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Unusual Critical Land mode activation

ovrszd

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After installing .12 I have no "low battery" warning and RTH. I go directly from safe flying to Critical Landing. I don't fly below 8 minutes of remaining battery at any distance away. The Drone has landed three times in undesirable conditions. The last time I watched as it landed in a standing corn field and the working combine missed it by 30" !!!!!

I thought at first it was just one battery but it's happened on 3 of my 4 batteries now.

Anyone else have this problem??
 
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Nope, can't say I have heard of that before.
Guessing you were on the betas all along and the batteries are all updated? If so sounds like a corrupt update. I would try another firmware update and see if that fixes it. If not I guess Autel CS is your next move. If you do another install make sure you do a compass calibration. It's important, don't ask how I know :)
 
Will my system accept running the update again?? Won't it just say all programs are up to date??

Thanks for your advice.
 
Since I did the update mine has been doing similar weird things. The other day I was flying and got a RTH at 40%. Thought it was weird however I left it come home and then took over controls. Flew it around for a awhile then once it got down to 10% I landed it. Changed batteries and it did the same thing RTH at 32%. I was thinking about emailing tech support about this, however I figured the answer I was going to get was I was flying to far out, and the RTH was due to time amount to RTH.
 
Each time I have been within 600ft of "home".

Is there a way to wipe the update and reload?
 
I can't say that it has for me. I generally only fly the batteries to a max of 35% remaining, maybe a little lower, on a regular basis and no RTH issue I have noticed.

Just try to update it again, it won't hurt anything and can only help.
 
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I had the exact same problem with 3 out of 4 of my batteries; no issue with them prior to update, then on update to 2.0.12 from 1.2.8, the batteries went straight from 38% to "critical low" instantly. Here's video I captured to provide to Autel CS last month:


The batteries varied in age - two were almost brand new with only 9 and 10 charge cycles. The third was my "oldest" with 41 cycles. Autel suggested it was because of lack of use in my case - I hadn't used the batteries in about 1 month. They were set to a 6 day discharge, and stored in a cool, dry, climate-controlled basement.

Regardless, Autel replaced the batteries, and they were delivered within about a week. No issues with the new batteries, yet.
 
Here is a little safety measure for us who have suffered the critical drop. I only had this happen on the battery that came with my XSP and that was last winter in very cold weather where I ran it past 35%. Luckily I was just about to land and had no problem landing it safely. Autel replaced that battery and I have used it since and never had that problem again. It just has a low total mAh now so I am careful when using it.
Anyways this chart says 40% on 4S battery is storage voltage. With over a 150 flights and every beta upgrade I got into the habit of landing before or close to 40% battery level. I even did my longest run @2.4 miles and landed with 58% left on my battery. So I wonder why anyone would like to go under storage voltage and push the limits. :)

post-2640-0-11235300-1455898582.jpg
 
Anyways this chart says 40% on 4S battery is storage voltage. With over a 150 flights and every beta upgrade I got into the habit of landing before or close to 40% battery level. I even did my longest run @2.4 miles and landed with 58% left on my battery. So I wonder why anyone would like to go under storage voltage and push the limits. :)

Thanks for the chart and the suggestion, Agustine. I thought I was being safe using 30% as my warning level, and 20% as my critical level - I usually land in the 25-35% range. The obvious drawback to landing by 40% is that maximum flight time is reduced to a paltry 13 mins or so, and flight time in the target area for image collection can sometimes be quite a bit less. It can be very challenging to complete more complex missions with such severely curtailed flight times. I guess, the upshot would be that I could theoretically still use the batteries that dump at 38% if I always land by 40%, but I don't consider that safe, either. And the obvious concern would be that as the battery capacity drops, the batteries would start to dump at 40 or 45% instead and autoland at ever earlier percentages. My real underlying concern is the fact that these batteries seem not to be able to maintain what I would consider adequate capacity beyond about 20-40 charges, on average. Including the 3 new batteries that Autel just replaced, I've owned 10 batteries total. I've had 6 batteries replaced over the last year, none with more than 45 cycles on them, most much less. In fairness, one was replaced because it would no longer turn on, not necessarily a capacity issue; the other 5 were replaced for "low capacity". All that said, Autel has been fabulous with replacement to date - so I can't complain at all there.
 
Yup I see lots of people who say 35-40 cycles and the battery needs replacing. My third battery is getting close to that. I actually hope it needs replacing before Jan 2018 as that is when my warranty is up. LOL
 

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