The nightmare of a disconnection in mid flight

The nightmare of disconnection of a drone in mid flight can be harrowing experience... Lately I've seen many people complaining that the side lead of the mavic pro, which connects to the phone and charger,  has left the phone with a disconnect message and a blank screen... ( it can be fixed by alternatively using the USB connector underneath) (sorry but I've no spark or mavic air drone to relate to a disconnection story or fix)

I had a awkward disconnect Story, in the middle of a flight in high winds with the potential of a kite surfer to get tangled in the propellers...
To lose a drone in the trees is one thing but to lose it out in the sea seems more dangerous...

Even with "refresh" or the DJI scheme to replace a broken drone with their one year warranty... The drone needs to be recovered to begin the process of even getting repairs...


I haven't had the experience to report on this as I know the aircraft will be flown in open areas and more or less I took a chance of not going for a "Refresh" scheme...
Already from the stand point of flying above water I knew I had to put some protocols in place to avoid a "wet landing"...

For the start I guess my drone has more of a chance of surviving with a reserve battery power... Thats why I only fly to 50% to allow for high winds and emergencies... Also from my experience of flying my Inspire drone... a shallow discharge cycle has proven to keep the battery Cells at a reasonable level... Meaning the low possibility of a broken cell error even with temperatures as low as a few degrees C in the winter time...

Another thing is the air its self can be corrosive...  As many people in the past including myself assembled a inspire 1 drone on the beach... The air somehow tarnishes the contacts and prevent electrical contacts with the camera view...
The black screen of death was a symptom of film building  on the contacts on my X5 camera... A quick rub of isopropanol on the gimbles contacts seem to clear the problem... I now tend to assemble the aircraft at the car park or before even getting to the beach to avoid past errors... This includes adding the USB lead to the controller to avoid he same thing to the USB connections...

But no amount of preparing could avoided the disconnection  I had with the crystal-sky tablet and the mavic pro setup on the last session...

To begin the crystal-sky for some reason seems ok with the DJI go4 app with all of the systems working ok...

Originally I brought the Tablet to enhance my inspire pro setup, using the DJI go app... I can only account for my own user experience but the system has a slight lag on the camera view and the overall picture seems to drop frames during pan shots... The camera view seems to struggle using the older drone system in DJI go...

The Crystal-sky has a better connection with the DJI go4 app... with a near perfect low lag camera view... Dji seems to advertise that the connection lag is lower then any other smart phone or tablet connection... My own experience an confirm this when I brought my DJI tablet in Hong kong with only a mavic pro to test this... I could do action follow shots of wake boarding with ease...

Taking the tablet to the UK to fit on my inspire rig was a different story... To this day I think there is a processor bottle-neck that causes a slight lag on the older DJI go system... In the end I had to admit defeat and reside the crystal-sky to only used on my secondary controller for the inspire platform... ( a non critical camera view for video  or photo capture not for piloting )
( NOTE: I did briefly try to attach third party apps to the crystal-sky to allow litchi to control the drone)

Still determined to keep the crystal-sky I reverted the tablet to the mavic system and took it out for the kite surfing action this week... only the display disconnected and never returned... Usually disconnecting the USB lead and reattaching it would fix things (after telling it to join dji go4 app for the one time only prompt)
Even rebooting the tablet would allow the camera view to return... Sadly it didn't reconnect... I would of used my iphone to see if it was a fundamental android system or a lead problem...

But Thought better to bring up the drone above kite height to try pushing the "Return to home" button...
I could see display of the controller the distance was shortening... Despite people in the forums telling me that I could of use line of sight to navigate home... I thought it was a good opportunity to investigate what cause the disconnect...

This meant taking my eyes off the drone for a long while... By then the direction for the drone was lost at 1000ft...



It seems wise to basically set the return home height to 30m just about kite height and to trust the system to directly fly back rather then reestablish line of sight and returning home by eye... Considering the time factor would be longer doing it old school of locating it on the horizon and trying to judge by eye or by controller telemetry on where its going...
I landed the aircraft and re-examined the link and sure enough the camera view for the crystal-sky tablet returned...

Its hard to say what disconnected and continued to blank out the screen... But I can assume that the initial fault may lay in the custom mount I have for the Tablet... The USB C connector is at the bottom making it easy for my chest to rub against it... I can only guess that a software glitch makes it hard for the Android sysem to reattach the video link from a distance...

Many people have complained that the Android system isn't a perfect one... But even if DJI was to do a IOS version of a drone tablet... The licenses or collaboration of different companies involved would be very expensive, plus overheating would still be a issue...

Its a shame and there in lays the problem Apple dont do bright screens and the first bright screen DJI uses a inferior  operating system.... The Android system, to me seems like a adhoc system where phone manufactures and software programmers have a blank slate...
This blank slate maybe a good thing but when you pile on top, background processes and many different variable apps that keeps tabs with the internet and data logging... The fast processor soon gets bogged down...
And with DJI Go4 being a processor intensive App, its likely somethings gonna give... (in the form of a crash or camera lag or a number of undocumented glitches...)

Ive experienced this myself when I loaded my Crystal-sky with extra crap to allow third party apps to work...
I soon got rid of this, as DJI go was a mess with the extra things I added... And finally disable every and all unknown apps to get the broadcast system to work for DJI go4... The system still glitches in Broadcast mode via face book through a wifi 4G router but its much better... (however its still lags on the DJI inspire drone)
Not doubt I'll brush off this disconnection and continue to use the crystal-sky on less dangerous uses like landscapes and probably non sport related drone flying...After all its hard to brush off a expensive drone tablet when your not sure the cause of the disconnection other then a dodgy lead...