Hi, First post. phantom 2 with hd-3d

3 days of flying this quad. Just a few things I've noticed / found intersting or confusing.

Biggest wake up was the first time my phantom went to return to home because of what I think was a low battery. In Naza  It went from having two greens (or one hard and one flashing, not sure now) on the battery, green on the quad to flashing red on the quad and a fast ascent / no control. Unfortunaltley it was under a phone service line at the time and crashed. No real damage.

It happened very fast and I had no time to switch modes. I had assumed that it would have flashed red for at least a few seconds and allowed me to land it. It acscended imidiedietly.

I then disabled low bat return to home in naza a flew it within a few meters with the hope of reproducing the low bat situation.  Battery ran down to one flashing bar and then the quad went to red flashing, then rapid red flashing. During rapid it did try to land but I was able to keep it off the ground and even slowly ascend. Finaly it it just shut off completley and fell. I was only 1 foot of the ground so it was just a hard landing.

Return to home only works if the quad has a clear line of sight on the vertical at the time of the trigger.  Where I fly thats rare.

I think the led codes for the battery are misleading. In discharching mode one hard green is 12 -25%. In Battery life one hard green is 30-40% they should be the same to avoid confusion.

Also having the NAZA light codes be so different from the pahntom ones is a little confusing at first.

As you've just discovered there is a steep learning curve to flying the Phantom.  Fortunately you survived your encounter and picked up something that applies to your particular situation (disabling low bat return)  I suspect the LED codes are not going to be the only things you find confusing so I would simply encourage you to take your time and get more and more familiar with your aircraft.

Ahh, It is only a bad experience if you did not learn anything, grasshopper!

I installed software on my computer and looked around the tabs.  I got somewhere I could click for the phantom to come home with low battery.  Being new I click the circle to fly home with low battery.  I left it there and logged out.  Is there any reason why I should have left alone?  The page to show if updates are needed is blank.  Should there be versions listed that Should check to make sure it's updated?

Instead of turning off the low battery return, have you tried turning on the low battery warning option? It will flash a message on the screen of your android/apple device and give you the option to cancel or accept. If you cancel, you can bring her home under your own guidance. That's how I have it set and it works quite well. You just need to make sure you hit cancel within 10 seconds or it will enter the low battery return home routine.

Low battery RTH will ascend to the default value unless you changed it. I set mine to 150 feet.

I must be the odd man out here because in a year of flying I've never used or tested RTH. I assume mine will work, but I simply don't lose sight of my quad...and the one time I did I used Home Lock, which worked perfectly.

Since the OP has a Zenmuse gimbal and GoPro, the low battery warning on the pad/phone won't work since that setup doesn't use the wireless extender, etc. - all he has is the TX itself.

This is my opinion - but it was confirmed by DJI in the first Phantom manuals...that is, that RTH should not be tested! And, it should only be used in a wide open area.

Since most all of us fly LOS (we can see the quadcopter) and within a relatively short distance, return to home shouldn't come into play....

Yeah, I'm sounding like a broken record right about now, but if people want to keep their quadcopters longer they may considering listening.

Hi all, on reading these posts there does seem to be some conflicting views on the RTH and its uses. I disagree slightly with drone flyers.com in that, whilst I agree safe flying is the goal and LOS is king, you may have an unforeseen event which triggers an RTH and, imho, testing this in an area of safety is a sensible practice. I have had an issue with RTH on low battery which is puzzling me. Is anyone aware of a different RTH procedure should low battery occur when the Phantom is close to the ground and already at the home point? My example is this: I was hovering a foot or so off the ground and within a few metres of the home point with the battery warning going off on my iPhone. I waited and waited and finally the Phantom landed with a bump (not certain if this was a "fall from the sky" or a controlled landing - at that height it didn't matter as I was on spongy grass). However the Phantom did not ascend to the usual 20m height. I am wondering if there is a feature where, should the unit be practically home anyway, it just lands? I have RTH on low battery activated in my App and it is ticked on the PT2 software. Any thoughts? Thanks, Eddie.

I for one tested RTH on my second flight in an open field just to see if it worked and it did, piece of mind for me as I do have a lot of tall trees and it is not hard to lose this thing against a busy background. For that matter I have used Homelock for the same reason and she came straight back. I have my RTH height set to 160' and it works like a charm.
I have also had the instance where I new I was running low on battery and was landing and missed the pop up on my phone to ignore the warning and it nearly did a touch and go and launched up to the 160' as it went into fail safe/RTH and came down and landed safely.
I thought I read somewhere that when fail safe/RTH due to low battery warning is activated you could switch to ATTI and regain control but I can not say this for fact and have not had a chance to try it,

Thanks Northofthe49th. I am missing something re RTH. I am setting up a business, trying to come to terms with the Phantom as an aerial platform, learning how to edit Video and barely scratching the surface of PhotoShop CC. So I suspect it is just my over-taxed brain skimming over an obvious step. I use my P2VP in NAZA-M mode but almost ALWAYS in GPS mode (S1 - up). When not filming I dabble with the IOC (Homelock is fast becoming a favourite) and very occasionally go into ATTI mode to get a feel for semi-manual flying. As far as I am led to believe keeping S1 up causes the Unit to behave as if it were in Phantom Mode until the IOC S2 or Atti S1 switches are moved. Does anyone actually know what the bug(s) is/are with the 3.10 Firmware incidentally?

Northofthe49th Posted at 2015-2-9 23:05
I for one tested RTH on my second flight in an open field just to see if it worked and it did, piece ...

7th flight with P2V - sitting on pad idling on about 20% battery...suddenly rpm increased and it took off (presumably some auto RTH function), which is a bit scary especially with a 200ft RTH default (high trees all round) and likely to run out of power before reaching default height. Switched to TII before it reached 50ft and regained control for normal landing. Seems to me that there are numerous hazards associated with low battery conditions and that switching to TII might be a consideration for all flights with batt less than 30%, maybe even disable Low Battery RTH and rely on indicator and a separate timer.

sean.cairns@iin Posted at 2015-2-17 00:39
7th flight with P2V - sitting on pad idling on about 20% battery...suddenly rpm increased and it t ...

Correction......TII should read ATTI, "finger trouble" with all these new terms for a newbie!

Give it more throttle & you can force it to stay in air till you get it home.
I was flying mine at 6% doing battery cycles & it will try to land but just give it more left stick obviously not at 300ft.

sean.cairns@iin Posted at 2015-2-17 00:39
7th flight with P2V - sitting on pad idling on about 20% battery...suddenly rpm increased and it t ...

If you land and leave the quad motors running , then it will think its losing altitude and will start to power up and take off, never ever leave your phantom in idle mode, always shut down the motors when it has landed.

This doesn't apply if you have just started your motors but haven't yet taken off .

As for those who haven't tested the RTH function, where will you be if you need it and for some reason it doesn't work.

Always test RTH if you are going to fly anywhere, just take it out to 200ft away and 100ft up and either turn off the RC or in naza mode flick the S1 switch to the bottom.

As they say its better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it

the check box for "Go Home" next to Low Battery level is the only thing that needs to be checked for the 10 second warning to come up?
the default altitude is 20 meters, any reason this should be changed lower or higher?

If there are any trees or anything tall around, you would want it set higher than them, otherwise it's going to try to fly through them instead of over them.

20m way too low in my opinion, im using 150ft