Inspire 1 and Litchi

[Bigshow]

Hi guys, I am new to this and would like some help.

I have been flying my inspire 1 with my Note 9 for a long time and had no problems. The Note 9's screen is not bright at all and I always struggle to see what's on the screen when in direct sunlight.
I bought a Crystalsky ultra 7 inch to use with my Inspire rc to resolve this problem and it did. It provided me with a much brighter screen for viewing in sunlight. But it turns out the crystalsky ultra had an issue when used with the Inspire 1. It would have a very laggy video feed/transmission(running DJI GO 4) that's so laggy it was unsafe for flying.

I then decided to give Litchi a try as I researched and saw people were using it to get normal video feed/transmission while using Crystalsky ultra on the Inspire 1. That also worked out very well. With Litchi installed on the crystalsky ultra, my video feed was back to normal.

One day when I was using my inspire 1 heavily(several flights), on the last flight i flew about 1 mile away and after shooting I started to bring it back home manually(Not RTH). It came back perfectly flying without any signs of weird behavior.

As I was about to land it in the grass, I looked over by our thatched roof canopy and randomly thought how cool it would be to land it under the canopy and onto the cement. So that's what I did, I flew in forward another 20 feet toward the canopy to land under the shade and as soon as it got underneath that shade it shot straight up with full speed, hit the thatched roofing from underneath and crash landed on the cement in upside down position, motors still going at full speed and propellers slowly breaking into pieces. My brother quickly grabbed the drone when he saw an open opportunity(propellers away from hand) and as he held it up firmly I ran towards it and tried to hold power button in battery to shut it off. Keep in mind the drone was not responding to any input as we tried to kill motors via controller input. And as we tried shutting battery of it did not respond either so I finally pulled out the battery just like that with everything still running(had no choice).

Result was, a scraped up body and battery, all propellers broken, and the vibration absorbing board (plate holding the gimbal and camera)was split in two and obviously was not able to hold the camera(X5) and gimbal properly anymore.

I took some time to clean it up, remove the gimbal and camera(X5) and clean that too.
Replaced new propellers and gave the drone a try at flying without camera and it flew great(I was relieved). Tried the gimbal and camera(X5) on my Osmo and that worked perfectly too.

So the only thing I think I will be needing is a new vibration absorbing board and that should get my drone up and running again with camera and all. I Hope.

1 other thing: During this incident the tb48 battery was exactly at 30% or at least this is what Litchi showed after checking the flight logs. And I'm positive Litchi app did NOT give the usual 10 second warning for RTH(Return to home) or I would not have spent those extra seconds trying to land under the canopy knowing what RTH does.


So guys, please be kind and share with me what you think caused this. I was shocked when this happened because it surely has never happened before when using my note 9 with DJI GO 4 app.

So honestly this incident leaves me scared of ever using Litchi ever again. And yes, for now I'm blaming Litchi because this never happened before with my Note 9 or Crystalsky Ultra running DJI GO 4.

What do you think really caused my Inspire 1 to randomly shoot upward and crash when it should have landed instead?

 

[The Editor]

Hi guys, I am new to this and would like some help.

I have been flying my inspire 1 with my Note 9 for a long time and had no problems. The Note 9's screen is not bright at all and I always struggle to see what's on the screen when in direct sunlight.
I bought a Crystalsky ultra 7 inch to use with my Inspire rc to resolve this problem and it did. It provided me with a much brighter screen for viewing in sunlight. But it turns out the crystalsky ultra had an issue when used with the Inspire 1. It would have a very laggy video feed/transmission(running DJI GO 4) that's so laggy it was unsafe for flying.

I then decided to give Litchi a try as I researched and saw people were using it to get normal video feed/transmission while using Crystalsky ultra on the Inspire 1. That also worked out very well. With Litchi installed on the crystalsky ultra, my video feed was back to normal.

One day when I was using my inspire 1 heavily(several flights), on the last flight i flew about 1 mile away and after shooting I started to bring it back home manually(Not RTH). It came back perfectly flying without any signs of weird behavior.

As I was about to land it in the grass, I looked over by our thatched roof canopy and randomly thought how cool it would be to land it under the canopy and onto the cement. So that's what I did, I flew in forward another 20 feet toward the canopy to land under the shade and as soon as it got underneath that shade it shot straight up with full speed, hit the thatched roofing from underneath and crash landed on the cement in upside down position, motors still going at full speed and propellers slowly breaking into pieces. My brother quickly grabbed the drone when he saw an open opportunity(propellers away from hand) and as he held it up firmly I ran towards it and tried to hold power button in battery to shut it off. Keep in mind the drone was not responding to any input as we tried to kill motors via controller input. And as we tried shutting battery of it did not respond either so I finally pulled out the battery just like that with everything still running(had no choice).

Result was, a scraped up body and battery, all propellers broken, and the vibration absorbing board (plate holding the gimbal and camera)was split in two and obviously was not able to hold the camera(X5) and gimbal properly anymore.

