnecting and disconnecting every minute or so ...

Hi,

yes, i know about not landing when landing point is not safe to land on.
I thought it was decending in front of the cliff, few meters away fromn the edge.
So area under drone to ground level can be huge, so in free air it will contitue too land and fly into the deep...
You are lucky, take off always near the edges of a clif.  In a RTH with less GPS accurancy possible to land few meters away from the near the clif set HP.
That is why i always pick my take off spot few meters away from the waterline or clif or even a road. Just to be sure.....

cheers
JJB

1-20 10:52
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Tonyvdb
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Could it be a bad cable between the controller and the phone?
1-20 11:37
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garyphayes
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Tonyvdb Posted at 1-20 11:37
Could it be a bad cable between the controller and the phone?

Cable is fine - the actual controller flashes to show it has lost transmission contact, not app related ... as you know you can still control the drone if the app stops or phone is disconnected
1-20 12:07
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garyphayes
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JJB* Posted at 1-20 10:52
Hi,

yes, i know about not landing when landing point is not safe to land on.

You are still not understanding. I took off, 10m away from the edge. And as I keep saying it was a scenario where the home point updated just off the edge - which I have already said was a mistake BUT this is about connection issues ... if you haven't anything to contribute please don't
1-20 12:10
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JJB*
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garyphayes Posted at 1-20 12:10
You are still not understanding. I took off, 10m away from the edge. And as I keep saying it was a scenario where the home point updated just off the edge - which I have already said was a mistake BUT this is about connection issues ... if you haven't anything to contribute please don't

oke... i read "been taking off near to edges" not as 10 meters away from an edge.
No prob, happy flying to you.

cheers
JJB
1-20 12:15
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Tonyvdb
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might be worthwhile to go through the pairing process again of the drone to the controller? Also do a recalibration of the drones IMU
1-20 13:10
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garyphayes
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Tonyvdb Posted at 1-20 13:10
might be worthwhile to go through the pairing process again of the drone to the controller? Also do a recalibration of the drones IMU

Re - paired about 10 times last night, kept disconnecting every minute or so afterwards, indoors. Did compass and IMU before the workshop on Sat afternoon. This morning switched on no connection, wait about 2 minutes it connects, 30 seconds later disconnects. Re linked, same behaviour. A few times it will not connect at again after disconnecting - this was in an open area away from any interference, as was the previous flights
1-20 17:29
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Tonyvdb
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garyphayes Posted at 1-20 17:29
Re - paired about 10 times last night, kept disconnecting every minute or so afterwards, indoors. Did compass and IMU before the workshop on Sat afternoon. This morning switched on no connection, wait about 2 minutes it connects, 30 seconds later disconnects. Re linked, same behaviour. A few times it will not connect at again after disconnecting - this was in an open area away from any interference, as was the previous flights

I would refresh the firmware as a last resort. I am out of ideas unfortunately.
1-21 06:05
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RobZilla
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What are the battery lifecycles at, ie how many charges approximately? I'm curious if the batteries are causing this even if it was charged fully?  5 yrs is a pretty good, but it might have reached its limit by now.

I'm painting the analogy similar to motorcycle batteries where electrical gremlins creep up when battery life is almost reached. Do you have a newer battery(less charges) or a friend with a compatible battery and see if the issue persists?
1-21 07:51
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Mobilehomer
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Do you have access to another controller? That would show the culprit device.
1-21 09:44
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Hallmark007
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garyphayes Posted at 1-20 17:29
Re - paired about 10 times last night, kept disconnecting every minute or so afterwards, indoors. Did compass and IMU before the workshop on Sat afternoon. This morning switched on no connection, wait about 2 minutes it connects, 30 seconds later disconnects. Re linked, same behaviour. A few times it will not connect at again after disconnecting - this was in an open area away from any interference, as was the previous flights


Why would you do a compass and IMU calibration, Did you get asked to do one? , did you do them correctly?, how did you do them ?. It now seems that the calibrating needs to be taken into consideration because everything seemed to be working before you calibrated. Im not sure why you would calibrate a craft not asking for it, nowhere are you advised to do this in fact most if not all manuals will advise not calibrating unless you get warnings to do so. In 10 years I have only twice calibrated my compass only because a fault in the software was forcing it on me.
1-21 11:43
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garyphayes
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RobZilla Posted at 1-21 07:51
What are the battery lifecycles at, ie how many charges approximately? I'm curious if the batteries are causing this even if it was charged fully?  5 yrs is a pretty good, but it might have reached its limit by now.

