Many of the folks who blame it on Litchi are forgetting about the wind. For example if you have the mission set at 22 MPH cruise speed and it's flying into a 10 MPH headwind it will only go about 12 MPH. So they plan long missions that are too long and when it gets to low battery it goes into RTH (regardless if you have connection or not) and at 10%-12% it will go into landing mode and land where it is. If you're lucky you will have data connection almost to the ground (but maybe not video) so it will send the data back to the phone or tablet and you can bring it up on your computer, find the GPS coordinates and walk right to it. I keep the missions around a max of 18 minutes to make sure I have enough reserve battery power.
Thanks, I fly 100% with LItchi and only use Go to check for updates and for some of the setting that you can't do on Litchi. Go doesn't like my Note 4 at all and on my Shield tablet it isn't dependable and decides to crash at the wrong times. Not often but enough times that I just don't trust it. Litchi (knock on wood) never crashes but I found a little trick to clear everything out from the background. I use the "Shut App" to close everything down, then close Shut app and reboot the tablet. After it restarts I run Shut App again just to be sure. Finally, I Start a Screen Recorder app, and then start Litchi. Haven't had one crash since doing this. One thing I found is that if you shut down the Shield after running a bunch of apps when you restart those same apps are running in the background. That's why I make sure to close all background apps before I shutdown and reboot the Shield.
What kind of battery life are you getting with the Shield. I noticed after flying with 3 batteries the charge level is down to below 60%. And for some reason it uses power faster than it can be charged when it is on. But today I received a "Anker PowerCore Speed 20000 QC, Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 Portable Charger" (from Amazon) and tried it while flying and it only went down to 79% so it helped quite a bit. I wonder if my battery may be getting old in the Shield? For example if you are setting up Litchi missions in the house before you fly then go out to fly you may be down to 80% or lower before you start flying. Not good. That's why I bought that Anker PowerCore thing.
This is not true when using waypoint missions the only time this is in play is when the drone doesn't have the power i.e. speed to overcome a headwind to maintain mission set speeds. When you set a speed of say 15mph and you have a 10mph headwind your phantom drone will still travel at 15mph not 5mph since it has the power to overcome the 10mph headwind. This headwind will not have an impact on the time of the mission but it will have an impact on the battery as it has to use more battery to overcome the headwind to maintain missions spec speeds but you are correct that if you set your mission too long it can end badly but not due to not maintaining speed but instead running out of battery to soon. I tend to never send my drone on a mission more then 15-16 minutes which in most cases even with a moderate 5-10mph headwinds it still has the extra battery reserve to complete the mission even when headwinds are taken into consideration I always try in most cases to make the last waypoint back by the takeoff point anyway which negates most wind considerations as only half your mission will be into a headwind and the other half you will have a tailwind making all things equal in most cases
Great video dude! I did my first waypoint mission in the Netherlands today only my course was waaay too big. With only 30% battery left I ran like a rabbit towards my Phantom to bring it down safely. This video showed me that I don't need to worry as long as I got enough gas in the tank ;)
v1ce21 Ok, I'm glad you were able to get it back. I don't recommend flying it to the limit of the battery but if you must, just keep an eye on it. Good luck and I'll be watching for your future vids!
Very informative demo. Nice to see it actually do what it says it can do, which is to complete the mission if signal lost. One of the great things about Litchi that convinced me to buy it was the fact that it can do it's own screen recording on my iPad Pro. I was going nuts trying to find a screen recorder but Apple prevents that from happening with mot of the screen recorder apps out there. And I don't have a Mac laptop to use the air play mirror method. BTW, good job CYA with all the safety precautions and disclaimers!
yes only had 3 flights seen lots about litchi and thought give it a try I know you can do similar with dji go app but to sit back at home on pc and do the missions sounds just what I was looking for.
Great job - THANKS! Now, for me to get over the FEAR of installing Litchi - Love the great features that DJI Go just can't do, but have read too many horror stories about conflicts, incompatibilities, disconnected states, and weak signal in the forums. Not looking for perfection, just don't want to booger things up.
AerialLensVideo Start with small missions at first to get a feel for it. Always make sure to go into your app settings and make sure DJI Go isn't running in the background before flying with litchi. It's good practice to close all other apps too.
Thank you! How about if I use a different tablet (or phone) from the one that has DJI Go (yes, even though DJI Go would be completely stopped and cleared for defaults)? In other words, would it be beneficial to use a "dedicated" tablet or phone just for Litchi and another just for DJI Go, or is that even possible??? I read on the Litchi site that their App has to check-in with DJI Servers or something crazy. What on Earth are they talking about there?
+AerialLensVideo when you open litchi for the first time on any Android (I'm not sure if this applies to Apple products) the Go app has to be installed and Litchi will sync with the DJI servers to verify everything. After it does that you can delete Go and use litchi only on that device. If it gives you an error message saying it cannot verify then you will have to use a different WiFi location, if your device has its own 4g connection it should push everything through right away. What device will you be using?
