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Low-battery flight: Karma wanted to go up (only)

GeekDaddy

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New to GoPro Karma and performed three test flights. Video and photos weren't so good and I have some tweaking to do but the filghts were successful.

On all three flights, I flew until the low battery warning and waited for the Karma to attempt to return to me.
(although it was within 50 ft height and not far away).

Two of the three flights went well and the Karma returned to me and I landed it.
On the 3rd flight, the Karma said it would return to me. It moved in my direction but was climbing higher by itself.
I pulled the left stick down and it would stop climbing but not descend. If I let the stick go it would climb.
I continued to hold the stick down and fiddled with the right stick to change the Karma's x-y position.
After 30-40 seconds it began responding to the left-down stick and I landed it.

But thought I was gonna lose it (or hold it in position without climbing until the battery exhausted itself and it fell out of the sky from 50-60 ft).

Has that ever happened to you? Any words of wisdom???
 
Try to never let your batteries get that low.
What height have you got your "return to home" setting set at?
You can adjust that in via setting on the controller.
Always have it set to a setting higher than the objects/terrain in your area of flight.
It is pointless setting it to 20m when you have 30m trees around etc.
I think you can turn off RTH, not sure though.

Hope this helps and good luck.
 
Thanks Ironspear I'll check my RTH settings. I was flying relatively low in a large field surrounded by trees. I took the Karma up over the treeline to take some videos but spent most of the time practicing in the open field at lower altitudes (~50-60 ft) and that's when the Karma insisted on climbing altitude during low battery warning and RTH... Perhaps it thought it had to clear a higher altitude before returning to me?!
 
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Thanks Ironspear I'll check my RTH settings. I was flying relatively low in a large field surrounded by trees. I took the Karma up over the treeline to take some videos but spent most of the time practicing in the open field at lower altitudes (~50-60 ft) and that's when the Karma insisted on climbing altitude during low battery warning and RTH... Perhaps it thought it had to clear a higher altitude before returning to me?!

Unfortunately the Karma isnt that smart where it has anti collision sensors. Therefor it doesnt matter if your in the middle of the desert the Karma will rise to the RTH altitude and .... return. Maybe the default height is 30mor something? At least you landed it mate. Every flight where you get to land is a success IMHO lol.

Good luck.

Have fun.
 
Yes. It does that just like ironspear it would.

When the craft is returning to home there is an X symbol on the screen. Press that and it will cancel the RTH.

also try to land when you have 5 mins left. Dont play the dice to get every second of juice from the battery.

also try NOT to use the RTH function unless totaly neccessary.

reports say that is how people lose their karma drone especially when it gets compass/GPS interferance.
And interferance is karma good at.
 
I do always the calibration of the compass and accelerator before taking-off, but not the second battery on the same spot, and flying back within 4 minutes, when there is an interference and Karma initiates the RTH, I will stop it when it is in the sight.
Try always flying manually and never do auto fly without doing the compass calibration ( no matter Karma asks or not) beforehand.
 
Thanks to everyone for the helpful replies. Sounds like I made a rookie mistake here, and the Karma was ascending to the RTH height that I had previously set and I was fighting it manually with the left hand control stick.

I've been exploring RTH and other automated functions to understand how they work in case I ever need to use them but prefer to fly manually most of the time. As part of that, I wanted to understand how things behave under low battery conditions but sounds like I should be more cautious about that in the future...

Thanks Again!
 
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