Cold weather flight

[Chrislaf]

Today, the temperature ranged from a low of -21ºC to a high of -11ºC but it was a calm and sunny day. I took the NEO out to see how it would do in temperatures below the rated -10ºC minimum. The temperature at the time of the flight was -12ºC. I set the NEO to follow me using Active Track and record as I walked along a snow covered bush trail. The NEO tracked me and the camera operated without any problems. The only anomaly was an error message mid flight that said the NEO was 'Preparing to take off'. When I returned home and inspected the log message it said 'Preparing to take off; IMU warming up. Wait before take off (Code: 30072)'. I'm thinking that this message was due to the cold weather conditions since I have never seen it before on my NEO.

On my old P3S I will get the IMU warming up message in cold weather and I get around this by calibrating the IMU outside in cold weather otherwise the P3S will not take off until the IMU has warmed up, so having this message appear mid flight on the NEO got my attention but thankfully it flew normally.

I will try to do some more tests in the coming days to see if I only get this message when it is really cold out.

Chris

 

[GFields]

Warnings or not, you won't find me out when it's that cold lol

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[Chrislaf]

Warnings or not, you won't find me out when it's that cold lol

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I was actually going to go out and do some light painting tonight with my old P3S but the wind was picking up making for a frosty night, so I decided to try another night.

Chris

 

[RcHawks]

You wouldn't want your props to ice up.

 

[Chrislaf]

You wouldn't want your props to ice up.

That’s one of the reason’s why I didn’t fly my P3S over the open water for light painting tonight.

 

[3rdof5]

Today, the temperature ranged from a low of -21ºC to a high of -11ºC but it was a calm and sunny day. I took the NEO out to see how it would do in temperatures below the rated -10ºC minimum. The temperature at the time of the flight was -12ºC. I set the NEO to follow me using Active Track and record as I walked along a snow covered bush trail. The NEO tracked me and the camera operated without any problems. The only anomaly was an error message mid flight that said the NEO was 'Preparing to take off'. When I returned home and inspected the log message it said 'Preparing to take off; IMU warming up. Wait before take off (Code: 30072)'. I'm thinking that this message was due to the cold weather conditions since I have never seen it before on my NEO.

On my old P3S I will get the IMU warming up message in cold weather and I get around this by calibrating the IMU outside in cold weather otherwise the P3S will not take off until the IMU has warmed up, so having this message appear mid flight on the NEO got my attention but thankfully it flew normally.

I will try to do some more tests in the coming days to see if I only get this message when it is really cold out.

Chris

I haven't flown my NEO in the cold but I definitely concur on the P3. I calibrated my P3P in the cold and regularly flew it in winter. -31C one flight, no issues.

 

[Chrislaf]

I haven't flown my NEO in the cold but I definitely concur on the P3. I calibrated my P3P in the cold and regularly flew it in winter. -31C one flight, no issues.

The weather turned mild here, so haven’t had a chance to retest in cold weather but it is supposed to turn cold again next week so I’ll probably retest then.

Chris

 

[Chrislaf]

I'm reviving this thread because I'm interested to find out whether the NEO 2 performs better in temperatures below the rated specs of -10ºC. I know that with the original NEO in temperatures below -10ºC the 'Preparing to take off; IMU warming up. Wait before take off (Code: 30072)' error appears regularly, although the drone appears to fly normally.

I know it's early still but for those who have the new NEO 2 and are in a location where the temperature drops below -10ºC and you plan to fly your NEO 2 in these conditions, I would be really interested to see how it does. Does the above error appear and how do the two screens fair (Lidar and status).

I ask because we are already experiencing temperatures below -10ºC and am interested to know how the NEO 2 behaves.

Chris

 

[RcHawks]

Good question.

 

[Kilrah]

Never that cold here. But maybe -10°C would help with the battery overheating when you hammer it in manual
Will be in the mountains on Xmas, maybe... but then I tend to rather take the DJI FPV there to make use of the vast expanse

 

[Chrislaf]

Never that cold here. But maybe -10°C would help with the battery overheating when you hammer it in manual
Will be in the mountains on Xmas, maybe... but then I tend to rather take the DJI FPV there to make use of the vast expanse

Haven’t tried FPV yet but if I do eventually get a NEO 2 I might go for the motion combo then I could use all the FPV stuff with the original NEO.

Chris

 

[RcHawks]

I really like flying my neo with my goggles 3 and MC. Hated using the MC at first until I got used to it. Much different feel.

 

[Christian]

You have Tello Chris, fly it. That drone loves cold weather, otherwise overheats in seconds...

 

[Chrislaf]

Yeah! If I flew the Tello, I’d probably never find it again. We have been getting snow almost daily. Alpine ski hills are open and even the Nordic centres are open.

Chris

 

[RcHawks]

We’ve had all of 2 or 3 inches so far this season.

 

[Chrislaf]

Judging by the snow on my outdoor table set, we probably have about a foot and a half to two feet of snow and likely more in the bush. People already have their snowmobiles out and when I was out yesterday there were snowshoe tracks. Small bodies of water like beaver ponds are frozen over but the area lakes have not frozen over yet and likely won't for a while yet.

Chris