I know this has been discussed here in other threads. I got my mini on Monday and I have flown it twice. On both flights when I was at full throttle in Sport mode I got the "Aircraft power insufficient" warning intermittently. It was not windy during either flight. On the first flight wind was 3 mph and second flight it was about 5 mph. I did not have on propeller guards for either flights. I have not had this issue in P mode but apparently other people have. I have had issue with two different batteries. There has also been discussion that this happens with the combination of full throttle and thrusting up at same time. I’m not clear if this is the case for me as I can’t remember if I was thrusting up at same time when I got warnings. I will pay attention to this on my next flight. The behavior of my mini has not changed perceptibly when I get this warning. I have got warning at a variety of battery levels but it does appear to happen a bit more when battery level gets below 60%. Apparently the warning comes up as "Not Enough Force/ESC Error" on airdata. There have also been reports that when you examine logs that the speed does drop when these warnings appear.
DJI’s response to this issue on this forum has been: “There are two scenarios that would trigger this prompt. First, the aircraft might be flying with full power under the sport mode against the wind direction. Second, the aircraft might be flying with full power with propeller guards installed.” I can tell you that with my Spark I never get this message when flying full power into the wind. I believe I have only seen it on Spark when it was windy (15+ mph) and I was in S mode. 3 – 5 mph winds is not windy. I also did not have on propeller guards.
There has been some discussion about this issue on-line and several people on YouTube either discuss the issue directly or you can see the warning in their videos. People on YouTube that have discussed the issue include Marcus from Idaho Quadcopter and Billy Kyle. Here is a video on YouTube with Marcus specifically discussing this issue:
The thing that I do not understand is that apparently many people on this forum do not have this issue. My concern is that this is not happening to everyone so this appears to be isolated to a select number of drones. It would seem that more people would be having this issue if it was software/firmware related.
Can I get input from others that have the drone? Several questions:
Have you ever had this issue at full throttle (and possibly thrusting up at same time)?
What mode were you flying when you got warning?
What was the temperature and wind speed?
Did you only get warning when flying into the wind?
Did the warning coincide with behavior of drone changing (dropping, falling, etc.)?
What was battery level when you got warning?
Did you have propeller guards on?
Thanks for your help! Apparently DJI is working on this and hopefully we can have a solution soon. I’m frankly very concerned about flying this in places where it would prove difficult to retrieve drone if it goes down. If this is simply a warning I can ignore is one thing. If people are actually having their drone go down because of this, that is another…
Have you ever had this issue at full throttle (and possibly thrusting up at same time)? possible, but i also get it just going straight forward
What modes were you flying when you got warning? i get this message almost every flight, but in sports mode only
What was the temperature and wind speed? 0°C - 15°C, almost no wind so that doesn't matter for me
Did you only get warning when flying into the wind? doesn't matter for me
Did the warning coincide with behavior of drone changing (dropping, falling, etc.)? no
What was battery level when you got warning? doesn't matter for me
Did you have propeller guards on? no
so basically it doesnt affect me at all. I only get the warning in sports mode but it doesnt slow down and the warning disappears quickly. i hope its nothing serious though
Hi. I am sorry for the trouble that you are having with your DJI Mavic Mini. Thank you for the additional information regarding this concern, for us to better assists you. Please send a PM of the email used for the flight and please sync your flight records. In addition. To sync your flight records, please open the DJI Fly application choose Profile > More > Sync Flight Data then click upload on the upper right portion of the flight records page. Please keep us posted. Thank you for your understanding.
There's not much to worry about since the done's brain is programmed to sense and take care of extensive power drain and reduce speed accordingly. Sport mode is where power demands are stretched to limits. However, not every DJI specimen is tuned exactly the same due to a certain QC tolerances. Therefore some may react to a huge power drain spikes a bit pre-maturely. Over-reacting, sort of ...
What sucks is DJI’s remedy to insufficient power/ motor overload warnings is to simply issue an update reducing the power to the motors thus reducing overall speed and vertical climb, if you have ever poked around the assistant debug mode you will see DJI adjusts up, down,speed on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the fastest so to fix the insufficient power warning the will lower output power from say 6 to 5...
Matthew Dobrski Posted at 11-21 13:36
There's not much to worry about since the done's brain is programmed to sense and take care of extensive power drain and reduce speed accordingly. Sport mode is where power demands are stretched to limits. However, not every DJI specimen is tuned exactly the same due to a certain QC tolerances. Therefore some may react to a huge power drain spikes a bit pre-maturely. Over-reacting, sort of ...
If that is actually the reason that might suck for the people that have the better specimans because DJIs solution might be to reduce maximum power on all the drones. I'm still hoping to get feedback from more people (including people that do not have this issue at all). It should be telling if there are a bunch of people that do not have this issue at all at full throttle.
fliptwister Posted at 11-21 16:25
If that is actually the reason that might suck for the people that have the better specimans because DJIs solution might be to reduce maximum power on all the drones. I'm still hoping to get feedback from more people (including people that do not have this issue at all). It should be telling if there are a bunch of people that do not have this issue at all at full throttle.
fliptwister, this is not the issue. It is a safety feature to avoid dangerously high battery drain on a drones NOT really designed for performance stunts. All my 6 different, big and small DJI drones may (and occasionally will) display high wind warnings or reduce power drain during full throttle long run. I'm actually surprised that DJI decided to offer Sport mode for drones clearly developed for aerial photography, Mini in particular.
