Tower question

timzee · Oct 23, 2015

Let's say you somehow get your Tower missions confused. You create a mission at point A. Now you take off from point B-- many miles from point A. You take off and activate the mission, forgetting that the mission created at point A is still active.

I assume that Solo would make a bee-line for that first far off waypoint? If so, and you don't take back control, when it flies beyond the range of the controller, will it RTH?

J R · Oct 23, 2015

timzee said:
I assume that Solo would make a bee-line for that first far off waypoint? If so, and you don't take back control, when it flies beyond the range of the controller, will it RTH?

Tim,

No it will not. It will become the next mysterious "fly-away".

Jerry

Jubalr · Oct 24, 2015

timzee said:
Let's say you somehow get your Tower missions confused. You create a mission at point A. Now you take off from point B-- many miles from point A. You take off and activate the mission, forgetting that the mission created at point A is still active.

I assume that Solo would make a bee-line for that first far off waypoint? If so, and you don't take back control, when it flies beyond the range of the controller, will it RTH?

Depends if you have modified the parameter to continue mission on failsafe. If not, it would RTH on loss of controller signal.

If you have modified it, look for Solo in a line directly between you and WP. That part would be tough..

J R · Oct 24, 2015

Jubalr,

I have to recheck this for my own well being (after I get my HDMI cable, bird is grounded). From reading and inquiring about the Solo and Tower, I believed this to be so as well.

I believe you're supposed to go into the parameters of the bird and change a setting to allow the bird to continue the mission instead of doing a RTH. I haven't changed any parameters on my bird. I went into that section to look at it but decided not to change any settings yet (too new, too scared!). I didn't even look for the command line of that specific setting, so I don't know what the default was.

I did a three mile test run with Tower, I lost signal a few times during the run expecting a RTH to be initiated but it continued on with the mission? I'll check it again when I get my bird back together, maybe another issue with my bird or maybe the default for my bird was set to continue the mission.

I don't think I'll test with the OP's example though!

Jerry

franknitty69 · Oct 24, 2015

with the default parameters solo will RTL on loss of gcs (app) signal or loss of controller signal. if you change these parameters, solo will either do nothing (fs disabled), continue the mission (in auto mode), land or RTL, depending on what you set the parameters to.

J R · Oct 24, 2015

Thanks Frank. That's what I read previously. I'll have to check the parameter when I get the bird back up.

Jerry

David Weston · Oct 24, 2015

Keep this in mind also. The last TOWER mission is written to memory in SOLO. Even if you delete the last mission in the app and don't see a TOWER mission in the app, the last waypoints are still in SOLO. A good practice after you have completed your last mission, open TOWER, don't set any WP's and save that mission,,,which are no WP's ,,,and will overwrite the previous mission. By doing this, you will have a safeguard that you don't accidentally send SOLO off to wherever your last mission originated at.

timzee · Oct 24, 2015

These are just the kinds of things I wanted to be sure I got right before getting into Tower.

So as I now understand it, thanks to the input here, the "smarts" of any particular mission are contained within Solo and do not require a link to the controller. Also, at the same time unless you're edited the default parameters, Solo will effectively override a mission in progress if it loses contact with the controller.

So what would happen when attempting to fly that mission many miles away with the failsafe parameter overridden, the battery eventually dies? Not inclined to test that personally mind you!s

David Weston said:
Keep this in mind also. The last TOWER mission is written to memory in SOLO. Even if you delete the last mission in the app and don't see a TOWER mission in the app, the last waypoints are still in SOLO. A good practice after you have completed your last mission, open TOWER, don't set any WP's and save that mission,,,which are no WP's ,,,and will overwrite the previous mission. By doing this, you will have a safeguard that you don't accidentally send SOLO off to wherever your last mission originated at.

David Weston · Oct 24, 2015

Essentially there are 2 safeguards: One is the geo fence. If the geo fence is enabled SOLO won't go beyond that geo fence. This happened to me 3 or 4 months ago and I can't remember exactly how this went but I believe that I had a WP set beyond the geo fence and that when SOLO reached the max limit it RTH. Someone else probably has the technical answer.

The other is a failsafe whereby if SOLO is on a mission and you lose connection to the controller it will RTH. You can, in params, disable this failsafe in which case SOLO will continue on auto to complete the mission. So, if you have the geo fence disabled AND lose controller connection,,,you had better hope your last WP is somewhere where you can get your controller connection back AND you have enough battery to get there.

IF your WP/mission is at such a distance that the battery is diminished to the point it does an Auto-Land,,then you should hope it wasn't over water, a busy highway, etc and you have a tracking device. Worse case you would pull up a map of where SOLO was headed, where you started, and draw a straight line between those points,,,and then start looking along that line.

Earldgrayjr · Oct 24, 2015

You can also hit "fly" at any time in a mission to take over the Solo. Done that MANY times learning... And can have Solo app and Tower running at the same time. I often start in Solo, then switch to Tower for mission. Hit "fly" when done (and sometimes in the middle if I haven't created the mission correctly) and then finish in Solo app.

reelcrazyfish · Jan 8, 2017

Found this thread doing a search on Tower. I plan on using my solo to scout areas. Due to tree cover/obstacles, I expect my solo will loose contact with the controller during the flight. If I set a mission in tower to fly to 2 points, take pics, then return home - the solo will complete the mission even if it loses touch with the controller - correct? Are folks enabling a geofence into each mission as a backup?

aseymour · Jan 23, 2017

I'm trying to use the geofence safeguards mentioned above on a SOLO survey mission in the Tower app. Does anyone know how to set a geofence in Tower? I see there you can set an altitude ceiling in advance parameters but do not see an obvious setting for a horizontal geofence. I see Earldgreyjr has solved this problem by using Tower and the SOLO app, but I would like to avoid juggling two apps during a flight...