I took some time to clean it up, remove the gimbal and camera(X5) and clean that too.
Replaced new propellers and gave the drone a try at flying without camera and it flew great(I was relieved). Tried the gimbal and camera(X5) on my Osmo and that worked perfectly too.

So the only thing I think I will be needing is a new vibration absorbing board and that should get my drone up and running again with camera and all. I Hope.

1 other thing: During this incident the tb48 battery was exactly at 30% or at least this is what Litchi showed after checking the flight logs. And I'm positive Litchi app did NOT give the usual 10 second warning for RTH(Return to home) or I would not have spent those extra seconds trying to land under the canopy knowing what RTH does.


So guys, please be kind and share with me what you think caused this. I was shocked when this happened because it surely has never happened before when using my note 9 with DJI GO 4 app.

So honestly this incident leaves me scared of ever using Litchi ever again. And yes, for now I'm blaming Litchi because this never happened before with my Note 9 or Crystalsky Ultra running DJI GO 4.

What do you think really caused my Inspire 1 to randomly shoot upward and crash when it should have landed instead?

Nothing to do with Litchi....

You flew it under the canopy, signal was lost and RTH was initiated.
This caused the aircraft to commence a climb to your RTH altitude.

 

[zman]

I find it hard to believe that in the few seconds to fly under the roof you lost all GPS satellites, I can initiate my I 1 v2 sitting on my living room floor and still tag 3 or 4 satellites, using dji go not go4.

 

[zman]

Didn' tknow go4 would work with inspire 1

 

[Bigshow]

Nothing to do with Litchi....

You flew it under the canopy, GPS was lost and RTH was initiated.
This caused the aircraft to commence a climb to your RTH altitude.

And what do you assume caused it to lose GPS? So that next time I avoid it.

 

[Bigshow]

I find it hard to believe that in the few seconds to fly under the roof you lost all GPS satellites, I can initiate my I 1 v2 sitting on my living room floor and still tag 3 or 4 satellites, using dji go not go4.

Well I agree with you. That day I did 3 flights prior with no error. Using my last battery, my last flight is when that happened and it caught me by surprise. It went crazy.

 

[Bigshow]

Didn' tknow go4 would work with inspire 1

My bad. DJI GO.

 

[niki]

It will not RTH when GPS signal is lost, it will switch to ATTI in that case. It cannot go home without GPS because the drone will not know where is he in the world and where is home.

You'll have to pull out the log files from the CrystalSky and DAT files from inspire itself to analyze them, only then you'll have some real info about what may have happened, everything else is just a guess at the moment.

It's most probably to lost signal by some reason and then initiated RTH, that's a good reason for you not been able to stop the mottors as well. But as I said the log files will give more info.

 

[jkerrins]

I know that cement can cause issues with compass, but not sure about other interference.

 

[jjoos99]

I believe what is being said is the radio signal was lost not the gps signal. The lost radio signal would start the rth .
Jeff

 

[Jimmypainter]

I too wanted to use Litchi with my Inspire 1. It allowed me to use a second phone to pan around with the Camera like a separate Camera Man without a second controller. When I got it about 20 feet from my takeoff point my Inspire jumped into RTH and Litchi had absolutely no way to cancel. This resulted in it flying up into a tree, crashing to my paved drive and a few hundred dollars worth of damage. WARNING ... Freak accidents will happen but stick to OEM software or prepare to suffer the consequences. Litchi absolutely did not do enough quality checking or flight testing. Drone Deploy is a Full Bleed Commercial WORK solution but even it worked differently than I expected. One would hope the drone would Freeze in spot or RTH when you loose signal for a second but it keeps flying it's preprogrammed course so you're still safe provided you programmed a safe course. Litchi needs help. DO NOT USE unless you are flying a cheaper Drone or can afford a good smashing crash. Even more aggravating is ... my video was corrupted so I couldn't even retrieve my footage.

 

[jjoos99]

Seems they all might have their issues. Dji’s mission option is a useless tool. I did a lot of studying and really liked drone link but my first flight with it ended before my first way point because my iPad mini4 wouldn’t process the mission fast enough. No crash luckily. I’ve been contemplating trying litchi actually.
Jeff

 

[Jimmypainter]

Hey Jeff ... Forget Litchi. My iPhone 6 wasn't fast enough so I moved to an iPhone XR and life is grand. Dronedeploy worked best for me programming a precise flight but if you want to try Litchi ... USE with caution and read these posts/warnings carefully. Absolutely try a friend or someone's faster device before using anything. Slow compute will make Litchi slow as well.

 

[Jimmypainter]

I believe what is being said is the radio signal was lost not the gps signal. The lost radio signal would start the rth .
Jeff

Whatever causes RTH ... Litchi won't let you cancel ... be forwarned.