Matthew Dobrski Posted at 11-21 21:30
fliptwister, this is not the issue. It is a safety feature to avoid dangerously high battery drain on a drones NOT really designed for performance stunts. All my 6 different, big and small DJI drones may (and occasionally will) display high wind warnings or reduce power drain during full throttle long run. I'm actually surprised that DJI decided to offer Sport mode for drones clearly developed for aerial photography, Mini in particular.
Makes sense. I have only the Spark to compare mini to and as I mentioned I do get warning messages with Spark but only in high wind situations. What is concerning with my mini is the frequency that I get warnings in low wind and the fact it is referring to "power". With the Spark it is mainly wind warnings (I'm unsure if I ever got “Aircraft power insufficient" warnings). Do you have the mini? Ultimately if it is only a warning and I do not lose control of drone or it falls to ground, I'm not overly worried about it. There have been a couple of posts in other threads about this that the drone immediately landed or fell from sky. That is concerning if the events are connected.
DJI Paladin Posted at 11-21 13:35
Hi. I am sorry for the trouble that you are having with your DJI Mavic Mini. Thank you for the additional information regarding this concern, for us to better assists you. Please send a PM of the email used for the flight and please sync your flight records. In addition. To sync your flight records, please open the DJI Fly application choose Profile > More > Sync Flight Data then click upload on the upper right portion of the flight records page. Please keep us posted. Thank you for your understanding.
Paladin, PM sent with e-mail address. Flights synced and uploaded. Please keep me posted.
Can anybody please tell me how to read the warning messages of a flight afterwards?
I've already uploaded the flight record file to PhantomHelp and searched for them, but the warning messages, appearing in the DJI Fly app on the top of the screen are not to find.
I've also exported the file as csv, but the "insufficent power" or "Schubkraft zu gering" messages, as it seems to be called in the German app I use, are just not in the flight record file.
I had some kind of another warning today, but it disappeared too fast for me to read. I would love to see what was going on there.
So it would be great if someone could give me a hint. Thank you very much.
Have you ever had this issue at full throttle (and possibly thrusting up at same time)?
Yes. Thrusting up it is not necessary for the warning to appear.
What mode were you flying when you got warning?
P ans S. I have not flown in C mode for more than a minute or two.
What was the temperature and wind speed?
About 5 degrees Celsius / 40 degrees F and 20 kph / 12 mph wind.
Did you only get warning when flying into the wind?
Yes, that's how it seemed to me.
Did the warning coincide with behavior of drone changing (dropping, falling, etc.)?
No
What was battery level when you got warning?
From 100 % to 20 %.
Hi. Thank you for your response. I have forwarded the information to our designated DJI department for further attention. I will update you once they are done investigating this matter. Thank you.
This is my first drone. Used to fly RC Planes in my 20's and early 30's. Sold all RC Planes approx. 15 years ago. I live on the upper Texas Coast, 45 miles west of Galveston, approx. 15 miles inland from Surfside Beach, which means it is flat open land between my neighborhood and the coastline, so it is frequently windy.
Have you ever had this issue at full throttle (and possibly thrusting up at same time)?
Yes, have seen this warning numerous times in full throttle forward motion when it is windy, generally above 10 mph winds at ground level. The Strong Wind warnings usually start when above 50 feet (anticipate the winds are much stronger at altitude). I have never flown above 397 feet, and usually fly between 150 to 250'. I have only seen the insufficient power while climbing once, and that was on a day when wind was a steady 16 mph, with gusts to 24 mph. I normally climb to altitude, then fly, and do not change altitude until I am over my home point to land.
What mode were you flying when you got warning?
P, I have never flown Sport, and have only flown C in the yard around/under trees.
What was the temperature and wind speed?
70f to 85f, wind speeds mentioned above.
Did you only get warning when flying into the wind?
Into and/or cross.
Did the warning coincide with behavior of drone changing (dropping, falling, etc.)?
Haven't noticed.
What was battery level when you got warning?
Was near 100% on the ascent day when wind was steady 18 mph with gusts to 24 mph. The other days I have seen it at different levels.
Have you ever had this issue at full throttle (and possibly thrusting up at same time)? --No, but I did get the error when I was ascending and moving forward from 4 feet to 150 feet.
What mode were you flying when you got warning? P mode
What was the temperature and wind speed? temp 47, wind 9 mph.
Did you only get warning when flying into the wind? No.
Did the warning coincide with behavior of drone changing (dropping, falling, etc.)? No.
Mavic Mini landed itself on a frozen lake today. $400 Gone. ESC Error Not Enough Force I'm seeing more and more users are experiencing the same issue via a quick Google search. Here's my Log File https://app.airdata.com/share/XfEdhy Pretty gutted ATM
djiuser_ofm5Yl7rvNT0 Posted at 12-31 03:53
Mavic Mini landed itself on a frozen lake today. $400 Gone. ESC Error Not Enough Force I'm seeing more and more users are experiencing the same issue via a quick Google search. Here's my Log File https://app.airdata.com/share/XfEdhy Pretty gutted ATM
You're right it definitely didn't like that. No errors from the DJI Fly App though drone was just touching down and not responding to full throttle UP! Only AirData Logs showed anything wrong. Would have ditched it over land if the Fly App was showing error.
djiuser_ofm5Yl7rvNT0 Posted at 2019-12-31 10:31
You're right it definitely didn't like that. No errors from the DJI Fly App though drone was just touching down and not responding to full throttle UP! Only AirData Logs showed anything wrong. Would have ditched it over land if the Fly App was showing error.
seems you lost connection from drone side at the time so you pushing full throttle but did not got telemetry! that's why silence from app
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