Auto return home crashed my Solo

[Pogo]

I'm not sure what exactly it is you want them to change, but you have to remember that just because you think it's a good feature, doesn't mean that everyone agrees with you on that. Many of us prefer that it does what it does the way it does, and we did the research and know what to do in case we're in a situation like you put yourself in.

If it did not do things the way it does now, that would present other problems that some (most?) of us agree would be more serious and more frequent. (Like making a bee line for Home when the battery gets too low instead of rising first, then landing) You have to understand that they have several options to choose from when programming any "Smart" drone to react to low battery, loss of GPS, loss of Tx signal, etc., but they are just trying to pick the option that would cause the least issues. There is no perfect solution, but it is what they feel is the best given the options.

That said, in their next update they are adding the ability for the Solo to recognize when it is close to Home, and IF it is within this "Cone" over home, it will forego the rising first part, and come straight down into Home.

Killboy, this is interesting and the "cone" idea speaks to exactly (I think) what fenderbender is talking about. Where did you find out about this "Cone" RTH change?

 

[Killboy]

Killboy, this is interesting and the "cone" idea speaks to exactly (I think) what fenderbender is talking about. Where did you find out about this "Cone" RTH change?

It was in one of their github progress reports, and there was some discussion of it on one of the Facebook groups.

 

[Cosber]

I do blame 3DR somewhat for their whole "this drone is so easy to fly" ad campaign.

I still think the bird is easy to fly. I think about my 3D printer and all the problems we early adopters had with it. Everyone expecting to plug and play like an ink jet got a rude awakening. When I took Solo out for it's first flight, it was easy to fly, and that was without auto takeoff and landing. I handed the controller to my 10 yr old granddaughter and she flew it like a champ. What's the hard part? Training your brain to switch hemispheres when flying towards you and you're heading for a tree and instead of pushing the controller right, you push left. The only RC experience I had before Solo was one time flying a powered glider. Everything was fine until it got far away and I tried to turn back but couldn't tell if it was coming or going. Have you ever backed in a truck or car with a trailer? Same thing. It takes lots and lots of practice to learn to react in that split second that separates a happy flight from a pile of plastic.

 

[Fenderbender]

I'll say it one last time. Here is the change I suggested to 3dr. At 10% battery instead of just flying off on its own immediately (mine actually started to ascend before the auto RTH warning on the controller happened) I would like the controller to pulse vibrate for let's say 10 seconds. The screen displays something along the lines of "auto RTH will engage in 10 seconds press A to Continue or B to cancel" The button assignments of course could be something else. That would have given plenty of time for my safe landing I was trying to do or to disable auto RTH since RTH was not the right choice here and I knew that.

 

[Marich]

Or maybe just, say, a low battery warning...

 

[Fenderbender]

Or maybe just, say, a low battery warning...

Or you could have read the part where I was trying to land ever since the 25% warning.

 

[Marich]

Or you could have read the part where I was trying to land ever since the 25% warning.

Oh, I did.

 

[Fenderbender]

Why is it a bad idea? No one has said. Why don't you like this change? How does it affect you? Unless you are right next to your home location at 10% battery. Solo won't make it back. Of you are right next to your home location why do you need it to fly automatically. You all want everyone to switch to manual instead of rely on GPS assistance. Then why do you want this feature? Why do you care if it changes. Seem to me that you are all just upset over the title which is what happened. Forget what the DJI people think. I've already defending Solo heavily on facebook against the DJI crowd. Quit caring what they think. This feature is not perfect the way it is. Why do you want control taken away at 10% battery. Makes no sense.

 

[Quality Control]

I will say it would be nice to have some user input into the "advanced" settings on the Solo. That being said I can understand why they don't wait 10 seconds. At that point you are dangerously low on battery. Flying lipos on my DIY quads, it was always said never to deplete a lipo past a voltage of 3.7V per cell or you start to damage the battery. So I strongly believe 10% battery is causing damage to the battery cells. I NEVER run mine past the 30% mark. It would be nice to have a selectable reminder in the app.

Anyone who hasn't already read this or has not done research on Lipo's needs to immediately. Understanding the makeup of a lipo will help with understanding why voltage is so important. I wish the Solo would have an option to view voltage instead of percentage. I have ALWAYS flown my quads based on voltage ratings of my batteries and relying on percentage worries me.

Understanding RC LiPo Batteries

 

[Fenderbender]

Then do it at 11 percent. If 10% is dangerously low how is flying straight up at full throttle the solution. If you aren't near a landing spot by then you are toast.

 

[Jubalr]

I'll say it one last time. Here is the change I suggested to 3dr. At 10% battery instead of just flying off on its own immediately (mine actually started to ascend before the auto RTH warning on the controller happened) I would like the controller to pulse vibrate for let's say 10 seconds. The screen displays something along the lines of "auto RTH will engage in 10 seconds press A to Continue or B to cancel" The button assignments of course could be something else. That would have given plenty of time for my safe landing I was trying to do or to disable auto RTH since RTH was not the right choice here and I knew that.