 

[Jimmypainter]

If anyone really wants to use Litchi on an expensive drone ... buy yourself a cheap used Phantom for $200 and try it out there. Test the fool out of it. Then if all goes well and you then later Crash the fool out of your Inspire or Mavic 2 pro ... come tell us about it so we can laugh/cry along with you.

 

[jjoos99]

What is the best mission app to use. I hate to have to buy a different tablet but sounds like I might have too. Wonder if the mini 5 would compute fast enough? I’ve read donni post about even the fast Tablets not being enough when hot.
Jeff

 

[Jimmypainter]

What is the best mission app to use. I hate to have to buy a different tablet but sounds like I might have too. Wonder if the mini 5 would compute fast enough? I’ve read donni post about even the fast Tablets not being enough when hot.
Jeff

iPhone 8 and up ... iOS Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser. iPad mini (5th generation) Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser
And Give the Dronedeploy demo a chance.

 

[niki]

Whatever causes RTH ... Litchi won't let you cancel ... be forwarned.

This is not true!

I'm using litchi with inspire 1 RAW from almost 4 years. There is a popup window message with 10 sec countdown where you can switch off the RTH before it even start. Also you can switch off the RTH at any moment with the remote's HOME button even if you are not connected to any app. Holding it for 2 seconds will cancel the RTH, read the manual.

You will not be able to cancel RTH if there is no connection between the drone and the remote controller, then no one of the apps or the remote can cancel the RTH by obvious reason - there is no radio connection with the drone to tell him - please cancel the RTH

There are many reasons for loosing connection even at close distance, there could be intereference with other device with stronger radio emission even if you don't see people around.

Always take off from a place with enough space around in case the drone will have to RTH and you don't have any control over it. In RTH the drone may land on a few meters from that place.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that I'm using litchi on old samsung note 4, pretty slow compared even to iPhone6. Also litchi works pretty well even better than DJI GO on CrystalSky, which is also pretty slow device. Only if you're looking for VR experiense in Litchi then you'll need much faster device than those, for everything else like fpv or missons it's working pretty well for me.

 

[Jimmypainter]

This is not true!

I'm using litchi with inspire 1 RAW from almost 4 years. There is a popup window message with 10 sec countdown where you can switch off the RTH before it even start. Also you can switch off the RTH at any moment with the remote's HOME button even if you are not connected to any app. Holding it for 2 seconds will cancel the RTH, read the manual.

You will not be able to cancel RTH if there is no connection between the drone and the remote controller, then no one of the apps or the remote can cancel the RTH by obvious reason - there is no radio connection with the drone to tell him - please cancel the RTH

There are many reasons for loosing connection even at close distance, there could be intereference with other device with stronger radio emission even if you don't see people around.

Always take off from a place with enough space around in case the drone will have to RTH and you don't have any control over it. In RTH the drone may land on a few meters from that place.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that I'm using litchi on old samsung note 4, pretty slow compared even to iPhone6. Also litchi works pretty well even better than DJI GO on CrystalSky, which is also pretty slow device. Only if you're looking for VR experiense in Litchi then you'll need much faster device than those, for everything else like fpv or missons it's working pretty well for me.

Why would I lie. Put litchi in VR mode and let your inspire you have been flying since the Wright brothers go into RTH. Then send all of us a screenshot of the dialog box I never got. Anyone here is welcome to try this and determine who’s telling untruths. O yea ... also try and fly your Inspire with an iPhone 3 or whatever android device of your choice and you’ll quickly find out that everyone posting on here is not lying. Just one or more of us. Proof is always in the pudding guys. If you can’t learn from others mistakes... we’ll ... as John Wayne said “If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough”. Next I’m sure we’ll hear of how your space shuttle didn’t have an O-ring issue as you flew to mars and saved the whole human race ... with a Samsung Note 4 no less. Please don’t speak and make accusations if you’re not ready to PROVE your point. People on here need folks to help not hurt them.

 

[Bigshow]

I too wanted to use Litchi with my Inspire 1. It allowed me to use a second phone to pan around with the Camera like a separate Camera Man without a second controller. When I got it about 20 feet from my takeoff point my Inspire jumped into RTH and Litchi had absolutely no way to cancel. This resulted in it flying up into a tree, crashing to my paved drive and a few hundred dollars worth of damage. WARNING ... Freak accidents will happen but stick to OEM software or prepare to suffer the consequences. Litchi absolutely did not do enough quality checking or flight testing. Drone Deploy is a Full Bleed Commercial WORK solution but even it worked differently than I expected. One would hope the drone would Freeze in spot or RTH when you loose signal for a second but it keeps flying it's preprogrammed course so you're still safe provided you programmed a safe course. Litchi needs help. DO NOT USE unless you are flying a cheaper Drone or can afford a good smashing crash. Even more aggravating is ... my video was corrupted so I couldn't even retrieve my footage.

Yeah, seems we both got screwed while using Litchi.
The funny thing is I'm still using it, I'm just not flying anywhere near cement or under canopies.