I read in another forum that Spark now supports Litchi waypoints. Can anyone confirm this? Mine still says it’s unsupported. Here’s my info:
iOS: 11.4.1
Go4: 4.2.24
Litchi: 2.4
A/C: 01.00.1000
R/C: 01.00.0600
The latest Litchi iOS version (2.4) was released in June. In July, Litchi added the waypoint feature to the latest beta. If you’d like to try that beta, you can sign up on Litchi’s site here.
Litchi just pushed out version 2.5 with waypoints for the Spark. You can find a complete list of changes here.
Right you are M. Just downloaded it and going out to test it now!
Woo hoo!! My small front yard mission that I wrote last year for my P3P flies exactly the same on my Spark. As it was within RC range at all times, next I’ll try a longer mission out of range. But I have to be aware of shorter battery life vs P3P else I’ll need my Marco Polo!
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Good news/bad news: Just flew a 1.5 mile mission with 14 waypoints. Estimated time was 5 minutes. All waypoints were at 150’ except one that was 98’. Heading was set to 3 different POIs. Speed was either 30mph or 15mph.
Spark flew the route and heading perfectly. However, the flight took almost 8 minutes. Upon reviewing the video I discovered a large change in altitude that was not part of the mission. Here are the waypoints in question. RC was disconnected during this part of the mission.
WP3: 150’ 30mph (Spark: 150’ okay)
WP4: 98’ 15mph (Spark: 98’ okay)
WP5: 150’ 15mph (Spark descends to about 10’, missing trees and powerlines by inches!)
WP6: 150’ 15mph (Spark climbs to over 300’)
WP7: 150’ 15mph (Spark descends to 150’ and completes the mission)
Scary.
For sure! Did you try reaching out to Litchi? I’m assuming they would want to know about an incident like this.
What’s the best way to report this? I wasn’t involved in the beta.
I’ve never had to contact them for support (I mostly use DJI GO), but they recommend contacting [email protected] for help on their website.
The DAT flight log from your Spark might contain some useful information. If you want to check that out, you can retrieve it from your Spark like this and view the data with DatCon. You can also post your DAT file here if you need help reviewing it. If the file is too large to post here, then upload it to a file sharing site (like Dropbox) and post the download link here.
Thanks!
Can you link your mission here via the Litchi Mission Hub? It would be helpful to be able to match the mission up against the data in the DAT flight log.
I appreciate you taking time to look at this Mike. I’ve flown close to 100 Litchi missions and this is the first time I’ve had an unexpected event.
Litchi mission
Litchi .csv file:
111 roundabout 1.0.csv (3.5 KB)
Here is a low-res video of the mission.
The descent starts @ 1:55 and almost results in a bath. Turns out there was a fountain right below me which fortunately was not running at that moment…
The unexpected ascent starts @ 3:05.
The data in your DAT log also shows that descent over the fountain:
I see no comments in the flight log that explain why the Spark did not follow the mission. It seems there is either a bug somewhere in Litchi or the Spark itself did not follow the uploaded mission.
Try reaching out to Litchi support and see what they think happened. They should have more experience troubleshooting this data than anyone else. Maybe link them to this thread since all of the needed data is already here.
Thanks again Mike. I’ll contact Litchi as you recommend and update this post if they respond.
Sounds like a plan! It’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say.
@BudWalker, would the DatCon “Engineered then DatDefined” option reveal anything useful in this case?
Not that I can see. For some of the platforms and some of the mission apps there will be a record in the .DAT that has the app “control inputs”. That doesn’t appear to be the case with the Spark/Litchi combination.
Here is the reply from Litchi:
Subject: Unexpected altitude change during mission
AUG 20, 2018 | 01:46PM UTC
Litchi replied:Hi,
In theory it shouldn’t do that, did you perhaps loose signal and had “land” set as “signal lost behavior” in litchi’s settings?
Kind Regards,
Litchi
I replied that it was set to “do nothing” upon signal loss.
So today I decided to fly the mission again and this time it flew perfectly.
It remains a mystery…
R.I.P. Spark. Spark had another unexpected loss of altitude, this time with DJI Go 4 in FPV mode. I was hovering at about 100’, just above tree level. I decided to climb and pushed left stick up. Spark began to descend!! I was only 150’ away from the bird and I applied full back right stick. As spark was coming toward me and still descending it caught in a tree and tumbled into the woods. Unfortunately the area it fell into is covered in wild multi-flora rose bushes. Very painful stickers. So it may be winter before I can attempt to retrieve it. Is there data on my iPhone that might be of interest?