Now that RTH is straightened out, can anyone answer whether you can view your photos and videos from Litchi? I am still using DJI Go for that because I know of no way to do that in Litchi.
litchi vs dji go for phantom 3 standard.. what are the benifits?
- Thread starter south fork flyer
- Start date
I prefer DJI go for 2 main reasons; 1. No video playback on Litchi 2. No flight logs on Litchi.
You do get flight logs with Litchi, but they are stored in a different folder on your phone/tablet. In fact, I find them much easier to use because they are created in .csv format which can be directly opened with Excel, and they include all the log data.
For Pros and Cons of Litchi vs DJI Go, most have been covered well so far, but I'd add one more opinion.
Litchi is a huge plus for the overall utility of your drone, just for the Waypoint Mission capability alone. Litchi has a lot of other nice features, but that single feature probably drives most Litchi sales. Waypoint missions offer a tremendous new set of opportunities to fly and collect great video, overcoming the limitations of the radio links to large degree.
However, that new capability offers a lot of opportunity to get yourself in trouble. You must CAREFULLY plan those missions. I find that it pays to study the terrain, and compare imagery from multiple independent systems, (Google Maps, Bing Maps, Google Earth all have different imagery). Make sure there are no power lines, make sure you understand tree heights, use Google Earth Pro, if you have it, to mouseover the entire flight path to watch the terrain elevation changes along the way. Try to find high ground for your home point so you can maintain RC links for as long as possible (makes smoother video for POI panning too). Double check waypoint elevations versus terrain elevations, plus tree heights and obstacles. Make sure the curves between waypoints don't run into obstacles (varies with speed). Don't try to get too close to anything, because GPS precision isn't always as good as you hope it is.
If you aren't careful with planning, you could very easily ruin your day. But when it works, it's a thing of beauty.
Litchi is a huge plus for the overall utility of your drone, just for the Waypoint Mission capability alone. Litchi has a lot of other nice features, but that single feature probably drives most Litchi sales. Waypoint missions offer a tremendous new set of opportunities to fly and collect great video, overcoming the limitations of the radio links to large degree.
However, that new capability offers a lot of opportunity to get yourself in trouble. You must CAREFULLY plan those missions. I find that it pays to study the terrain, and compare imagery from multiple independent systems, (Google Maps, Bing Maps, Google Earth all have different imagery). Make sure there are no power lines, make sure you understand tree heights, use Google Earth Pro, if you have it, to mouseover the entire flight path to watch the terrain elevation changes along the way. Try to find high ground for your home point so you can maintain RC links for as long as possible (makes smoother video for POI panning too). Double check waypoint elevations versus terrain elevations, plus tree heights and obstacles. Make sure the curves between waypoints don't run into obstacles (varies with speed). Don't try to get too close to anything, because GPS precision isn't always as good as you hope it is.
If you aren't careful with planning, you could very easily ruin your day. But when it works, it's a thing of beauty.
Question re my post above: what margin of error do you assume with GPS? I.e., how close to an obstacle will you plan the waypoint mission?
Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
I try to plan waypoints that are at least 20 ft from a known obstacle, and I'll usually plan 40 ft or more if I can. The GPS is usually good for 10 to 20 ft accuracy in my observation, most of the time, but not always.
I usually take off from a precisely marked spot in my cul-de-sac, which is surrounded by tall trees. Even though the cul-de-sac is 110 ft in diameter, I have to go straight up 147 ft to clear the tallest trees around the cul-de-sac. Whenever I let RTH land the bird, I note how close it comes to the takeoff point when it returns. Sometimes it lands within a foot or two, but other times it is 10 ft away, or even more ( I disregard those RTH that are initiated within 60 ft of home, because RTH will not even attempt any horizontal move toward home when it is already that close upon initiation).
I have probably seen a hundred different RTH landings and I know some of them are off by 10 ft or more from the takeoff point, yet I don't see them off by more than 20 ft except in rare circumstances. So I don't trust the GPS positioning any more than that, and I certainly don't plan waypoints any closer than that. I'll plan to be 40 to 50 ft away from trees and obstacles whenever I can, and maybe a tiny bit closer if it is wide open terrain which should assure plenty of satellites in view.
I usually take off from a precisely marked spot in my cul-de-sac, which is surrounded by tall trees. Even though the cul-de-sac is 110 ft in diameter, I have to go straight up 147 ft to clear the tallest trees around the cul-de-sac. Whenever I let RTH land the bird, I note how close it comes to the takeoff point when it returns. Sometimes it lands within a foot or two, but other times it is 10 ft away, or even more ( I disregard those RTH that are initiated within 60 ft of home, because RTH will not even attempt any horizontal move toward home when it is already that close upon initiation).
I have probably seen a hundred different RTH landings and I know some of them are off by 10 ft or more from the takeoff point, yet I don't see them off by more than 20 ft except in rare circumstances. So I don't trust the GPS positioning any more than that, and I certainly don't plan waypoints any closer than that. I'll plan to be 40 to 50 ft away from trees and obstacles whenever I can, and maybe a tiny bit closer if it is wide open terrain which should assure plenty of satellites in view.
Thanks for your reply about your RTH accuracies. I launch from my backyard but only have about a 60' clearing. So I'm always prepared to cancel RTH and land it manually if it looks like it's going to miss the home spot by any significant distance. I've only had to do that once in about 10 RTH landings.
Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
be sure to force kill the dji app on an iPad when using Litchi to ensure the app does not interfere with Litchi. I was having communication issues between the iPadd and the RC before discovering that little piece of advice on one of the forums.
I just picked up an iPad mini 4, so interested in this as well. By "force kill" do you mean the double press of the home key and swipe the app up and away? Or is there another way to kill an app that I don't know about?
I'm not sure about IOS devices, but for Android there is a Force Close button that you can reach through the Application Manager. Apparently it isn't good enough to just close down the DJI Go app when using Litchi; the Force Close is necessary to completely prevent DJI Go from interfering with the Litchi app (and vice versa). I'm not sure what the consequences may be for failing to do the Force Close. I'm pretty sure I forgot to do it once or twice, but I didn't notice any problems that resulted. I have since added Force Close to my checklist though, just to be sure.
I think in the IOS world, the equivalent function is called Force Quit, but I don't use IOS often enough to be sure about that.
