I think I'm done this time.

[Don H.]

It happened again today with the RTH. Only this time it took off on a sight seeing mission towards Sea World. I couldn't seem to stop it. Eventually it crashed into the ground and is pretty well busted up.
All of this after I was advised to do a factory reset and calibration of the compass and level. Apparently, several folks have had the same problem of losing the controller.
It was having connection issues after the reset and while trying to do the preflight upgrade.
I'm done throwing money at this thing.
I'll go back to my boring old FW 550 and 450 with the EagleTree Vector controller.
Those have been rock solid. Not as many nice features and not as cool looking.

I'll wait and see if 3DR can help me either replace it or refund it.

What a bummer. I was really enjoying it.

 

[aidanlou]

It happened again today with the RTH. Only this time it took off on a sight seeing mission towards Sea World. I couldn't seem to stop it. Eventually it crashed into the ground and is pretty well busted up.
All of this after I was advised to do a factory reset and calibration of the compass and level. Apparently, several folks have had the same problem of losing the controller.
It was having connection issues after the reset and while trying to do the preflight upgrade.

Could you give a little more context here? I keep hearing these horror stories but don't really understand what's happening. Did the controller disconnect midflight? Were you using tower? Also if you are indeed done and can't be convinced to stay I'd love to buy your batteries.

 

[Don H.]

I knew that would call out the vultures. The problems I'm having is disconnecting from the controller and the controller goes into shutdown mode for several minutes then finally shuts down. It won't reconnect to my tablet either. Unless I reboot both the tablet and controller.
It happened to me on the 4th of July, then again on the 7th.
I decided to not fly again until 3DR could explain it and offer some suggestions. I sent them the logs and they saw some anomalies and told me others have reported this also. They suggested a factory reset. I did all of that today.
The first time it happened I was flying it back in manual control ( no GPS). I was approaching to land when it went into RTH mode without me prompting it to. Looking up, the LEDs were all flashing red which indicates a loss of communication with the controller.
The second time I was having fun flying it and decided to use RTH just for fun. As soon as I hit the button it went into RTH and again, all of the LEDs were flashing red as it came back and landed without incident. I rebooted the controller and put in another battery and flew it until I was at 24 percent and brought it back without incident.
Today I was test flying it after the reset, setup and calibration.
It I flew it in stabilize mode,gps mode and enjoying it. Everything seemed ok. I hit pause a couple of times to make sure it works.
I hit RTH after the last pause and away it went flying west. I was south of it. I thought that it was the rewind feature when you hit RTH.
It kept going west and I couldn't stop it. I hit pause and nothing happened. I tried to steer it back again, nothing. I hit the "A" button as it is set to stabilize. At this point it's over the brush and I'm not sure if it worked or not. After that it impacted pretty hard and completely severed and arm and fractured the case.
I still can't remove the battery. I need to test the GoPro. Hopefully it survived.

You asked for context..that's my story.

 

[aidanlou]

Joking about the batteries (kinda). That's not good at all. I'd like to hear what 3DR says because the way it sounds they should be sending you a brand new solo, GoPro and some gifts for your troubles. The only thing I can think of (because of what happened to me) is that there is some issue with connections inside the controller. Have you ever taken it apart to check the connections? It might be interesting to take a voltmeter to the buttons to see if they are working properly and maybe to try re-gluing the SD if that seems like an issue.

 

[Don H.]

Oh I understand..I do the same thing.

I've got to tell everyone. I've read horror stories about the support at 3DR. I have had Excellent response and support from those folks at 3DR. I am very satisfied with their level of support thus far.
One of their folks even emailed me multiple times over the weekend to discuss the findings in my log files.
No complaints there. I would just like to get it ironed out. I really like this machine and would love to be able to continue flying it.
I don't need any extra gifts. Lol..I already bought the accys that were on sale. What the heck am I going to do with 10 boxes of props? I may be asking if I can get a refund on the props if I dont have a need for them. I just ordered them last night.

I've been tempted to open up the controller but don't want to compromise any warranty. It's not even a month old.
However, I have noticed the buttons do stick sometimes.

 

[aidanlou]

I opened mine up as directed by the guy in support chat and he said it was OK because he guided me through it. They really do want to help out, though some of the responses are canned and not terribly useful if you've been poking around the support info. It really does work well when it's working--it's getting it working that's the trouble. As I mentioned in my original post about the props, I'm interested in splitting that deal. I actually missed it myself so that's my only shot.

