Hello from Hong Kong

dronk · Nov 12, 2016

Hi folks, hello from the east!
Have been following up the story of 3dr until the solo's price dropped (and the whole project is kind of screwed up now, that's sad though)
So I bought one from BestBuy and shipped to my city. Totally new for flying drones, saw the threads about replacing GPS, this and that. Now I have turned on the RC and the updated, and next I should have a teardown and replace some components to make it safe and sound? Or start practicing th basics first?
Still excited, but just a bit confused.

Don H. · Nov 12, 2016

Fly it like it is. It performs fine and you have a warranty. If you replace any hardware not authorized by 3dr you will void your warranty.
My experience has been if it's going to fail it happens in the first few flights. Mine attempted a flyaway and crashed. The log files showed it wasn't my fault and 3DR replaced it under warranty. The one they sent me in return has been flying fine since July. One little twitching bug but doesn't seem to cause any problems.
It's a good flying machine. Play with it and get used to flying.

Welcome to the group.

Don.

dronk · Nov 12, 2016

Thanks Don!
But for those reports about GPS, should we attempt to run some scripts or stuff to solve the problem?
Or normal update through the 3DR app is good enough?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don H. · Nov 12, 2016

I would just update the app to the latest and fly. I've had zero problems with my GPS. I did replace the shield to the new 3dr shield. So the warranty is still good. I get a lock within a minute or so when cold. Even after moving it 400 miles it locks on in about 1-3 minutes. Hdop is usually around 0.6 (if I remember correctly) with 11-14 satellites and that's with an "A" rev GPS. It's really not an issue. Maybe if you are flying in dense foliage or tall buildings it might be an issue. But out in the open, it's fine.

Don.

dronk · Nov 13, 2016

Thank you! First flight was cool, and something strange- the RTH featured auto-turned on after flying for less than 300meter. Perhaps a signal loss or software issue?

And, what do you mean by "lock"?

Don H. · Nov 13, 2016

dronk said:
Thank you! First flight was cool, and something strange- the RTH featured auto-turned on after flying for less than 300meter. Perhaps a signal loss or software issue?

And, what do you mean by "lock"?

Lock is when you have enough satellites to fly. The display will tell you when it has enough satellites to fly.

I too have seen the issue where it has gone into RTH on its own.
The antenna orientation and environment has a lot to do with range. Read the manual on how to orient them.
If you fly in an area with a lot of wifi signals it can cause this. I recently purchased a couple of wifi patch antennas and tried them out yesterday while flying in the desert. I was able to fly out to 3600 feet before I stopped. I still had a -65db signal showing. I wasn't comfortable going much farther since I couldn't see it.

Have fun with it.

Don.