That actually explains a lot - even a new discovery I just found (below). I have always used with great success on DJI Go, my Android tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4. So at present, Litchi is NOT onboard...yet. So, as an experiment today, I downloaded the newest Litchi 3.10.6 from the Google Play store onto my PHONE only to see what might happen; there has never been a DJI Go app on the phone, a slightly older but pretty up to date (Android 4.4.2 same as tablet) Galaxy S3. The weird thing is that not all the main settings are there to be adjusted (ex. no signal lost behavior setting at all, and RTH altitude will not let you do any change - says N/A). Perhaps this is because the Litchi sees no evidence of DJI? To that point, how can Litchi detect a turned-off DJI Go initially anyway. A bit confused here.
AerialLensVideo Ok..... lol, let's try to get this resolved. So you want to run Litchi on one device and Go on another that way you won't have to deal with the conflict between the two apps. Step 1: Make sure dji go IS installed on the device you're wanting to use Litchi with. 2: Install Litchi on device and open it 3: After starting Litchi look to the top-left hand side of the screen where it says "Fpv" and click that 4: Look to the far right on the row of options that pop up after clicking FPV, you will see either your name or "sign in" 5: If your name is there you should be ready to go, if it shows "sign in" then all you have to do is sign in and you'll be ready to use Litchi 6: Uninstall the Go app The RTH/signal lost setting should show up once you connect the aircraft to your device. So check that before takeoff while it's warming the imu. Let me know if that helps.
Great. Video! Seeing it not connected , but it flying fine helped. I really love this app for Waypoint missions !! As long as you pay attention to the details, you can really make amazing videos simply ! This app is the BEST tool for Waypoint flying period. I love your house and that area I'd be out there everyday playing, learning.
Interesting and valuable info Z many thanks. So... fundamental difference between DJI in FPV Mode, if you turn off transmitter it will RTH. With the waypoint app on Litchi it just carries on like a soldier till it's completed its mission. I turned mine off today in DJI FPV and it RTH. Now I have to try your method in Litchi, I have both apps on my tablet. It's a good exercise to practice these things when you are in control and not on the day when you go into panic mode!
Jason Jensen Thanks but remember this isn't a method to use for normal flights. This is just to show that you shouldn't freak out if connection is lost during a waypoint flight.
The thing to be careful about is if you lose signal while in orbit mode. Because there is no programmed end to an orbit mission, it will just continue to orbit until it gets to critical battery level, and then just land wherever it happens to be. A bad situation if you're orbiting a ship wreck over water, or over some other hostile terrain.
In fairness if you're going to fly over water you're better of having manual control. I just wouldn't trust automatic waypoints and orbiting settings over water.
Mr J I totally understand that it can be difficult to put that kind of trust into a $20 app that's flying your $500-$1000+ quadcopter over water. I was a nervous wreck when I started using Litchi. If you take the time to practice with it you'll start to get comfortable and learn the limits of what you can do. I've flown several WP missions over water, even lower altitudes without a hitch (check out my new bass fishing vid to see an example). Like always, if trouble is coming just flip the switch back into ATTI or GPS mode and you will have complete control again. I'm not a big fan of orbit mode so I probably won't be trying it over water. If I want to orbit something stationary in the water ie; docks, trees, anything visible from satellite view, I'd just program it in while drawing out the WP flight path. That way you'll still have the end action of the WP mission and still get the orbit in there.
First I'm a huge fan of Litchi and the Phantom 3 Standard! I downgraded to Litchi 3.10.10 and the P3S down to 1.05 FW so I could use a 1gb tablet, the way it was made when brand new. No more updates for me! (turned off in Google Play) They just screw everything up! It all works perfectly now! Oh duh I did come in here for a reason .... :) How did you change the font on the Litchi app?
Darn, nope just for font size. Oh well one of these days I may buy a more expensive tablet when I buy a P4P in the far future. My wife doesn't like me spending my money on toys, but she doesn't know about the ebay auctions .... ;)
Duane Morris heard that! I'm shopping for a P4 right now.. Looking like the P4 Advanced is the way to go for my needs. Has the same camera & battery as the pro but less obstacle avoidance sensors. Several hundred bucks cheaper than the pro.
You can start and stop video recording on each wAypoint. You can tell it to hover for x seconds. You can tell it to take a picture. Turn x degrees & take another picture,etc.
One thing that does NOT work when there's no connection with Litchi is Gimbal Pitch, those continuous calculations are done by the smart device. You can clearly see this in the video, Default Gimbal Pitch Mode is set to Focus POI (the 2 houses), but they get out of the frame. Gimbal pitch stays the same the whole mission after disconnection.
vhs opdvd You're absolutely correct. I was demonstrating that if signal is lost, there's no need to freak out. There's another youtuber that totally lost his crap when trying to do a waypoint mission and ended up doing the CSC command for no reason, trashed his phantom, then blamed Litchi. All I was trying to show is the software is good and the calmer you are the better off you'll be. But as far as the gimbal goes it does lock pitch when signal is lost.
Nice video man. Litchi gets a bad rap but most of the crashes are due to improper waypoint altitude when they are setting up the mission (from what I've seen).
