Phantom 4 Home Lock Setup Problem

[pdmike]

I can't seem to find anything on how to set up Home Lock on the Phantom 4. I have a P4 - NOT a P4 Pro, not a P2 or P3. It's a PHANTOM 4.

There are loads of YouTube videos showing how to set up Home Lock on Phantoms 2 and 3 but I cannot find anything on how to do it on the P4. And it makes a huge difference, because the RC for the 2 and 3 is not the same as for the P4.

OK - here is the specific problem. I can go through all the steps involving the GO App. However, at one point, the older videos tell you to "change the flight mode from P to F", using the flight mode switch on the controller. The thing is, there is no "F" flight mode on the P4 controller. There are only three flight modes: P-S-4.

What should I do with that? Leave flight mode on P? Switch to S or 4?

Any thoughts?

 

[mozquito1]

If carlsberg made drones they probably wouldn't be anything like a dji.. Lol
I'd try P first then have a go. Then try the others.
Take fords model T & look @ today's cars. Half the stuff is not needed, most of the time. & it's a pain getting used it, until your using it like second nature.
Stick with it, your nearly there.

 

[RENOV8R]

OK first it's not P 4 S, it's P A S which is Position Attitude and Sport. These are the modes available by the 3-position switch on the controller. You'll want to leave it in Position and now's where you want to go into the "intelligent flight modes" in your Go app. This is where you'll select all the good DJI stuff like home lock, active track, tapfly, etc.

 

[ArmyVet]

[QUOTE="I have a P4 - NOT a P4 Pro, not a P2 or P3. It's a PHANTOM 4. "

?[/QUOTE]

Mike are you saying unequivocally that you have a Phantom 4.......................

I think you need to send us some video..........

 

[pdmike]

[QUOTE="I have a P4 - NOT a P4 Pro, not a P2 or P3. It's a PHANTOM 4. "

?

Mike are you saying unequivocally that you have a Phantom 4.......................

I think you need to send us some video..........

There's a reason for that, as you might suspect. All too many times, when I mention I have a problem with some aspect of P4, answers come back relating to other versions of the Phantom. Just wanted to make sure everyone understands this is a P4 specific problem here.

 

[pdmike]

OK first it's not P 4 S, it's P A S which is Position Attitude and Sport. These are the modes available by the 3-position switch on the controller. You'll want to leave it in Position and now's where you want to go into the "intelligent flight modes" in your Go app. This is where you'll select all the good DJI stuff like home lock, active track, tapfly, etc.

You're right, you're right .... its P-S-A, not 4. These old eyes let me down.

OK, but here's the thing. Yes, the instructions I have seen say to leave it at P, go into the APP, move it into Intelligent Mode, then into Home Lock, but THEN they say to go back to the controller and move the flight mode switch from P to F. THERE AIN'T NO FLIPPING F ON THIS CONTROLLER!! Mozquito sez just to leave it in P, which is what I intend to do until someone comes along with something better.

Edit Note: I found out that there is an F flight mode on the Phantom 3 controller, but not on the Phantom 4 controller. The only Home Lock instructions I have been able to find on the Internet are all for the P3. You'd think, wouldn't you? But nooooooo.....

 

[RENOV8R]

Yep. just leave it in P, that's GPS mode which you need for home lock

 

[ArmyVet]

There's a reason for that, as you might suspect. All too many times, when I mention I have a problem with some aspect of P4, answers come back relating to other versions of the Phantom. Just wanted to make sure everyone understands this is a P4 specific problem here.

I knew that, just having some fun.......

Good Luck.

 

[pdmike]

Yep. just leave it in P, that's GPS mode which you need for home lock

My MAIN MAN!! Thanks.

 

[holtneil]

Hi has your phantom got the usb lead if it has plug in to a PC remove the props and power it up the dji assist will show you what the switch is doing when you change it , you may find it like the early phantom a mode on the switch where you can set it up for manual , height hold or return home etc

 

[Rick M]

All the advanced flight modes (including home lock and course lock) are accessed with the transmitter in P mode.

 

[pdmike]

Thanks again, guys. P it is!

 

[Rick M]

P stands for "Positioning" and enables GPS. S is "Sport mode", which still uses GPS positioning but enables significantly more movement on pitch, roll and yaw axes. A is "Attitude" mode, which disables GPS positioning and just uses the gyro stabilization. This is what people mean by "manual" flying on the Phantom.

