Trouble getting it to work with DJI Phantom 3 Advanced

[Anne Lopez]

I've been testing out DroneBlocks with 7th grade students for 2 days.  

Day 1: groups programmed a square pattern.  However, when connected to the Phantom 3 Advance, I received the "Distance Error" message.  However the program was not over 500'.  I tried the program out on several other ipads and it did not work either.  

After corresponding with Preston & Dennis, I did the following: 

-Reconnected the drone to DJI GO, establishing home point.  There were no abnormalities or RED flags.  

-Restarted the iPad mini, making sure the iPad was connected to Wifi

- Opened DJI GO and made sure it was not on "Beginner Mode"

DAY 2: I did allowed the drone to warm up and completed a test flight, in DJI GO. I then connected to DroneBlocks, using the same program.  We previewed the mission, zoomed in and made sure the square pattern and points did show on the map (they did).  When launching the mission, I first received the "ERR prep" message.  I then got out of Drone Blocks, restarting the app.  Second time launching the program, I received the "500' distance error" message again.  

I'm not sure what I should do at this point, but I am willing to try!  

[Preston Ward]

Wow this is confusing bc I was able to run your exact mission yesterday without issue. Let me think further on this for a minute...

[anne....@gmail.com]

Is this program only available for IOS? Not andriod?

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Hi Anne, thanks for reporting this to us and sorry for the hassle. Regarding the first error "err prep" you need to make sure your RC switch is set to F mode. By default you're probably in P mode. You need to move it all the way to the left. There is no way to launch a mission with Phantom 3 while in P mode. 

Let us huddle on your 500' distance error, but I'm wondering if somehow these errors could be interrelated. I ran this mission yesterday with no problems so we'll have to dig into this further.

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Right now we only support iOS. We have done some preliminary work for Android. Just internal at the moment. It's easier to target a single OS, get the bugs out, and then move to Android.

[marisavic10]

Hi Anne!  I did a test-run this evening for a lesson I plan to teach this week and I received the 500' distance error you were talking about!  

I'm not sure if you've figured it out yet but I think I discovered the reason for my error:  I last used my drone at school and set my "home" coordinates.  When I took it to my house to test and tried the Preview Mission, it gave me the 500' error. When I reset my "home", everything worked fine!

I initially thought the same thing you did--my program wasn't farther than 500 feet!!?  I think my program thought I was planning to fly from school, 3 miles away.

Hope this helps if you haven't already figured it out.  When joining a different WiFi or location, be sure to close the app and reset your location.  

Good luck and please keep us posted!

Marisa

[anne....@gmail.com]

Thank Marisa!  (and everyone else!)

I got time again this week to play around with DroneBlocks and work through the original issues.  

- Switched my controller to F mode, it was in P mode (I was flying in the gym recently!)

- Allowed the DJI Phantom 3 Advanced to warm up & did a test flight in GO, making sure "beginner mode" is off & resetting the 'home' coordinates to my current location 

- Closed out GO completely & opened DroneBlocks

- started mission & SUCCESS!!!!  yay!  

We performed several missions, testing out different functions of the app.  Here are a couple of things I noticed & had questions about:

1. When performing very basic missions (lift off to 25 ft, hover, change altitude to 50 ft, & land) and several variations of this.  The mission worked, however, the drone yawed at each pause or change in the program.  The first time it did this is yawed right about 90 degrees, making me very nervous as NO turns were in the program. The drone yawed right & then left and then proceeded to continue its mission.  

2. I thought the spontaneous yawing might be random, so we played with various configurations.  Each time having a yawing right, in different degrees.  The drone always self-corrected. However, this brought up #3.

3. Is there a STOP function in the app?  When the first mission began and then had the random yaw, I panicked.  I was outside with students and the drone moving in a way I could not control freaked me out.  I immediately tried to land, however the program did not allow me to control the drone.  The mission continued, regardless of me trying to land the drone using the controller.  In subsequent mission trials, I tried a couple of things to gain control during mission, should the need arise. I found that flipping the switch from F mode to P mode rapidly 2-3 time allowed me to regain control.  However, if there is a STOP function, I would like to know about it.  

Thanks!!  

[dennis...@gmail.com]

Anne, this is great feedback. Let me share some things that we know as of now:

The strange drifting is a bug in DJI's SDK. When we takeoff and tell the aircraft to go to a waypoint there's a period of time where it's correcting due to the aircraft being out of position. This could be because of wind or perhaps a compass calibration that is a slight bit off. Either way, it is a bit disconcerting to watch...especially when your DroneBlocks mission doesn't include any yaw blocks. Just know that the issue exists and we're working with DJI to get it resolved. You can ALWAYS abort a mission by switching out of F mode. You can switch to Attitude (A) or Program (P) mode. You don't need to flip the switch back and forth. Toggling out of F mode will cancel your mission.

We are working on a Pause and Cancel feature that will allow you to pause and resume the mission from within DroneBlocks. The cancel feature will be similar to switching out of F mode and the aircraft will hover until you take control again.

I hope this helps and please let us know if you have any additional questions.

[Preston Ward]

Anne I'd also point out that while the first time you observe this "location adjustment" bug in the field it can be jarring, we haven't seen it impact the overall mission in a negative manner. Since it is a bug at the manufacturer level, we may need to incorporate some sort of recalibration notification so that when it does that little dance you at least have a little warning :)

[dennis...@gmail.com]

Hi Anne,

I was able to do some testing of the RC mode switch on the Phantom 3 and Phantom 4. You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoW2jbFpBEs

We will be addressing this within the app soon (pause/cancel) but in the meantime you can always use your switch.

Hope this helps.