William Ball go to the 2:45 mark on this vid ---> ruclips.net/video/esBLi_IjfTs/видео.html I just opened Litchi to look for that but I don't think signal lost setting shows up if the phantom is not connected.
D B biking Thanks! I suppose it could do the Fly-away thing if it losses all satellites.. I've seen the satellite count go down to around 6 but never less than that while in flight. The most likely thing to happen would be it losses a handful of satellites which would cause the flight path accuracy to be off just a little bit.
good to know. but what when it will not gain re-connection? If the bat hit critical battery level with no control . will it trigger RTH or LAND at that point ?
Michal Szwed I'm sorry, I see what you're asking now.. Critical battery level.. I honestly don't know but I would assume that it would land or attempt RTH, even if the mission isn't complete. You might have to use the GO App to make sure all those battery RTH settings are set correctly before using Litchi. The best thing to do is test your flight times and look at what kind of distances you can achieve on a battery. That will give you an idea of how big you can make your mission. The total time and distance won't be the same for every flight because of winds and other weather conditions but you should get an idea of safe distances.
+3D Printwiz Yes, all the waypoint info is uploaded to the drone before the mission starts. So as long as it doesn't fly into something or run out of battery it should finish.
Cool take-off pad. I know the tripod is mostly aluminum but does the metal parts give you any compass errors? How did you attach the board to the tripod?
Harold Rosee yeah, I only have one battery.. you could use Velcro straps going through the cardboard, attached to the milk crate and have it to where the battery is standing up in the center of one of the walls.
I can't imagine only having 1 battery but you gotta start somewhere. Great videos here on youtube. I have subscribed to you channel and will be watching for new videos. Thanks again.
Louis Whetsell If the Litchi app runs fine with Go still installed then it's not necessary to uninstall it. If the Litchi app is crashing and acting buggy then you might have to uninstall go. I use the Nvidia Shield K1 and LG G4 to fly.. Both devices have Go and Litchi installed. As long as I don't open the go app before I try to fly with Litchi both devices work fine, but if I accidentally open go or if I have to use Go to adjust something like gimbal roll (not an option in Litchi btw) what I have to do is go into my phone settings, app settings, force close DJI Go, restart the device, then Litchi usually works fine. If it's still acting up I'll repeat the process until it works. I don't have to do all that very often but it does happen from time to time.
What will happen if the controller battery dies instead, will it just hover above the last waypoint, until the battery dies in the Phantom and then will it return to home and land ? Thanks for great video
greenraydaz It depends on what lost signal action is selected in the settings. Watch again from 9:20 to 9:51.. You will notice it turns to face the direction of the home point, it starts climbing to RTH altitude then starts to head home. You can hear the remote beeping indicating there's no connection between the two. Once the connection is restored the phantom recognized that it was in GPS or atti mode. That's when it stopped and I took over the controls. To answer your question.. Say I had left the remote turned off, it would have come back to the home point and landed by itself. BUT that's only because I have RTH selected in the settings.
When the Litchi mission start button is pressed, the mission uploads to the drone and it controls itself from there, right? You can interrupt that control but that what is happening? I was flying this mission when it disconnected just after takeoff and it finished the mission and returned to home, I then manually flew it around for a minute and landed it. I thought I only lost the video feed, in the direct sun it is very hard to even see the ipad screen. ruclips.net/video/yubfg6GFngI/видео.html
Question. If you do loose signal on a waypoint I know it'll finish and return to home but will it still take photos and videos and save them on the card? And by ur map it looks like your in East Texas.
Shawn Gross yes, I am in et. It'll still record vid but the gimbal pitch up and down will not work. It'll still face towards poi's but won't focus on them. As far as pics go I'm not sure if it will snap them.
Was this done on an Android? I'm going to Scotland in a week and trying to decide if I can leave my Mac at home and just have my Google Pixel XL. It's pretty nerve-racking to be without a computer.
Thats all fine as long as you are cruising in flat surroundings, but I am living in mountain area and lost my Mavic today. The altitude given for WP in Google earth was 50 meters too low, it got disconnected and landed in a tree. Unreachable in rocky terrain, the mountain rescue brought her back with all 4 props broken, otherwise undamaged. DO NOT trust Google Earths altitude settings!
Rudi Bacher Sorry to hear about the Mavic. I haven't tried google earth but have seen a few how-to's on it.. Google may know roundabout elevations but it won't be 100% correct for a while. I'd say for situations where elevation changes rapidly it would be best to pick a certain takeoff point and do a manual fly over to gauge what elevation you need to set.
Stuart Craig Ok, so based off the info you told me your phantom is lost, it's been 45min, and it could be at burger king... Taking a guess here, did you attempt to do a waypoint mission and now the phantom is gone?? If so what altitude was set for the mission, what was the total distance of the mission, what was the cruising speed you had set, have you calibrated the compass and IMU recently, did you have the signal loss action set (RTH, hover, do nothing), if you had it set to RTH what is the RTH altitude set at, did you check flight restrictions for your area before flying, what type of weather were you flying in (cloud cover and wind speed), did you take off near any large metallic objects, have you done a firmware update on the phantom recently, and so on... There's a lot of variables here so the more info you can tell me the better I'll be able to help you. I can't read minds bud.