One other thing to mention: You will read here and there about the Phantoms developing stress cracks on the arms or around the motors. There are a lot of theories about this, but some people (I am one of them) think they are a result of a lot of stress being put on the frame when you are flying at moderate or high speed and let the sticks come to center to stop the quad. The remote tells the quad to hold its current GPS position, and it tries to come to a very abrupt stop. You can an adjust braking in the DJI Go 4 app, and I strongly suggest you do. I would set it at its minimum level, which I believe is 70. Even at minimum, it stops pretty quickly.

Another theory holds that unbalanced props are the culprit for the stress cracks. Whether or not that's true, balancing your props is a good idea on any quad (or anything else that flies). You can buy a DuBro prop balancer on Amazon, and do a YouTube search on "balancing props". I have always used the sanding/emery cloth way of doing it, but Scotch tape is also ok. It's easy to do. Balanced props are your friend, and even DJI's props are not always well balanced. In fact, I've found about 50% of them can use some balancing from the factory.

 

[pdmike]

P stands for "Positioning" and enables GPS. S is "Sport mode", which still uses GPS positioning but enables significantly more movement on pitch, roll and yaw axes. A is "Attitude" mode, which disables GPS positioning and just uses the gyro stabilization. This is what people mean by "manual" flying on the Phantom.

One other thing to mention: You will read here and there about the Phantoms developing stress cracks on the arms or around the motors. There are a lot of theories about this, but some people (I am one of them) think they are a result of a lot of stress being put on the frame when you are flying at moderate or high speed and let the sticks come to center to stop the quad. The remote tells the quad to hold its current GPS position, and it tries to come to a very abrupt stop. You can an adjust braking in the DJI Go 4 app, and I strongly suggest you do. I would set it at its minimum level, which I believe is 70. Even at minimum, it stops pretty quickly.

Another theory holds that unbalanced props are the culprit for the stress cracks. Whether or not that's true, balancing your props is a good idea on any quad (or anything else that flies). You can buy a DuBro prop balancer on Amazon, and do a YouTube search on "balancing props". I have always used the sanding/emery cloth way of doing it, but Scotch tape is also ok. It's easy to do. Balanced props are your friend, and even DJI's props are not always well balanced. In fact, I've found about 50% of them can use some balancing from the factory.

Thank you, Rick. I ran into a little problem today attempting to put the quad into Home Lock. I thought you began the process by taking off and hovering the quad at least 20 feet away from the home point. I did that. The next thing I did was tap the quad icon (image of a quad with "OPTI" to the right of it.) Did that. This took me to Main Controller Settings. I had thought the next step was to tap on Advanced Settings in the Main Controller Settings, which was supposed to take me to a screen where I could switch on Multiple Flight Modes. Once that happened, a window was supposed to pop up giving me the option to tap on Home Lock and hit Apply.

Well, the first part of all that happened but not the last. I hovered a distance away from the home point and then hit the quad (OPTI) icon. This took me to the Main Controller Settings. There is a Multiple Flight Modes switch in the Main Controller Settings. I switched that on. After that, nothing happened. No window popped up giving me the opportunity to switch the quad into Home Lock.

I'm really getting frustrated with this Home Lock thing. It should be very easy to do it, yet I have spent hours trying to find instructions for the Phantom 4 Home Lock feature (I found none).

Could you (or anyone reading this) give me a step-by-step on how to get the P4 into Home Lock?

Also, I have a related question. When I finally figure out how to do it, will the quad fly in all directions (forward, back, left and right) regardless of which way it is facing, or will it just return to home if you pull down on the right stick without directional control in the other three directions?

 

[Rick M]

Home lock locks the "heading" of the quad to 180 degrees from it's home point, wherever it's at. Course lock locks its current course as "forward". Either one lets you yaw while maintaining a current course, in order to achieve this cinematic effect. I'm about to leave for a hockey game, but I'll try to remember to post a step-by-step with some screen shots later or tomorrow. In the meantime, try searching on YouTube for "Phantom 4 home lock". I'm betting you will find one or more videos that explain and demonstrate this flight mode. By the way, the intelligent flight modes are accessed by:

1. Enable them in the DJI Go 4 settings - it sounds like you did this already.
2. Open them from the camera view screen (the normal flight view) by clicking on the left side, the bottom icon below the return-to-home and auto-land icons. I think it's a transmitter icon, but don't remember offhand.

Hope this helps for now.

 

[pdmike]

Home lock locks the "heading" of the quad to 180 degrees from it's home point, wherever it's at. Course lock locks its current course as "forward". Either one lets you yaw while maintaining a current course, in order to achieve this cinematic effect. I'm about to leave for a hockey game, but I'll try to remember to post a step-by-step with some screen shots later or tomorrow. In the meantime, try searching on YouTube for "Phantom 4 home lock". I'm betting you will find one or more videos that explain and demonstrate this flight mode. By the way, the intelligent flight modes are accessed by:

1. Enable them in the DJI Go 4 settings - it sounds like you did this already.
2. Open them from the camera view screen (the normal flight view) by clicking on the left side, the bottom icon below the return-to-home and auto-land icons. I think it's a transmitter icon, but don't remember offhand.

