Hello all
Warmer weather will be bringing new flyers out of hibernation.  

Plenty of things to go wrong; hopefully this will help!   


Cheers

Ian

Paul Simon wrote "50 ways to love your Mini"... I think...

Thanks for the tips.
So far I have gotten away with any mistake I have made

Montfrooij Posted at 3-27 13:34
Thanks for the tips.
So far I have gotten away with any mistake I have made

Apart from the 'Dover Incident', I too have only had the odd close call but no further issues!

Excellent video Ian.  A must see for all new flyers.  Thanks so much for sharing.  Stay safe.

#4.  You should have mentioned that launching from reinforced concrete surfaces is the most common cause of yaw error crashes.

#5.  No .. If you think the drone is telling you to calibrate the compass, the first thing to do is check to see what might have caused the compass error and move away from it.
If the compass is warning you that you've put the drone close to some steel, calibrating the compass won't do anything to solve the problem.

#21.  The power of the motors does not decrease as the battery voltage drops during a flight.
Your drone can fly and climb just as fast when the battery is 30% and it can at 100%.

Labroides Posted at 3-27 16:03
#4.  You should have mentioned that launching from reinforced concrete surfaces is the most common cause of yaw error crashes.

#5.  No .. If you think the drone is telling you to calibrate the compass, the first thing to do is check to see what might have caused teh compass error and move away from it.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of that. Sage advice.

Good advice thanks for sharing.

Labroides Posted at 3-27 16:03
#4.  You should have mentioned that launching from reinforced concrete surfaces is the most common cause of yaw error crashes.

#5.  No .. If you think the drone is telling you to calibrate the compass, the first thing to do is check to see what might have caused the compass error and move away from it.
If the compass is warning you that you've put the drone close to some  steel, calibrating the compass won't do anything to solve the problem.

#21.  The power of the motors does not decrease as the battery voltage drops during a flight.
Your drone can fly and climb just as fast when the battery is 30% and it can at 100%.

#4 Agree; especially driveways.  

#5  It's not a No.  If it's telling you to calibrate, then you have to recalibrate.  That may be due to proximity of metal but equally, it often asks to recalibrate when you've been driving to a new location as happens to me often.  I've just made it clear that metal will cause issues in #4.

#21 - Voltage drop; this has been discussed plenty; the voltage does drop considerably as the battery drains, therefore to maintain constant power, the current must increase.  The increase in current is not unlimited and regardless will drain the battery even faster, dropping the voltage even faster and so the downward cycle accelerates in the lower battery percentages.   

I have frequently seen a considerable drop in the ability of the Mini to handle wind when the battery drops below 50%, hence my warning here.  That's all this video is; helpful warnings to new flyers.
Ian

Because I forgot already to remove the camera protection,  I put up a "remove before flight" banner on it.
But overall tips!
Thx!

Ian in London Posted at 3-27 23:59
#4 Agree; especially driveways.  

#5  It's not a No.  If it's telling you to calibrate, then you have to recalibrate.  That may be due to proximity of metal but equally, it often asks to recalibrate when you've been driving to a new location as happens to me often.  I've just made it clear that metal will cause issues in #4.

#5  It's not a No.  If it's telling you to calibrate, then you have to recalibrate.  
No you don't.
If you think it's telling you to recalibrate, it probably isn't.

The poorly worded warning that scrolls across your screen says Move aircraft or calibrate compass.
But it's moving across the tiny window and because of the over-emphasis on (unnecessary) compass calibration in forums, many flyers think their drone is telling them that they need to recalibrate when all they need to do is move away from the problem that the compass is telling them about.

That may be due to proximity of metal but equally, it often asks to  recalibrate when you've been driving to a new location as happens to me  often.  I've just made it clear that metal will cause issues in #4
If you have a genuine issue that really requires recalibrating the compass (and that would be a very, very rare thing), and you move away, the compass would continue to warn you.
If you move away and the warning goes away, the problem is solved.

Just to complicate matters, DJI have caused some Mavic 2s (I don't know if  they did it to the Mini as well) to ask for recalibration after either 30 days from the last recalibration or travelling some distance from the last flight.

There is no physical reason that the compass needs recalibrating in these circumstances.
It just confuses users even more.

#21 - Voltage drop; this has been discussed plenty; the voltage does drop considerably as the battery drains, therefore to maintain constant power, the current must increase.  The increase in current is not unlimited and regardless will drain the battery even faster, dropping the voltage even faster and so the downward cycle accelerates in the lower battery percentages.   

I have frequently seen a considerable drop in the ability of the Mini to handle wind when the battery drops below 50%, hence my warning here.
Voltage drops .. that's how batteries work.
But the ability of the drone (if it's working properly), is not reduced.  It's easy to test that for your self.
But one of the Mini's fatal flaws is the pitch angle failing to be maintained which will cause the Mini to come back slowly.
This is a disastrous design fault (one of two) that affects some Mavic Minis.
It's disappointing that DJI have failed to do anything about it despite an abundance of evidence since the Mini was released.

If you want to see evidence of this (and you can read flight data) just look at the flight data from this flight:
https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=211423
Check the pitch angle data after 10:30 and you'll see it.

Informative video
But I don't think that indoor flying is dangerous for responsible MM fly more combo owner, even for beginner from my experience.

A great compilation ahaha

Labroides Posted at 3-28 01:36
#5  It's not a No.  If it's telling you to calibrate, then you have to recalibrate.  
No you don't.
If you think it's telling you to recalibrate, it probably isn't.

Voltage drops .. that's how batteries work.
But the ability of the drone (if it's working properly), is not reduced.  It's easy to test that for your self.
But one of the Mini's fatal flaws is the pitch angle failing to be maintained which will cause the Mini to come back slowly.

It doesn't make sense, if the performance is not reduced how can AC fail to maintain the pitch angle? As You need (more) motor revs for angle adjustment and motor revs are related to batt voltage available. The only other option would be that IMU "steps off the throttle" with no reason or ESC is overloaded or overheated. Both of these not very likely.

Ian in London Posted at 3-27 13:41
Apart from the 'Dover Incident', I too have only had the odd close call but no further issues!

Well, let's hope it will stay that way!

thanks for the sharing tips..

Nicely done - thanks again for sharing!

David Martin Graff Posted at 3-28 11:58
Nicely done - thanks again for sharing!

I agree, nicely done. Good info to keep in mind.

Very useful information for everyone using a drone, not just a Mini.

Thank You so much The most comprehensive TIPs video I've ever seen about droning

Great tips!

m80116 Posted at 3-28 15:39
Very useful information for everyone using a drone, not just a Mini.
Thank You so much  The most comprehensive TIPs video I've ever seen about droning

I'm learning to talk faster with each video.....

Speed the video up, pitch the tone down ;)

m80116 Posted at 3-29 03:50
Speed the video up, pitch the tone down ;)

I've actually seen some YouTubers do that, and they end up looking like they're on speed

BigBird-2 Posted at 3-28 14:34
I agree, nicely done. Good info to keep in mind.

You are right Big Bird 2