Its funny because i was planning to do a waypoint mission from my house to my girlfriends which is located near a burger king, also just funny how you worded it, NOT funny that you lost your phantom :( sad times bud, I've lost a few drones in my time and won't be trying that mission because of this comment! however it aint Zachs fault, he didn't make you undertake the flight, user is responsible for all outcomes of any flight made. but seriously, your burger king comment makes me chuckle every time i read it.....
Alex MH I'm guessing this guy didn't take the time to set the altitude correctly. 90% cause of all Litchi failure if I had to guess. All he had to do was follow my workflow and he would have been good to go. But like many other things in life, people try to run marathons before they can crawl then get pissed at the folks who are trying to show them the correct way to do it. Look at his channel, he's been flying for a month or two...... Litchi is good for people who are already proficient with the DJI Go app and want a little more autonomous control.
Well....I had a Fly Away on my Phantom 4 Pro very shortly after initiating an Orbit Mission. Started to initiate the Orbit and then disappeared. I used Google Earth to locate the last reported spot and nothing there. I called DJI because I have DJI care and it seemed to me that something went wrong, with drone hardware/software or Litchi. DJI said because Litchi is a Third Party Product, they would not honor any claim. THANK GOODNESS I had State Farm, Personal Property Insurance. They paid the full cost of a new replacement in ONE DAY, (drone only) which I bought from Advexure, near LA. They shipped it out to me within 30 minutes of ordering. Lesson for the day, if you want DJI Care or Warranty Support, do NOT use a 3rd Party App !
Sandy Schupper Sorry to hear that. Litchi did send out an email recently explaining that some modes wouldn't work properly on certain models and to be patient while DJI sorts out their end of the software. Not trying to have Litchi's back here but sending out an email about a known software issue is a lot more than DJI does.. DJI will release a faulty update then scramble to patch and release another one without informing the customers anything. Did you tell DJI that you were using Litchi?? I've sent my p3s in 3 or 4 times for warranty repairs.. All I use is Litchi and DJI has said nothing about it.
Yes of course I told them, they would have known from the log data. But DJI did an update that after the "Litchi problem" that corrected the "doesn't work with Litchi in all modes" issues...I'm not going to use any third party products any more. Really no need.
Sandy Schupper I hear ya and I don't blame you at all. Pretty sure the Go app has an orbit mode so you will still be able to do that. Sorry again about your P4. Thank goodness insurance covered it.
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Many of the folks who blame it on Litchi are forgetting about the wind. For example if you have the mission set at 22 MPH cruise speed and it's flying into a 10 MPH headwind it will only go about 12 MPH. So they plan long missions that are too long and when it gets to low battery it goes into RTH (regardless if you have connection or not) and at 10%-12% it will go into landing mode and land where it is. If you're lucky you will have data connection almost to the ground (but maybe not video) so it will send the data back to the phone or tablet and you can bring it up on your computer, find the GPS coordinates and walk right to it. I keep the missions around a max of 18 minutes to make sure I have enough reserve battery power.
Jerry Ellis Best comment so far! You are correct sir. Happy flyin'
Thanks, I fly 100% with LItchi and only use Go to check for updates and for some of the setting that you can't do on Litchi. Go doesn't like my Note 4 at all and on my Shield tablet it isn't dependable and decides to crash at the wrong times. Not often but enough times that I just don't trust it. Litchi (knock on wood) never crashes but I found a little trick to clear everything out from the background. I use the "Shut App" to close everything down, then close Shut app and reboot the tablet. After it restarts I run Shut App again just to be sure. Finally, I Start a Screen Recorder app, and then start Litchi. Haven't had one crash since doing this.
One thing I found is that if you shut down the Shield after running a bunch of apps when you restart those same apps are running in the background. That's why I make sure to close all background apps before I shutdown and reboot the Shield.
What kind of battery life are you getting with the Shield. I noticed after flying with 3 batteries the charge level is down to below 60%. And for some reason it uses power faster than it can be charged when it is on. But today I received a "Anker PowerCore Speed 20000 QC, Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 Portable Charger" (from Amazon) and tried it while flying and it only went down to 79% so it helped quite a bit. I wonder if my battery may be getting old in the Shield? For example if you are setting up Litchi missions in the house before you fly then go out to fly you may be down to 80% or lower before you start flying. Not good. That's why I bought that Anker PowerCore thing.
This is not true when using waypoint missions
the only time this is in play is when the drone doesn't have the power i.e. speed to overcome a headwind to maintain mission set speeds. When you set a speed of say 15mph and you have a 10mph headwind your phantom drone will still travel at 15mph not 5mph since it has the power to overcome the 10mph headwind. This headwind will not have an impact on the time of the mission but it will have an impact on the battery as it has to use more battery to overcome the headwind to maintain missions spec speeds
but you are correct that if you set your mission too long it can end badly but not due to not maintaining speed but instead running out of battery to soon.