Hope this helps for now.

It does, but I'm still not clear on directional flight once in Home Lock. What I'm looking for is the ability of the quad (while in Home Lock) to respond to the sticks in exactly the same way it would if it was not in Home Lock and was facing directly away from the controller, i.e., with the quad off at some cockeyed angle away from the controller, and in Home Lock, if you push the right stick left, it will go left on a 90-degree line from a 180-degree line from the quad to the controller. Same with going right, when the right stick is pushed to the right. Push right stick away and the quad will go directly away from the controller. Pull it back, it comes straight back.

I realize that Home Lock will return the quad on a 180 from wherever it is, directly to the controller. But I want it to do more, as I have tried to explain in the previous paragraph. Will it also do all of those other, directional movements while in Home Lock?

I have searched my rear end off on YouTube for "Phantom 4 Home Lock" videos. I have never found any. Example: I thought I was in Fat City when I saw one called "Phantom 4 Home Lock Tutorial." That should cover it, right? Ha! That was a video describing how to get to Home Lock with the Phantom 3 - and there is a world of difference. I'll keep looking, though.

 

[RENOV8R]

That's the problem with DJI, their manuals are a little lacking in the details. You can research all you want, but sometimes it's just a matter of trial and error to work out the quirks. Good example is I've been struggling to get my Spark to fly indoors. Green for go with a GPS fix but as soon as they were weak instead of going into atti it would just go red and wouldn't arm. There's absolutely nothing in the manual, but I finally discovered that in "beginner" mode, it will only fly with good GPS signal. As soon as I disabled beginner mode I was good to go.

 

[pdmike]

That's the problem with DJI, their manuals are a little lacking in the details. You can research all you want, but sometimes it's just a matter of trial and error to work out the quirks. Good example is I've been struggling to get my Spark to fly indoors. Green for go with a GPS fix but as soon as they were weak instead of going into atti it would just go red and wouldn't arm. There's absolutely nothing in the manual, but I finally discovered that in "beginner" mode, it will only fly with good GPS signal. As soon as I disabled beginner mode I was good to go.

One of my favorites is the instruction manual that I call a "you can" manual. It is filled with information telling you all of the various things you can do with the product. "You can fly upside down under bridges with this craft." "You can set this craft to hop up and down and bring you a beer." "You can disable local limitation on distance so you can fly forever." Great. What's missing from all of these "you can" manuals? Anything tell you HOW you accomplish all the things it is telling you that you "can" do. Ever see one of those?

BTW - Happy New Year! Right now, 2017 has about 3 hours and 15 minutes left where I am.

 

[Rick M]

I haven't used Home Lock. However, I use Course Lock a fair bit and you should also try that. With Course Lock you set it and the quad becomes "headless" using the original course as a reference point. I use this for shooting video: set a course then fly that course while panning at will (using the yaw control) and gaining or losing altitude as you want for the shot. "Tap Fly" is also useful for this purpose and behaves much the same way, except you can "tap" a new direction on the screen and change the course of the quad at will. Both require practice, as it feels very foreign at first.

 

[pdmike]

I haven't used Home Lock. However, I use Course Lock a fair bit and you should also try that. With Course Lock you set it and the quad becomes "headless" using the original course as a reference point. I use this for shooting video: set a course then fly that course while panning at will (using the yaw control) and gaining or losing altitude as you want for the shot. "Tap Fly" is also useful for this purpose and behaves much the same way, except you can "tap" a new direction on the screen and change the course of the quad at will. Both require practice, as it feels very foreign at first.

I have been unable to use ANY of the intelligent flight modes because I haven't been able to figure out how to access them, let alone activate them. However, I think I may have finally figured it out. Here is what I have come up with:

1. With the quad in flight mode P, take off. Pause in order to establish a home point. Then fly to at least 20 feet away and hover.
2. Hit the quad icon (OPTI) in the upper menu.
3. Turn on Multiple Flight Modes. Exit.
4. Tap the RC icon (bottom one on the left).
5. This gives you a horizontal list of icons for each of the intelligent flight modes.
6. Slide the list to the IFM you want to use and tap on it.
7. Follow the prompts.

Tomorrow, I am going to see if this works in the field. What do you think? Did I leave anything out? Any step out of order or anything incorrect?

Happy New Year! 2017 has 2 hours and 15 minutes left here in California. Hope you enjoyed the hockey game.