Was flying it today and was probably about 200 metres away (well within max range apparently) when I lost signal. Pressed return to home numerous times and nothing happened.

The drone was over water at the time but appears to have a last transmission point some distance away in a field, in opposite direction from return to home location. (and its not there, I looked)

I thought the fail safe was that if contact was lost it returned home when it sensed batterys were low. I had 40% left when I lost contact.

Any dji owners know if it should automatically have returned home? I waited and waited.. But my 500 quid investment never returned..

Pretty annoyed..

That’s rubbish – hope you get it back.

If you’re using DJI-GO, sign up to here:

https://healthydrones.com

And then upload your logs to here:

https://healthydrones.com/main?a=upload

Did you still have RC control at the time? Was it just video that was lost?

Oooh that sucks! Did you have a good GPS lock at the time, maybe it got confused? There are the odd reports of fly-aways and GPS lock usually features.

Bit late (sorry), but I thought one of these Drone Keeper Minis looked like a great idea:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwgzCwQ4qE8[/video]

Commandeered by its Chinese masters – now delivering takeaways.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/04/apparent_us_army_memo_bans_dji_drones/

Just wait until after 9pm and go knocking on people’s doors… 😉

Was yours one of the ones with the bug where home is the factory in China?

https://qz.com/1037497/people-are-complaining-that-their-new-dji-spark-drones-are-falling-out-of-the-sky/

That isn’t good news…I guess without the signal, the return-to-home button isn’t going to do anything.

How long do the batteries last? If it had 40% could it have continued to fly and then when the batteries were about 15% (or something) it then started returning to base? If so, could it be back where you launched it?

I waited until Well after the battery would have run out so it was not returning to me.

I must say I thought it automatically returned home as a default, and the GPS home was working as I had already returned it to home point once during the same flight.

Emailed dji to see what they say, will be pretty pissed off if they don’t help me out. If not then I won’t be replacing it as if they say it’s not a malfunction then it’s clearly not fit for purpose.

Couple of questions from a mate who flies a Mavic:

“Was he using a controller or phone? Either way, it should have returned home. Big question would be, did the RTH set itself before he flew? Mine tells me, and I don’t fly off until it does. Did he set a RTH height? It is the height it goes up to first before heading home. I set mine up to 30m to clear trees.”

Edit: ah if it returned home earlier in the same flight then I guess that answers that question. Could it have hit trees? Did you set a RTH height?

I know its not helpful but aren’t you supposed to keep it in line of sight at all times?

The return to home height should not have mattered as no trees between me and the drone.

Graham, I’m right in thinking that even I I don’t press the return to home function it’ll still come back eventually right? Or should.. Ie it’s a fail safe.

I know its not helpful but aren’t you supposed to keep it in line of sight at all times?

You are, though I suspect a large number of pilots don’t.

To be fair the OP didn’t actually say he lost sight of it until after he lost control.

Fair enough – I have a little cheapo quadcopter – managed to lose one in a big garden!

Graham, I’m right in thinking that even I I don’t press the return to home function it’ll still come back eventually right?

Dunno sorry – I’m just passing your questions to a mate with a Mavic. But we don’t know what a Spark does in that situation. On some drones the fail safe behaviour is settable.

The Spark manual does discuss a Low-Battery RTH and a Failsafe RTH.

To be fair it was in view, then I lost signal, I started desperately hitting buttons on the controller.. Looked back.. Never saw it again.

Maybe it fell out the sky..

Reckon I could claim on my household insurance (I imagine not)?

Ta for the clarification

My dad got one the other week and it did a RTH on low battery, so slightly different scenario. It climbs to 90ft then turns round and does the RTH. Anything that could have got in its way during the ascent e.g. power cables, branches etc? I don’t think the collision detection works going up – only for forward motion.

From that link to the manual.. The failsafe return to home automatically kicks in and can only be cancelled when you have a signal again.

So basically mine malfunctioned as the home point was definitely set..

Let’s hope dji see it that way.

Have you got the log files from the flight?
That would probably help any claim you make.

Yeah can’t you see where it went on the flight log?

Why would you not be able to claim on your home insurance? With M&S at the most I’d have to report the loss to the police to get a reference (not crime) number, probably not even that and I’d have the cash for a new one within a few days.

Worth a try at the very least.

Yeah can’t you see where it went on the flight log?

Did it accidentally get knocked into ATTI mode? Do the sparks have this function?

Ignore me if already thought of, but just checking, as I’ve been looking in to the Spark as an investment in the future, but the Spark doesn’t track the operator. RTH on the Spark sets the gps point you take off from, so will return there. Did you move around during flight?

Contact dji. They are really good at helping in these situations and will provide a new one if their logs show it was a software issue. Lots of into on the dji app.

What was the wind like?
If you flew with the wind, when it tried to return home it may not have had the battery capacity it get home flying into the wind. Wind is normally stronger the higher you go, so the climb it does at the start of RTH may have made things worse.

Wind was ok

I just checked out the flight review, it appears to fly out, past the point I lost it, over some trees and then just stop! But it appears to have cleared the trees by a good 30 yards or so

Went back tonight to the spot to have a further look, the area its apparently in a a mix of farmers allotment and thick bushes so no chance I’m getting it back

Worse still on way home I got chased by an angry bull

all in all a pretty shitty day..

Are you on any spark forum?
Had a quick look on the DJI one and there seems to be a few ‘issues; with the spark. Not sure if it’s something wrong, or just lots on new to drone users. (Not implying that’s the cause of your problem).

DJI aren’t above getting things wrong, there was an issue with the Phantom last year when it would reset the home point, in flight, to somewhere miles away, with the resulting problems. This seemed to be linked to the max distance setting. And every firmware update brings with it stories of bricked drones.
Hope you get a good response from DJI.

DJI have had software issues for many years now on most of their models. Flyaways are worryingly common, so much so that I haven’t flown my Phantom now for a couple of years since an incident when flying in the middle of a field, hundreds of yards away from any possible source of interference I lost control and it was only the fact that it got stuck in some rather high trees that stopped it landing on the A617… I haven’t dared risk flying it since then.

I just checked out the flight review, it appears to fly out, past the point I lost it, over some trees and then just stop!

What happens with the altitude? Was it still moving and at height when the log stops? If so then I’d get a map out, extrapolate that line for a bit and go for a walk along it.

the area its apparently in a a mix of farmers allotment and thick bushes so no chance I’m getting it back

🙁 They can be a bugger to find in any kind of bush or undergrowth. Good luck.