I tend to never send my drone on a mission more then 15-16 minutes which
in most cases even with a moderate 5-10mph headwinds it still has the extra battery reserve to complete the mission even when headwinds are taken into consideration
I always try in most cases to make the last waypoint back by the takeoff point anyway which negates most wind considerations as only half your mission will be into a headwind and the other half you will have a tailwind making all things equal in most cases
You might be right using a Phantom but that's not the case with my Mavic Pro. The wind does affect the Litchi mission speed.
Great video dude! I did my first waypoint mission in the Netherlands today only my course was waaay too big. With only 30% battery left I ran like a rabbit towards my Phantom to bring it down safely. This video showed me that I don't need to worry as long as I got enough gas in the tank ;)
v1ce21 what was the total distance of the mission?
Didnt now how far but the time it would take was around 18 minutes with less than 70% on my battery level
v1ce21 Ok, I'm glad you were able to get it back. I don't recommend flying it to the limit of the battery but if you must, just keep an eye on it. Good luck and I'll be watching for your future vids!
Very informative demo. Nice to see it actually do what it says it can do, which is to complete the mission if signal lost. One of the great things about Litchi that convinced me to buy it was the fact that it can do it's own screen recording on my iPad Pro. I was going nuts trying to find a screen recorder but Apple prevents that from happening with mot of the screen recorder apps out there. And I don't have a Mac laptop to use the air play mirror method. BTW, good job CYA with all the safety precautions and disclaimers!
you put faith back in litchi as I was going to forget purchasing it I'm now going to buy it tomorrow thanks for great video.
barry osmo will you be using a p3 standard?
yes only had 3 flights seen lots about litchi and thought give it a try I know you can do similar with dji go app but to sit back at home on pc and do the missions sounds just what I was looking for.
barry osmo Litchi definitely opens up more possibilities for the Standard. Planning waypoints ahead of time is very nice compared to the Go app.
Great job - THANKS! Now, for me to get over the FEAR of installing Litchi - Love the great features that DJI Go just can't do, but have read too many horror stories about conflicts, incompatibilities, disconnected states, and weak signal in the forums. Not looking for perfection, just don't want to booger things up.
AerialLensVideo Start with small missions at first to get a feel for it. Always make sure to go into your app settings and make sure DJI Go isn't running in the background before flying with litchi. It's good practice to close all other apps too.
Thank you! How about if I use a different tablet (or phone) from the one that has DJI Go (yes, even though DJI Go would be completely stopped and cleared for defaults)? In other words, would it be beneficial to use a "dedicated" tablet or phone just for Litchi and another just for DJI Go, or is that even possible??? I read on the Litchi site that their App has to check-in with DJI Servers or something crazy. What on Earth are they talking about there?
+AerialLensVideo when you open litchi for the first time on any Android (I'm not sure if this applies to Apple products) the Go app has to be installed and Litchi will sync with the DJI servers to verify everything. After it does that you can delete Go and use litchi only on that device. If it gives you an error message saying it cannot verify then you will have to use a different WiFi location, if your device has its own 4g connection it should push everything through right away.
What device will you be using?
That actually explains a lot - even a new discovery I just found (below). I have always used with great success on DJI Go, my Android tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4. So at present, Litchi is NOT onboard...yet. So, as an experiment today, I downloaded the newest Litchi 3.10.6 from the Google Play store onto my PHONE only to see what might happen; there has never been a DJI Go app on the phone, a slightly older but pretty up to date (Android 4.4.2 same as tablet) Galaxy S3.
The weird thing is that not all the main settings are there to be adjusted (ex. no signal lost behavior setting at all, and RTH altitude will not let you do any change - says N/A). Perhaps this is because the Litchi sees no evidence of DJI? To that point, how can Litchi detect a turned-off DJI Go initially anyway. A bit confused here.
AerialLensVideo Ok..... lol, let's try to get this resolved. So you want to run Litchi on one device and Go on another that way you won't have to deal with the conflict between the two apps.
Step 1: Make sure dji go IS installed on the device you're wanting to use Litchi with.
2: Install Litchi on device and open it
3: After starting Litchi look to the top-left hand side of the screen where it says "Fpv" and click that
4: Look to the far right on the row of options that pop up after clicking FPV, you will see either your name or "sign in"
5: If your name is there you should be ready to go, if it shows "sign in" then all you have to do is sign in and you'll be ready to use Litchi
6: Uninstall the Go app
The RTH/signal lost setting should show up once you connect the aircraft to your device. So check that before takeoff while it's warming the imu.
Let me know if that helps.
Great. Video! Seeing it not connected , but it flying fine helped. I really love this app for Waypoint missions !! As long as you pay attention to the details, you can really make amazing videos simply ! This app is the BEST tool for Waypoint flying period. I love your house and that area I'd be out there everyday playing, learning.
thanks for taking the time....bought litchi 12 months ago and never used it..i will get on it this weekend
+Gareth Rogers what drone will you be using with it?
Great, enjoyable and instructive. Thanks!
Interesting and valuable info Z many thanks. So... fundamental difference between DJI in FPV Mode, if you turn off transmitter it will RTH. With the waypoint app on Litchi it just carries on like a soldier till it's completed its mission. I turned mine off today in DJI FPV and it RTH. Now I have to try your method in Litchi, I have both apps on my tablet. It's a good exercise to practice these things when you are in control and not on the day when you go into panic mode!
