Hello. Yesterday, during the evening flying and video recording, I realized that the front signaling lights in my DJI Mini 3 Pro were turned off. After restarting the drone, everything returned to normal but then went out again. Latest software preloaded. Have any of you had a similar problem?

The lights turn off when recording.

jefish Posted at 7-7 22:37
The lights turn off when recording.

I thought about it too, but I didn't find anything about it in the manual. It's not entirely safe, is it?

Hi Robert Łabuz. Thank you for reaching DJI Forum. Please be advised that the front arm LEDs will automatically turns off when the aircraft is recording.

DJI Paladin Posted at 7-8 10:00
Hi Robert Łabuz. Thank you for reaching DJI Forum. Please be advised that the front arm LEDs will automatically turns off when the aircraft is recording.

Are there any plans to change that?
In European Union, it's currently (since the 1st of July) illegal* not to have the green lights on at night, and it's also impossible to attach an external light while maintaining the 249 g mass. Therefore, it's impossible to do any recording at night.

*UAS.OPEN.060 (2)(g) available here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- ... amp;from=EN#tocId34

There should be an option for the pilot to enable or disable them depending on the circumstances.

Harryscopic Posted at 7-8 10:33
There should be an option for the pilot to enable or disable them depending on the circumstances.

Exactly. I understand that when flying during the day the lights may be turned off, but flying at night without the lights is dangerous. I also understand that in extreme cases, filming at night with the lights on may have a negative impact on the recording of the material - light reflections may be recorded on the film. Therefore, the remote control should have a choice: turn it on or off.

Andreja Posted at 7-8 10:26
Are there any plans to change that?
In European Union, it's currently (since the 1st of July) illegal* not to have the green lights on at night, and it's also impossible to attach an external light while maintaining the 249 g mass. Therefore, it's impossible to do any recording at night.

why can't you get a super tiny green strobe light that you can stick on the top side of the drone at night?

Robert Łabuz Posted at 7-8 11:10
Exactly. I understand that when flying during the day the lights may be turned off, but flying at night without the lights is dangerous. I also understand that in extreme cases, filming at night with the lights on may have a negative impact on the recording of the material - light reflections may be recorded on the film. Therefore, the remote control should have a choice: turn it on or off.

apparently dji does not feel that it is dangerous to fly the drone at night with the front leds off when using the camera.  i tend to agree with this.  it's not ideal but i'm not ready to call it dangerous.  nothing about this drone is dangerous.

if the rules are such a stickler then you agree this "switch" should not be permitted to turn off the leds at night, right?

Luckily in the UK we haven't adopted that EU rule! But we can't add anything onto the weight of the drone at all without taking it outside the Sub250g category - which then makes it very difficult to fly in all the amazing places we can fly whilst in that category. it basically spoils the whole point of having the Mini 3 Pro. It totally makes sense to me that DJI should give an option under either camera or safety settings to always keep the green LED on during recording. It's very disconcerting when doing a night hyperlapse in town losing track of where the drone is - even when it's only 100m away.

HarleyFlyer Posted at 7-8 13:44
Luckily in the UK we haven't adopted that EU rule! But we can't add anything onto the weight of the drone at all without taking it outside the Sub250g category - which then makes it very difficult to fly in all the amazing places we can fly whilst in that category. it basically spoils the whole point of having the Mini 3 Pro. It totally makes sense to me that DJI should give an option under either camera or safety settings to always keep the green LED on during recording. It's very disconcerting when doing a night hyperlapse in town losing track of where the drone is - even when it's only 100m away.

if there is an option to turn the lights on when recording at night and you turned on green and your hyperlapse came out poorly, what would you do?  would it be better to have the green leds on the rear legs?

For those that dislike these LED's being off, try rigging up some similar DIY green LED's/lights in as close to the same locations as possible and then, without taking off, have the drone record some video.
Qu 1) Does the light from those LED's/lights add a colour cast to the image either directly or by reflection from what is in front of the drone?
Qu 2) With regards to being able to see the DJI LED's when they are lit, relative to the direction the drone is pointing from what angles can the LED's be seen? Asked another way, how close to having the drone point directly at you does the drone have to be in order for you to see the LED's?
If the drone is flying away from you, with its nose pointing in the direction of travel, I wouldn't mind betting the LED's are invisible to the pilot, similarily I'd bet there is a fair cone of angles within which teh LED's are invisible.
With regards to EU regulations and night flying, are such green lights meant to be visible
a) from all and every directions and
b) at what distance and
c) by whom?
BTW I agree that it would be better to be able to switch them on/off at your own choice, yet another loss to the 'improvments' that the FLY app offers over it predecessors.