I'm painting the analogy similar to motorcycle batteries where electrical gremlins creep up when battery life is almost reached. Do you have a newer battery(less charges) or a friend with a compatible battery and see if the issue persists?

These are fresh batteries, as in less than 20 cycles each - I got 4 from different sources and all are genuine Dji. Same on all of them re disconnection
1-21 12:37
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garyphayes
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Hallmark007 Posted at 1-21 11:43
Why would you do a compass and IMU calibration, Did you get asked to do one? , did you do them correctly?, how did you do them ?. It now seems that the calibrating needs to be taken into consideration because everything seemed to be working before you calibrated. Im not sure why you would calibrate a craft not asking for it, nowhere are you advised to do this in fact most if not all manuals will advise not calibrating unless you get warnings to do so. In 10 years I have only twice calibrated my compass only because a fault in the software was forcing it on me.

Been doing calibrations since 2017 on Dji drones. Never had any issues after doing them. I tend to do them after flights that are around 100+ miles apart, which is why I did it in this case. But as I said on my other 4 drones never had any issues afterwards ... also the disconnection issues became gradually worse after the first few flights were flawless without issues.
1-21 12:39
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garyphayes
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Mobilehomer Posted at 1-21 09:44
Do you have access to another controller? That would show the culprit device.

Tried it on my Mavic 2 controller, cannot get it to pair ... only pairing every now and then now on its original controller
1-21 12:41
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garyphayes
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Tonyvdb Posted at 1-21 06:05
I would refresh the firmware as a last resort. I am out of ideas unfortunately.

Have updated the firmware to latest a couple of weeks ago - but although booked in with Dji might actually see if I can put a retro firmware on just to isolate all potential culprits, using DJI asst
1-21 12:42
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Mobilehomer
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garyphayes Posted at 1-21 12:41
Tried it on my Mavic 2 controller, cannot get it to pair ... only pairing every now and then now on its original controller

Sounds like the radio of the drone might have gone bad.  Time to open a repair case with DJI.
1-21 13:22
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garyphayes
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Mobilehomer Posted at 1-21 13:22
Sounds like the radio of the drone might have gone bad.  Time to open a repair case with DJI.

I have booked it in for a repair - I guess not an expensive switch of that component?
1-21 13:26
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Mobilehomer
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garyphayes Posted at 1-21 13:26
I have booked it in for a repair - I guess not an expensive switch of that component?

DJI repairs are generally better than fair. Plus they ship both ways.
1-21 14:42
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Hallmark007
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garyphayes Posted at 1-21 12:39
Been doing calibrations since 2017 on Dji drones. Never had any issues after doing them. I tend to do them after flights that are around 100+ miles apart, which is why I did it in this case. But as I said on my other 4 drones never had any issues afterwards ... also the disconnection issues became gradually worse after the first few flights were flawless without issues.

Again I’m not sure why people calibrate an already calibrated drone, you cannot calibrate it any better but you can make it worse. Again how and what did you do to calibrate your IMU ?
1-21 16:37
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garyphayes
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Hallmark007 Posted at 1-21 16:37
Again I’m not sure why people calibrate an already calibrated drone, you cannot calibrate it any better but you can make it worse. Again how and what did you do to calibrate your IMU ?

Nothing to do with this mate, and you are not helping in the slightest. Please just stop commenting ...
1-21 17:21
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garyphayes
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Mobilehomer Posted at 1-21 14:42
DJI repairs are generally better than fair. Plus they ship both ways.

Yes - checked a few other forums and definitely as it is intermittent a failing radio component in the drone vs all the other red herrings in this thread
1-21 17:24
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