Ian McKay exactly, thanks for the comment! Fly safe
This really cool. Thanks for the demo and the explanation. Can't wait to try this.
Jason Jensen Thanks but remember this isn't a method to use for normal flights. This is just to show that you shouldn't freak out if connection is lost during a waypoint flight.
Understood. Thanks.
I love Litchi waypoints, cheers for the video, happy flying
The thing to be careful about is if you lose signal while in orbit mode. Because there is no programmed end to an orbit mission, it will just continue to orbit until it gets to critical battery level, and then just land wherever it happens to be.
A bad situation if you're orbiting a ship wreck over water, or over some other hostile terrain.
In fairness if you're going to fly over water you're better of having manual control. I just wouldn't trust automatic waypoints and orbiting settings over water.
Mr J I totally understand that it can be difficult to put that kind of trust into a $20 app that's flying your $500-$1000+ quadcopter over water. I was a nervous wreck when I started using Litchi. If you take the time to practice with it you'll start to get comfortable and learn the limits of what you can do. I've flown several WP missions over water, even lower altitudes without a hitch (check out my new bass fishing vid to see an example). Like always, if trouble is coming just flip the switch back into ATTI or GPS mode and you will have complete control again.
I'm not a big fan of orbit mode so I probably won't be trying it over water. If I want to orbit something stationary in the water ie; docks, trees, anything visible from satellite view, I'd just program it in while drawing out the WP flight path. That way you'll still have the end action of the WP mission and still get the orbit in there.
nice man. sweet spread you got. i was born in nebraska. can appreciate that. i grew up in town though. in colorado last 20 years. great video
ShutterMafia right on, thanks.
Nice video. Well done.
First I'm a huge fan of Litchi and the Phantom 3 Standard! I downgraded to Litchi 3.10.10 and the P3S down to 1.05 FW so I could use a 1gb tablet, the way it was made when brand new. No more updates for me! (turned off in Google Play) They just screw everything up! It all works perfectly now!
Oh duh I did come in here for a reason .... :)
How did you change the font on the Litchi app?
Duane Morris just used a different font in the phone's display settings.
Oh, well that seems easy, but will it work on a tablet? I'll have to find out, since I love playing with technology! (wife hates that about me, LOL!)
Duane Morris it should be the same as a smartphone.. Settings>display>fonts.
Darn, nope just for font size. Oh well one of these days I may buy a more expensive tablet when I buy a P4P in the far future. My wife doesn't like me spending my money on toys, but she doesn't know about the ebay auctions .... ;)
Duane Morris heard that! I'm shopping for a P4 right now.. Looking like the P4 Advanced is the way to go for my needs. Has the same camera & battery as the pro but less obstacle avoidance sensors. Several hundred bucks cheaper than the pro.
You can start and stop video recording on each wAypoint. You can tell it to hover for x seconds. You can tell it to take a picture. Turn x degrees & take another picture,etc.
If the app is off, or on, either way...does the drone still RTH automatically at critical battery level with Litchi?
Great video. Very clearly explained.
One thing that does NOT work when there's no connection with Litchi is Gimbal Pitch, those continuous calculations are done by the smart device.
You can clearly see this in the video, Default Gimbal Pitch Mode is set to Focus POI (the 2 houses), but they get out of the frame. Gimbal pitch stays the same the whole mission after disconnection.
vhs opdvd You're absolutely correct. I was demonstrating that if signal is lost, there's no need to freak out. There's another youtuber that totally lost his crap when trying to do a waypoint mission and ended up doing the CSC command for no reason, trashed his phantom, then blamed Litchi. All I was trying to show is the software is good and the calmer you are the better off you'll be. But as far as the gimbal goes it does lock pitch when signal is lost.
how to remove any sort of doubts... great, thanks man
Nice post. Thanks
Nice video man. Litchi gets a bad rap but most of the crashes are due to improper waypoint altitude when they are setting up the mission (from what I've seen).
+NC Quad Pilot you are correct sir
Would you mind if I put a link to this video on phantompilots.com forum. I think some of the guys over there might enjoy it.
NC Quad Pilot that's fine.
its best to make missions thru google maps and convert into litchi. it will give you a visual flight path
Can you elaborate please Stuart?
Wow thank you very much for this Video. I have one more question. Is it possible to tell the drone to land in the last waypoint?
Talha Sariyürek Thanks for watching! That is not something you can program into the mission.
I see that you set the lat waypoint to finish at first waypoint. But where did you set the "lost signal" setting to RTH?
William Ball go to the 2:45 mark on this vid ---> ruclips.net/video/esBLi_IjfTs/видео.html I just opened Litchi to look for that but I don't think signal lost setting shows up if the phantom is not connected.
William Ball *it will only go into the preferred lost signal action once the mission is completed*
Mine lost connection in dji and I had to turn the radio off and RTH kicked in
Good vid what happens if u lose signal and then lose satellite
D B biking Thanks! I suppose it could do the Fly-away thing if it losses all satellites.. I've seen the satellite count go down to around 6 but never less than that while in flight. The most likely thing to happen would be it losses a handful of satellites which would cause the flight path accuracy to be off just a little bit.
good to know. but what when it will not gain re-connection? If the bat hit critical battery level with no control . will it trigger RTH or LAND at that point ?