 

[Don H.]

I'll keep it in mind. I'd like to trade a set for a set of of gear extenders pending I get it repaired.

 

[Maddog]

Don, I can't remember but did you do the @RichWest "sticky button" repair/maintenance? I saw somebody mention it recently- turns out their "pause" button was sticking in the down position causing all kinds of control problems.

Any button can stick and cause a real nightmare.

Have searched for that thread but haven't found it yet.

 

[Don H.]

No I haven't. I wasn't aware of it. I've only been on this group since June 14th and haven't had any problems until last week. I think I have less than 25 flights on it total. I wouldn't expect it to exhibit problems so quickly.

 

[Don H.]

Kind of ironic. I first joined this group when I had bought my first Solo. I had read up on it after I bought it and was not impressed by what I was reading. There was a lot of complaints about the solo. Reading more it sounded like 3dr was standing behind it.
I had never opened up the box. It was a brand new directors edition. I decided to sell it. Then the price dropped and there was no way anyone was going to pay me what I had paid for it.
Frys refused to take it back because they don't take returns on the high end multi rotors.
I emailed 3DR asking if I could get a refund. They gave me an RMA to give to Frys and they refunded the whole price without a restocking fee. That was kind of odd. Frys flat out said no return on it. But, they took it back. A week or two later I decided to try one based on the BB 599 price. It was a few hundred dollars cheaper.
Well, here I am.

 

[RPM]

Sorry to hear you are having issues. Can I ask the situation and position of the Solo when you re-calibrated? Wondering if there is anyway something was throwing off the calibration. If not it sure sounds like a faulty controller and you should be getting a new setup. Also, did you upgrade to the newest 2.4.0??

 

[Don H.]

Thanks..I had done the reset at home then took it to the flying field to do the calibrations to get it away from large metal objects and electrical fields.
I entered it calibration mode, pointed the solo towards north as it asked and proceeded to do the compass cal per the images.

I'm hoping they will do something as well especially since there was prior history of this unit having problems.

 

[RPM]

Sounds like you did everything like you were supposed to. I wish you luck with 3DR!

 

[Don H.]

Thanks.

 

[Maddog]

Don, see if this helps:
"PAUSE" button

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

3DR will definitely be sending you a new solo and they'll cover the Gopro too. I was really hoping the factory reset would clear it up, but I guess that didn't work out... If you can power up the solo still and download via WinSCP, I would love to take a look at the dataflash logs.

 

[Don H.]

Thanks Mad dog.
3DR will be sending me another Solo once the paperwork is done. Hopefully it will work without having to do any of the button trimming.

 

[Don H.]

P2p..
Yup, they're going to send me another one.
The Go Pro appears fine.
I do have the files. 33Dr asked for them as well.
When I get time I'll try and post the Google drive link.

 

[JonW]

It happened again today with the RTH. Only this time it took off on a sight seeing mission towards Sea World. I couldn't seem to stop it. Eventually it crashed into the ground and is pretty well busted up.
All of this after I was advised to do a factory reset and calibration of the compass and level. Apparently, several folks have had the same problem of losing the controller.
It was having connection issues after the reset and while trying to do the preflight upgrade.
I'm done throwing money at this thing.
I'll go back to my boring old FW 550 and 450 with the EagleTree Vector controller.
Those have been rock solid. Not as many nice features and not as cool looking.

I'll wait and see if 3DR can help me either replace it or refund it.

What a bummer. I was really enjoying it.

Same here Don. Mine lost control and crashed. It wasn't an RTH. It was just Solo deciding it wanted to go on a course other than the MPCC that it was flying. It went full speed off course, through a tree and almost hit a landscape worker on its way to a crash into a sidewalk. I submitted logs and I'm waiting for a response. Customer support is pretty slow these days. I think they are swamped with problems and crashes. I hate to walk away from the amount of money I sunk into it, but continuing to throw money at it doesn't seem to fix anything.

 

[Don H.]

I agree John,

Sorry to hear you had a flyaway. This was my biggest concern when I bought this based upon reviews.
I've been very happy with customer service. They have been responsive to every email and have always been able to get help via chat. Though, that's only been 3 or 4 times. Unless it's a weekend, I've been getting email responses from them daily.

I can't say anything bad about their service. It has been excellent.

When they send me my replacement I'll continue to fly it. I really like the Solo and its features. It sounds like there are issues with sticky buttons on the controller. Mine has issues with that too. I never thought they were staying depressed.