Alarm Going Off During Tower Mission--What is this Alarm?

[5r49cfu]

I was running a Tower mission, and when it came back a long set of beeps was going off.

The alarm was about 10 beeps in a row, repeat repeat repeat.\

Looking at the GoPro footage, this happened mid-mission and the alarm continued until it landed.

Battery was fine, landed with at least 35%.

GPS was fine, had HDOP of 0.7 when it came back.

One strange thing, once it joined back up to the controller, the mode was not AUTO as normal--it was RTL. AND, it started flying away from where it took off. I quickly hit the Auto button and it continued back home as normal.

Any ideas what this alarm is?

 

[andrew.baker.142]

I believe it was the low battery alarm.
Did you upgrade the firmware from stock 3DR? If so it is recommend that you adjust the amount of battery the Solo tries to land with. I forget the exact parameter. There are posts on this you can search for.

 

[5r49cfu]

I believe it was the low battery alarm.
Did you upgrade the firmware from stock 3DR? If so it is recommend that you adjust the amount of battery the Solo tries to land with. I forget the exact parameter. There are posts on this you can search for.

The battery had plenty of juice when it started going off--and I landed about four minutes later at 35%.

Any ideas?

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

That's the low battery alarm. The voltage probably sagged low during the mission tripping it. Which is also why it was in RTL. Did you by chance have speed set really high?

 

[5r49cfu]

That's the low battery alarm. The voltage probably sagged low during the mission tripping it. Which is also why it was in RTL. Did you by chance have speed set really high?

The battery is older (at least 50 cycles) but has been holding a charge very well.

Yes, speed was increased from 10 to 14 m/s at the time of the alarm.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Yes that's why then. 30+ mph on an older battery that is not full can easily cause the voltage to sag below 14 volts under load long enough to trigger the low battery alarm and failsafe.

 

[5r49cfu]

Yes that's why then. 30+ mph on an older battery that is not full can easily cause the voltage to sag below 14 volts under load long enough to trigger the low battery alarm and failsafe.

Looks like the FS_BATT_ENABLE is set to 2 (RTL), need to check it later.

Good think it wasn't set to 1 (Land) in this particular case or I would have lost it.

I will retire that battery!

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

The default is RTL. so you have to intentionally change it to land for that to happen. I don't think you need to retire the battery. You just ran it too hard for that mission.

 

[andrew.baker.142]

Don't think you need to retire the battery. Keep it for training or shorter flights.
Remember 14 m/s is near the max level flight speed of the Solo with gimbal (I try and limit my missions to 10 m/s or less when carrying gimbal). If you were flying into a headwind the power demand would have been quite high.

 

[5r49cfu]

Don't think you need to retire the battery. Keep it for training or shorter flights.
Remember 14 m/s is near the max level flight speed of the Solo with gimbal (I try and limit my missions to 10 m/s or less when carrying gimbal). If you were flying into a headwind the power demand would have been quite high.

Until recently, I've run most missions at 14m/s, some I would do 20m/s (although it wouldn't reach that top speed)--and this is the first issue with alarm triggered.

But nonetheless, I have switched to 10m/s from now on...it is much smoother anyway.

Thanks for the input!