It depends.. If you have it set to RTH it will attempt to come back and land where it took-off from. If you have it set to land, it will land.
so this is a option to set in litchi_app no matter if its in a mission or not and if it has signal or not ?
Michal Szwed I'm sorry, I see what you're asking now.. Critical battery level.. I honestly don't know but I would assume that it would land or attempt RTH, even if the mission isn't complete. You might have to use the GO App to make sure all those battery RTH settings are set correctly before using Litchi.
The best thing to do is test your flight times and look at what kind of distances you can achieve on a battery. That will give you an idea of how big you can make your mission. The total time and distance won't be the same for every flight because of winds and other weather conditions but you should get an idea of safe distances.
so even though it lost its signal, it will still finish the set waypoints?
+3D Printwiz Yes, all the waypoint info is uploaded to the drone before the mission starts. So as long as it doesn't fly into something or run out of battery it should finish.
what version of the lichthy app do you recommend to buy with the dji mavic pro
Luis Franco its just the Litchi app in the app store. "Litchi for DJI drones"
Cool take-off pad. I know the tripod is mostly aluminum but does the metal parts give you any compass errors? How did you attach the board to the tripod?
Thanks, That was exactly what I was looking for. I like you crate setup but I didn't see where there was any room to carry extra batteries.
Harold Rosee yeah, I only have one battery.. you could use Velcro straps going through the cardboard, attached to the milk crate and have it to where the battery is standing up in the center of one of the walls.
Harold Rosee thanks for the questions by the way. Happy flyin'!
I can't imagine only having 1 battery but you gotta start somewhere. Great videos here on youtube. I have subscribed to you channel and will be watching for new videos. Thanks again.
Harold Rosee right on, thanks man
should you unistall dgi go if you purchase the litchi app
Louis Whetsell If the Litchi app runs fine with Go still installed then it's not necessary to uninstall it. If the Litchi app is crashing and acting buggy then you might have to uninstall go. I use the Nvidia Shield K1 and LG G4 to fly.. Both devices have Go and Litchi installed. As long as I don't open the go app before I try to fly with Litchi both devices work fine, but if I accidentally open go or if I have to use Go to adjust something like gimbal roll (not an option in Litchi btw) what I have to do is go into my phone settings, app settings, force close DJI Go, restart the device, then Litchi usually works fine. If it's still acting up I'll repeat the process until it works. I don't have to do all that very often but it does happen from time to time.
thankyou very much im about to purchase litchi app now after looking at your video was very helpful
Louis Whetsell No problem! If you need help with anything feel free to ask.
What kind of range can you do with waypoints? Is the only limit battery power?
+Drone Adventures Yes. That distance could change depending on the wind.
What are you using to record your video? ?
Is your Phantom red ??
I've been wanting to paint mine orange.. just for sight in the sky
jchrism8 I used a soocoo c30 (gopro knock-off) to record. The phantom is white.
What will happen if the controller battery dies instead, will it just hover above the last waypoint, until the battery dies in the Phantom and then will it return to home and land ? Thanks for great video
greenraydaz It depends on what lost signal action is selected in the settings. Watch again from 9:20 to 9:51.. You will notice it turns to face the direction of the home point, it starts climbing to RTH altitude then starts to head home. You can hear the remote beeping indicating there's no connection between the two. Once the connection is restored the phantom recognized that it was in GPS or atti mode. That's when it stopped and I took over the controls.
To answer your question.. Say I had left the remote turned off, it would have come back to the home point and landed by itself. BUT that's only because I have RTH selected in the settings.
🇫🇷merci beaucoup👍
Great video, nice home as well.
+Luis Franco thank you
Can you pause or stop the mission? Like if it starts raining or for whatever reason.
Ok, thanks.
I assume this doesn't work anymore, my Mavic 2 pro returned to home when connection was lost
Idk, I kind of swore off drones after seeing how they're being used in Ukraine.
When the Litchi mission start button is pressed, the mission uploads to the drone and it controls itself from there, right? You can interrupt that control but that what is happening? I was flying this mission when it disconnected just after takeoff and it finished the mission and returned to home, I then manually flew it around for a minute and landed it. I thought I only lost the video feed, in the direct sun it is very hard to even see the ipad screen. ruclips.net/video/yubfg6GFngI/видео.html
Question. If you do loose signal on a waypoint I know it'll finish and return to home but will it still take photos and videos and save them on the card? And by ur map it looks like your in East Texas.
Shawn Gross yes, I am in et. It'll still record vid but the gimbal pitch up and down will not work. It'll still face towards poi's but won't focus on them. As far as pics go I'm not sure if it will snap them.
Was this done on an Android? I'm going to Scotland in a week and trying to decide if I can leave my Mac at home and just have my Google Pixel XL. It's pretty nerve-racking to be without a computer.