i reported this as a bug more than a month ago, they've stated that it will be fixed in time to comply with eu law - i guess they have forgot ;-)

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 7-9 03:48
For those that dislike these LED's being off, try rigging up some similar DIY green LED's/lights in as close to the same locations as possible and then, without taking off, have the drone record some video.
Qu 1) Does the light from those LED's/lights add a colour cast to the image either directly or by reflection from what is in front of the drone?
Qu 2) With regards to being able to see the DJI LED's when they are lit, relative to the direction the drone is pointing from what angles can the LED's be seen? Asked another way, how close to having the drone point directly at you does the drone have to be in order for you to see the LED's?

ad2. they are visible - they are very bright but obviously not as where there are facing the pilot - do you even have the mini3pro? D

bxq Posted at 7-9 06:50 do you even have the mini3pro? D

Well....if I had a Mini 3 .......would I be asking the questions?
If I had a Mini 3 or had even flown one, for some strange reason I think I would know the answers?

The Saint Posted at 7-8 12:50
why can't you get a super tiny green strobe light that you can stick on the top side of the drone at night?

Well, here (unlike in the US), we need to have a light pointing downwards, since it's intended to be visible not to the other aircraft, but to the people on the ground.

I don't have all of my notes here at the moment (and I'm still waiting for my Mini 3 Pro to arrive) so some of this might not be 100% correct, but from what I've gathered, mass of the Mini 3 Pro is too high, and adding a light would bring it above 250 g.
We do have an exception here for drones without class Identification label, which can be up to 500 g, but it's currently valid until the end of the year (there were some talks of extending this to the end of 2023, but I'm not up to date with it).
Afterwards, it expires, and pre-classification drones would have to be below 250 g to fit the A1 operations, otherwise they're A3, and with this, we'd lose the benefits of having a small drone.

Now, sure, the chance of getting stopped by the "drone police" do seem to be low, but if something bad happens, this is providing room for the insurance not to cover any damages, and brings liability and so on, and is a lot of hassle, for what seems to be a software setting (I sure do hope that Mini 3 Pro can supply enough power for both camera and lights at the same time).

Andreja Posted at 7-9 09:59
Well, here (unlike in the US), we need to have a light pointing downwards, since it's intended to be visible not to the other aircraft, but to the people on the ground.

I don't have all of my notes here at the moment (and I'm still waiting for my Mini 3 Pro to arrive) so some of this might not be 100% correct, but from what I've gathered, mass of the Mini 3 Pro is too high, and adding a light would bring it above 250 g.

where does it say that, pointed to the ground?  did i miss that part of the "law?"

"when operating at night, ensure that a green flashing light on the unmanned aircraft is activated."

ok, so attach a tiny tiny light to the underside of the drone....c'mon you can do it, it's not hard.  if dji doesn't help you comply with the law, wouldnt you just go out and comply with the law yourself all on your own?  otherwise, you're not going to be able to fly the mini 3 at night, i guess.   maybe you can pack it in when darkness arrives, i dunno.

here's what i think:  if there isn't a strobe already available, this little surprise in the law will cause strobe-light manufacturers to make a green strobe that is suitable for the eu and keep your drone under 250g; it's 2022, do you think it can be done or not?

and why would you worry about a couple of g's?  you're not worried about a switch that can blackout the drone at night (which would obviously violate the silly eu law) so why care about a couple of g's?  c'mon, you are flying a 250g toy drone, what kind of damages and liability are we talking about?  a 248g drone practically does the same amount of damage as a 253g drone.   you're making this stuff up, there is no claim, and no insurance, and no damages aspect from a toy drone that ever happened....this is not an issue.  anytime the topic gets sticky, we fall back to the safety and privacy issues and drones wreaking havoc on the community answers, etc.  lol

btw, no disrespect to the eu but you guys have a law that sucks.  

The Saint Posted at 7-9 13:04
where does it say that, pointed to the ground?  did i miss that part of the "law?"

"when operating at night, ensure that a green flashing light on the unmanned aircraft is activated."

