New DJI Mavic Mini
Discussion
red_slr said:
Love mine. Lives in the car and I am using it more and more.
The one thing that has disappointed me is the range. I still have LOS but get weak signal warnings.
Other that that it’s ace and I know 3 people who have no interest in RC who have bought minis after seeing mine .
How are you positioning the aerials?The one thing that has disappointed me is the range. I still have LOS but get weak signal warnings.
Other that that it’s ace and I know 3 people who have no interest in RC who have bought minis after seeing mine .
I have had mine out about 500meters, but they are really effected by "wifi" noise.
So I pulled the trigger on a Mavic Mini, had to wait weeks for it to come into stock from where I bought it from. However I have it now and starting to get used to it.
What sort of real world range are people getting with these? In the UK is it less than other places in the World?
Google keeps saying 2-2.5 miles!!!
Was flying mine last night, about as far as I've dared to take it away from me. Sunny, a few clouds and light'ish winds. Line of sight between me and the drone, i.e. no trees, hills or buildings. And video kept coming up Low signal and eventually seemed to loose control of the drone. The App simply said In flight or something in the upper left corner. But the picture was no longer changing, no idea if the drone was responding to direction controls as I had no way of knowing. Ended up having to walk closer to it to regain control. When it did this is wouldn't return to home either via the transmitter.
Checking on a distance calculator it was only 0.2 miles away, maybe ever so slightly more due to elevation, but it wasn't silly heights.
Is this sort of range normal in real world use? Or should I be looking for an issue?
Image taken once control was reestablished to show altitude (not sure if I can pull the altitude data from anywhere?).
What sort of real world range are people getting with these? In the UK is it less than other places in the World?
Google keeps saying 2-2.5 miles!!!
Was flying mine last night, about as far as I've dared to take it away from me. Sunny, a few clouds and light'ish winds. Line of sight between me and the drone, i.e. no trees, hills or buildings. And video kept coming up Low signal and eventually seemed to loose control of the drone. The App simply said In flight or something in the upper left corner. But the picture was no longer changing, no idea if the drone was responding to direction controls as I had no way of knowing. Ended up having to walk closer to it to regain control. When it did this is wouldn't return to home either via the transmitter.
Checking on a distance calculator it was only 0.2 miles away, maybe ever so slightly more due to elevation, but it wasn't silly heights.
Is this sort of range normal in real world use? Or should I be looking for an issue?
Image taken once control was reestablished to show altitude (not sure if I can pull the altitude data from anywhere?).
Make sure you have your home location set. It should RTH when it loses sync.
I find height is your friend. I take off and climb to 50' or so then fly out about 200' then climb out to 300' or so and then I can send it out a bit further and I get no break ups. Also make sure your antennas are angled correctly. You want the face of the antenna pointing at the drone.
If you take off fly 10' forward then straight up by the time you get to about 150' you will get weak signal. It needs to be a gradual climb out to stay in the beam pattern of the antenna.
Also some people suggest putting your phone into airplane mode to reduce noise.
There are a couple of yagi antennas on the market now too.
NLD are due to release their mini software in the next month or so too.
I find height is your friend. I take off and climb to 50' or so then fly out about 200' then climb out to 300' or so and then I can send it out a bit further and I get no break ups. Also make sure your antennas are angled correctly. You want the face of the antenna pointing at the drone.
If you take off fly 10' forward then straight up by the time you get to about 150' you will get weak signal. It needs to be a gradual climb out to stay in the beam pattern of the antenna.
Also some people suggest putting your phone into airplane mode to reduce noise.
There are a couple of yagi antennas on the market now too.
NLD are due to release their mini software in the next month or so too.
300bhp/ton said:
What sort of real world range are people getting with these? In the UK is it less than other places in the World?
Maybe not relevant as I've got the US model, but I've used mine in the UK and USA a fair bit. In the UK the range is abysmal anywhere near another wifi signal. If I take it into my back garden I can struggle to get it to go straight up 120m without losing signal. At the same time I've had it out on the hills and definitely pushing the legitimacy of "line of sight", so I'd say a good 1/3mile away at about 50m hight - I could go further but get nervous when if I lose sight. I believe the "standard" UK model should get much better than this when other sources of wifi are around as it can use 2.8Ghz 5Ghz channels, whereas my US model only has 5Ghz.When in the US however it goes into high-power transmission mode and I had it way out to sea once, at least a mile and a half away across a bay, before I s
t myself and hit the return to home button, a few minutes later it happily appeared.Return to Home works, but you need to make sure the home point is set before you set off, can take a good few seconds to locate.
Thanks for the feedback.
So would you say 0.2 mile over open fields and no buildings with the Transmitter antennas aligned as per the instructions is not particularly good range then? I'm pretty sure the Home point was set, as I wait for it to have GPS before takeoff and IIRC it pops up a message saying Home point set/updated or something along those lines.
Think I've found a log of flights in the App. Looks to say Altitude of 167 ft. Not sure if this is above the ground or from sea level? Assume the latter maybe?
It seems to log distance, but I assume this is the distance the drone flew for the entire flight, not the distance away from you/take off point?
So would you say 0.2 mile over open fields and no buildings with the Transmitter antennas aligned as per the instructions is not particularly good range then? I'm pretty sure the Home point was set, as I wait for it to have GPS before takeoff and IIRC it pops up a message saying Home point set/updated or something along those lines.