+Bruno Bronosky yes, this was done on a LG G4. Check out the paid version of powerdirector in the play store if you need to edit on the pixel too.
Good job👏
+Vue du ciel -Herve thank you
hi! awesome video!
would anyone know if the mavic would behave in a similar way?
sakayanko it should act the same
My first waypoint flight ended with a crash on a train rail after i lost signal🙄
+hombre muñoz that's no good
Easy as that, cool man
It's showed .. how much it will save your drone when it's lost signal! And second thing you got massive property over there ..
Thats all fine as long as you are cruising in flat surroundings, but I am living in mountain area and lost my Mavic today. The altitude given for WP in Google earth was 50 meters too low, it got disconnected and landed in a tree. Unreachable in rocky terrain, the mountain rescue brought her back with all 4 props broken, otherwise undamaged. DO NOT trust Google Earths altitude settings!
Rudi Bacher Sorry to hear about the Mavic. I haven't tried google earth but have seen a few how-to's on it.. Google may know roundabout elevations but it won't be 100% correct for a while. I'd say for situations where elevation changes rapidly it would be best to pick a certain takeoff point and do a manual fly over to gauge what elevation you need to set.
Litchi is genius... p3 retro cool...
I should’ve watched this yesterday
+wckdclwn911 uh oh.. Did you lose your drone?
Who cuts all that grass??? Wow. I get mad when I gotta cut my 50x110 foot lot. Lol.
Johnny Virga I mow the grass, hay bailers take care of the fields. Mowing is a nightmare though, non-stop in the summertime.
the amount of land u yanks have! seriously ,what do u do for a living?
cilthy funt That's called American freedom. When the government starts regulating everything, that's exactly what you lose.
👍 ✌
THANKS ZACH!!! I LOST MY FCKIN PHANTOM NOW.... FCKKKK
Stuart Craig what happened?
IDK. ive been waIting for 45 mins now. should i just wait here? maybe the fckn thing decided to stop by burger king??? WTF is going on zach?
Stuart Craig Ok, so based off the info you told me your phantom is lost, it's been 45min, and it could be at burger king... Taking a guess here, did you attempt to do a waypoint mission and now the phantom is gone?? If so what altitude was set for the mission, what was the total distance of the mission, what was the cruising speed you had set, have you calibrated the compass and IMU recently, did you have the signal loss action set (RTH, hover, do nothing), if you had it set to RTH what is the RTH altitude set at, did you check flight restrictions for your area before flying, what type of weather were you flying in (cloud cover and wind speed), did you take off near any large metallic objects, have you done a firmware update on the phantom recently, and so on... There's a lot of variables here so the more info you can tell me the better I'll be able to help you. I can't read minds bud.
Its funny because i was planning to do a waypoint mission from my house to my girlfriends which is located near a burger king, also just funny how you worded it, NOT funny that you lost your phantom :( sad times bud, I've lost a few drones in my time and won't be trying that mission because of this comment! however it aint Zachs fault, he didn't make you undertake the flight, user is responsible for all outcomes of any flight made. but seriously, your burger king comment makes me chuckle every time i read it.....
Alex MH I'm guessing this guy didn't take the time to set the altitude correctly. 90% cause of all Litchi failure if I had to guess. All he had to do was follow my workflow and he would have been good to go. But like many other things in life, people try to run marathons before they can crawl then get pissed at the folks who are trying to show them the correct way to do it. Look at his channel, he's been flying for a month or two...... Litchi is good for people who are already proficient with the DJI Go app and want a little more autonomous control.
Well....I had a Fly Away on my Phantom 4 Pro very shortly after initiating an Orbit Mission. Started to initiate the Orbit and then disappeared. I used Google Earth to locate the last reported spot and nothing there. I called DJI because I have DJI care and it seemed to me that something went wrong, with drone hardware/software or Litchi. DJI said because Litchi is a Third Party Product, they would not honor any claim. THANK GOODNESS I had State Farm, Personal Property Insurance. They paid the full cost of a new replacement in ONE DAY, (drone only) which I bought from Advexure, near LA. They shipped it out to me within 30 minutes of ordering. Lesson for the day, if you want DJI Care or Warranty Support, do NOT use a 3rd Party App !
Sandy Schupper Sorry to hear that. Litchi did send out an email recently explaining that some modes wouldn't work properly on certain models and to be patient while DJI sorts out their end of the software. Not trying to have Litchi's back here but sending out an email about a known software issue is a lot more than DJI does.. DJI will release a faulty update then scramble to patch and release another one without informing the customers anything.
Did you tell DJI that you were using Litchi?? I've sent my p3s in 3 or 4 times for warranty repairs.. All I use is Litchi and DJI has said nothing about it.
Yes of course I told them, they would have known from the log data. But DJI did an update that after the "Litchi problem" that corrected the "doesn't work with Litchi in all modes" issues...I'm not going to use any third party products any more. Really no need.
Sandy Schupper I hear ya and I don't blame you at all. Pretty sure the Go app has an orbit mode so you will still be able to do that.
Sorry again about your P4. Thank goodness insurance covered it.
after loosing signal.. loose gps and then ya crappin it ;)