"where does it say that, pointed to the ground?  did i miss that part of the "law?"
Welcome to the beauty of EU laws! What I quoted was the "law" which governs responsibilities of the drone operator. There's another "law", which covers the responsibilities of the drone manufacturer, and here's a relevant quote from there:
PART 2
Requirements for a class C1 Unmanned aircraft system
A class C1 UAS shall comply with the following:
(16) be equipped:
(a) with lights for the purpose of controllability of the UA; and
(b) with at least one green flashing light for the purpose of conspicuity of the UA at night to allow a person on the ground to distinguish the UA from a manned aircraft;
Here's the rest of it, for your reading pleasure:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- ... 55052244276&from=EN

Now, DJI is aiming at class C0 with the DJI Mini 3 Pro, which under its requirements doesn't list lights, but if I use a drone at night, I still must ensure that it does have the green light. So, without use of internal lights, I can't use Mini 3 Pro at night.


Now, about strobes, well, "it's the current year" isn't an argument.
A better argument would be the state of the art which we have. If the Mini 3 Pro is 248 g (and some YouTube videos show it to be), and I add the mandatory metallic label with my operator ID to it, and the SD card, well, that leaves me with say 1 gram of mass for the strobe. Now, I could make a PCB with an LED on it and have its mass be lower than i 1 g, but I don't see any user-accessible points for the power supply, and I looking at the mass of batteries and super-capacitors, I also don't see anything that would fit and at the same time have long enough capacity for one whole battery of the drone (and if you do know of something, please do let me know, I'd love to see it).

For the tangent about liability, well, first of all, "realistic" cases don't really matter all that much. Powers that are decided how things need to work.
For unrealistic cases, well, we have a concept of inherently risky activity here, and we need to get an insurance against it as well (and in Germany, where I am, insurance is needed in all cases).

Here's a quick scenario which might sound contrived, but could happen: I'm flying a drone in a area where it is legal to fly, and a person is walking by at some distance. A bird attacks my drone, gets hit by propeller blade, and a small fragment of the blade breaks off and hits the bystander in the eye. Health insurance will probably try to recover the costs of the treatment from me, and if the person is working, the employer might even try to recover its losses from me.
Even if there's no actual injury, I might still get hit: If the person goes to do a medical check, and calls in sick that day, it would still cause losses. Of course, that's all if we assume that the person involved isn't actively trying to overstate its injury, which might happen.

About the "toy" comment. No, it's not a toy, because it doesn't fulfill the requirements of the toys regulation, so it's not an intentional toy, and market surveillance bodies haven't decided to classify it as a toy, so it's not an unintentional toy. If it were a toy, paperwork here would be a bit simpler (you don't need to register as a drone operator for a toy).  

I do understand that you're trying to use these things called "common sense" and being realistic and so on, but they don't really apply here. There's most likely no particular reason why 250 g was chosen as the cut-off and not 256 g (which is a nice round number) or 300 g, or 245 g or whatever else.


Finally, I do agree that the regulations here do look like they suck.

Andreja Posted at 7-9 14:46
"where does it say that, pointed to the ground?  did i miss that part of the "law?"
Welcome to the beauty of EU laws! What I quoted was the "law" which governs responsibilities of the drone operator. There's another "law", which covers the responsibilities of the drone manufacturer, and here's a relevant quote from there:
PART 2

ok you probably should stop flying drones in your country.  is there some other way to entertain or recreate that isn't overly regulated or so risky...like maybe you should get into flying kites or something similar?  none of those laws say or mean what you think they say but even so, if the average citizen doesn't know what to make out of it, they would be discouraged.  i guess flying drones in your country is not like it is in other free countries.

@The Saint, A man whose sentence you don't understand? Stop fooling around already! You do not understand that when flying in the EU, the drone must be equipped with lighting, and if you want to fly it freely, its weight must not exceed 250g, so you will not attach anything to it. Therefore, DJI should modify its firmware. EOT

relevant video starts at the 12 min mark and the police encounter starts at 19:30

Andreja Posted at 7-8 10:26
Are there any plans to change that?
In European Union, it's currently (since the 1st of July) illegal* not to have the green lights on at night, and it's also impossible to attach an external light while maintaining the 249 g mass. Therefore, it's impossible to do any recording at night.

Thank you for your response. We will forward this to our designated team for attention. Thank you for your valued support!

DJI Paladin Posted at 2022-7-17 04:02
Thank you for your response. We will forward this to our designated team for attention. Thank you for your valued support!

Did this ever get resolved?  It would be useful to have lights on at night (for orientation and location even if not required by law), be sub 250g and be able to record.

djiuser_yxyMQgFjDaOP Posted at 5-31 11:58
Did this ever get resolved?  It would be useful to have lights on at night (for orientation and location even if not required by law), be sub 250g and be able to record.

I second that!