Think I've found a log of flights in the App. Looks to say Altitude of 167 ft. Not sure if this is above the ground or from sea level? Assume the latter maybe?
It seems to log distance, but I assume this is the distance the drone flew for the entire flight, not the distance away from you/take off point?
DJI is tricky in that they only show the height from the take off point / home point.
So you can take off on a 500' cliff climb to 10' and fly off the cliff and it will show 10' on the app but in reality you are 510' above the deck. If you were then to lower the drone say 50' from 510 to 460' the controller would show -40' on the screen as it does not know you are flying off a cliff.
IYSWIM.
The more advanced DJI models (IIRC) do have some way around this but I think it only works when the downward ultrasonic sensors are within about 30' of the ground.
For your purposes I would say 0.2 miles or 300m ish is pretty low. I would check you are using a good channel. Manually select 2.4GHZ for starters if you have CE model.
So you can take off on a 500' cliff climb to 10' and fly off the cliff and it will show 10' on the app but in reality you are 510' above the deck. If you were then to lower the drone say 50' from 510 to 460' the controller would show -40' on the screen as it does not know you are flying off a cliff.
IYSWIM.
The more advanced DJI models (IIRC) do have some way around this but I think it only works when the downward ultrasonic sensors are within about 30' of the ground.
For your purposes I would say 0.2 miles or 300m ish is pretty low. I would check you are using a good channel. Manually select 2.4GHZ for starters if you have CE model.
red_slr said:
DJI is tricky in that they only show the height from the take off point / home point.
Yes - in certain circumstances e.g. taking off at the bottom of a hill and flying to the top you need to check the height of the peak relative to the takeoff location ( Google Earth is useful for this ) and adjust your max altitude to suit i.e. add the height of the hill to the normal 120m maximum 
It's a big improvement on the original Mini - no more range anxiety, at least as far as signal strength is concerned. The limiting factor for range is now the battery...
4km
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjM3X2YsnE&
4km
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjM3X2YsnE&From the CAA website:
The new regulations replace the current weight classifications of drones from that of a Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA) weighing between 0-20kg and UAS weighing in-excess of 20kg.
Drones sold publicly and intended for Open Category use must be marked by manufacturers as complying with 1 of 5 classes, as shown in the table below.
The revised drone classifications now incorporate the Maximum Take-Off Mass (MTOM), maximum speed, sound power level and potential impact energy transference for any drone which is operated within the Open Category.
Class Requirements
C0 Are less than 250g maximum take-off mass;
Have a maximum speed of 19m/s (approx 42.5mph);
Are unable to be flown more than 120m (400ft) from the controlling device.
C1 Either less than 900g maximum take-off mass or are made and perform in a way that if they collide with a human head, the energy transmitted will be less than 80 Joules.
Have a maximum speed of 19m/s (approx 42.5mph);
Designed and constructed so as to minimise injury to people.
The standards also cover other aspects such as noise limits, height limits, and requirements for remote identification and geo-awareness systems.
C2 Are less than 4kg maximum take-off mass;
Designed and constructed so as to minimise injury to people;
Are equipped with a ‘low-speed mode’ which limits the maximum speed to 3m/s (approx 6.7mph) when selected by the remote pilot.
The standards also cover other aspects such as noise limits (but different from C1), height limits and requirements for remote identification and geoawareness systems, plus additional requirements if it is to be used during tethered flight.
C3 Are less than 25kg maximum take-off mass
C4 Unmanned aircraft that do not possess any automation, other than for basic flight stabilisation (and so are more representative of a ‘traditional’ model aircraft) which are less than 25kg maximum take-off mass.
The new regulations replace the current weight classifications of drones from that of a Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA) weighing between 0-20kg and UAS weighing in-excess of 20kg.
Drones sold publicly and intended for Open Category use must be marked by manufacturers as complying with 1 of 5 classes, as shown in the table below.
The revised drone classifications now incorporate the Maximum Take-Off Mass (MTOM), maximum speed, sound power level and potential impact energy transference for any drone which is operated within the Open Category.
Class Requirements
C0 Are less than 250g maximum take-off mass;
Have a maximum speed of 19m/s (approx 42.5mph);
Are unable to be flown more than 120m (400ft) from the controlling device.
C1 Either less than 900g maximum take-off mass or are made and perform in a way that if they collide with a human head, the energy transmitted will be less than 80 Joules.
Have a maximum speed of 19m/s (approx 42.5mph);
Designed and constructed so as to minimise injury to people.
The standards also cover other aspects such as noise limits, height limits, and requirements for remote identification and geo-awareness systems.
C2 Are less than 4kg maximum take-off mass;
Designed and constructed so as to minimise injury to people;
Are equipped with a ‘low-speed mode’ which limits the maximum speed to 3m/s (approx 6.7mph) when selected by the remote pilot.
The standards also cover other aspects such as noise limits (but different from C1), height limits and requirements for remote identification and geoawareness systems, plus additional requirements if it is to be used during tethered flight.
C3 Are less than 25kg maximum take-off mass
C4 Unmanned aircraft that do not possess any automation, other than for basic flight stabilisation (and so are more representative of a ‘traditional’ model aircraft) which are less than 25kg maximum take-off mass.
Having looked through the info, it appears that the Mini would fall into category C0 ( though the range from operator may shift it into C1 ), the Mini 2 would be in C1 due to its range, and heavier ones like the Mavic 2 and Phantom would also be in C1 - though as they are already on sale without having been certified they will be classed as 'legacy'
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