I believe it did give you a warning and a lot more than 10 seconds. Here is the way that 3dr has it currently (very close to what you are asking for) at the 25% warning the pilot should be thinking 'Damn, gonna have to get it on the ground soon, battery getting low.' In your case you got the warning, but due to some circumstance of 'prop wash' you had to find another spot. You got another warning at 15%. Still couldn't get it landed, but should have known from manuals and research that at any time RTH is going to kick in at 10%, gotta get it down or be ready to abort RTH. So you certainly had more than the requested '10 seconds', and still do. But now that you have a better understanding of how Solo is designed and works, you must realize that you are getting plenty of warning. The difference being now you know how to abort the RTH if needed. Hopefully you won't be flying to 10% any more anyway, but if you do you will now be able to land it safely.

Fly Safe..
Jubal

 

[Fenderbender]

So again how is it a bad idea for the extra added safety?

 

[Jubalr]

So again how is it a bad idea for the extra added safety?

It's not. You win.. The more nets the better for new pilots I guess. I was only trying to point out that you had Plenty of warning.

I also realize a lot of people are going to buy something like Solo, skim the manual (maybe) while putting in a quick charge, and take it outside in their yard in their urban neighborhood and hope for the best. Of course, they are the same ones that want to depend on GPS, Impress their friends with a selfie, lose GPS on the way back down in their crowded neighborhood and now can't fly in manual with a nose in aircraft. After Christmas it's only going to get worse and I expect to see a lot more 'drones' in the news daily.

 

[Fenderbender]

I crashed mine the first time I lost GPS and it was my fault. It was pretty windy and I wanted to see how well it could fight the wind. Got too close to the trees and lost gps and the wind took it quite quickly toward the tree. I was asked to fly mine the day of the auto RTH crash by my parents. They were over at my sons birthday and were interested in purchasing one. The were also looking at the phantom and I wanted them to pick solo instead so I agreed to show them and let them fly it a little at about 250ft so if anything went wrong I could take control. I wish I didn't take it out that day. I wasn't planning on it. Too many people came out to watch after my dad announced what we were doing. I really was trying to bring it in as soon as I hit 25%. A series of unfortunate events. Totally avoidable. I just want one more layer of protection so this never happens again to anyone else. A new guy who reads just set the A button to fly manual is just going to end up hurting someone.

 

[Marich]

Seems as if you're asking 3DR to absolve you of any personal responsibility for safe operation.

 

[robustellini]

NO. The feature is like this for a reason. I hate to tell you, but you should have read the manual better, or familiarized yourself better with the "RTL" procedure. As a matter of fact, I am not sure myself IF you can somehow "override" RTL. However, I know exactly what the Solo will do when initiating RTL, so I am prepared.

Having said this. You are not alone. I read of many people that had similar incidents right when the Solo came out, where they took off from a place to close to their house or so, and since this is not military grade GPS it can be off by a bunch of feet. Well, it was off which resulted in descending onto the house.

Shouldn't it check its status before doing so?[/QUOTE] What else do you expect from a consumer drone for $1000 bucks?

[/QUOTE]Shouldn't the operator who knows whats going on around the area be in total control at all time unless the controller fails or connection is lost?[/QUOTE] Good question, but irrelevant in your case. You should have known what is going to happen, and you didn't, or you didn't think about it. Happened to all of us. Learn from this...[/QUOTE]


what manual

 

[Fenderbender]

Seems as if you're asking 3DR to absolve you of any personal responsibility for safe operation.

Nope. If that were the case I would be yelling about the first crash and the 2 times solo flipped when holding fly to land. This is different. It happened 2 weeks ago and I didn't immediately run to the forums. The more I thought about it the less sense the feature made to me. I knew about it. it caught me off guard and I already admitted I didn't know about the fly button disabling auto RTH at 10%. But no one even suggested it as an option either. I'm wanting the change to help other people. It's already never happening to me again so what benefit do I have from it? I would disable it all together. But suggested it the way I did to be the best of both wolrds kinda thing. It seems the feature is set up now just to get solo to crash closer to home than actually land safely. 9 times out of 10 you are already trying to land before 10% or at least on your way back already and if you are still trying to get shots at 10% i didn't think you are going to make it home. The only time I see it useful is if the operator became unresponsive or passed out. Then at least Solo would come back or get away from what ever was being filmed before it crashed. I'd rather lose a $150 battery than an expensive drone.

 

[J R]

Happy holiday's everyone! It's gonna be a smash of a season!

Jerry

 

[Dustin]

So the new firmware has enhancement to this, i had posted about this in the help forum. I didn't think they were going to do anything about it but they did. Don't have details but apparently it will adjust the altitude during Return Home based on proximity to the RH location. Which is basically exactly what I was hoping for and would have prevented this crash I believe.

OK, 1.3.0 is out for solo!

-Improved the tracking performance and smoothness of the Follow Me Smart Shot
-Tuned vehicle flight performance for smoother footage
-GoPro settings control - require App version 1.3.0 or later
-More robuts GoPro interface: general performance improvements
-Modifies Return Home behavior to not climb as high if Solo is close to home. Solo will always climb a minimum of 2.5m
-Solo will not enter Return Home due to battery failsafe if it is already in land mode
-Modified front LED color to look more white
-New sound when Solo powers off
-Tuned control sticks for finer control
-Reduced haptic feedback on the controller
-Low controller Battery: better alert triggering
-General reliability improvements

 

[pyrate]

tuning out here too, and I hope 3DR does not dumb down solo because folks will not or are just too lazy to read the manual
Very happy with the fail safes just like they are