Auto return home crashed my Solo

[Jubalr]

Had a similar incident by re-arming after a successful tower flight.
Solo flew itself into the ground from 100' up. Broke a couple of props,
bent the gimbal badly, ejected the gopro.
I was amazed at whatever the material is that the gimbal arm is made of...
I was able to carefully chuck it up in a vise and use a wrench to slowly bend it back into the right position... with none of the typical plastic stressing I would have expected.
GoPro was fine.
Whatever that plastic composite is it is amazing!

I believe I read early on that the arm is aluminum.

 

[Dustin]

I'm only "hard headed" when when I'm fighting for something I think is a good idea. There is no question it will save some crashes. People are acting like I ignored all the low battery warnings. I know I made some bad choices and, as I keep saying, already admitted that. If you think ni one else will make bad choices you are mistaken. If it saves some people it's not unnecessary. Like I said... again... my Solo started RTH BEFORE I got the controller alert that it was activated so my initial reaction was to fight Solo and make it go where I wanted like when you lose GPS. If I got the alert any earlier I may have been able to save it. There is a difference between ignoring the warnings and being caught off guard by how quickly the battery discharges from 15% to 10%. And to be honest those are low battery warnings NOT auto RTH warnings. I knew it kicked in at 10 percent. But was caught off guard. I didn't realize I was at 10 percent as I was trying to land and keep an eye on the bird. I already admitted I didn't know how to disengage it. After I realized what was going on it was too late to do anything.

My observation is that there simply isn't time to react to RTH because it kicks in so quickly. I would prefer a chance to stop it by being alerted that it's about to happen. I noticed it alerts you to low batter, you start to land, it crosses some other battery threshold and as you are about to land it shoots 50 feet into the air because it started a RTH. It could have been 4 feet of the ground and it is basically aborts a perfectly good landing putting the bird at more risk as it just burned battery ascending and then waiting for descent to complete. I am not sure you can defended this aspect of RTH. Want to see how the new 1.3 RTH "cone" feature works. Looks like it might be a good solution to this problem.

 

[AussiePilot]

I did EXACTLY the same thing I was <1 foot from landing when RTL kicked in. Hit a tree above, hit the fence, hit my leg and sliced me up, then smashed wildly in to my house. Bent the gimbal arm. Lost 4 props, Gopro and Solo battery popped out but they're fine. I bent the gimbal back in to shape, but it just goes crazy when starting it up again. Solo flies beautifully with new props thank goodness.

Solo support said it was pilot error, and I could have just hit the Pause or Fly buttons, which would have stopped Solo immediately This would have solved your issue as well. I also tried to steer it away from the tree but as you know - you're in instant panic mode and are not thinking straight.

Anyone know what the issue with my gimbal could be? It looks like it's possessed - it's all over the place. And the green light on the back is breathing as if nothing is wrong!

 

[XtremePilot]

I did EXACTLY the same thing I was <1 foot from landing when RTL kicked in. Hit a tree above, hit the fence, hit my leg and sliced me up, then smashed wildly in to my house. Bent the gimbal arm. Lost 4 props, Gopro and Solo battery popped out but they're fine. I bent the gimbal back in to shape, but it just goes crazy when starting it up again. Solo flies beautifully with new props thank goodness.

Solo support said it was pilot error, and I could have just hit the Pause or Fly buttons, which would have stopped Solo immediately This would have solved your issue as well. I also tried to steer it away from the tree but as you know - you're in instant panic mode and are not thinking straight.

Anyone know what the issue with my gimbal could be? It looks like it's possessed - it's all over the place. And the green light on the back is breathing as if nothing is wrong!

Watch to see if the controller is disconnecting from the Solo, mine would do this sending it into RTH. I'd have to yell out a warning to other flyers in the area as the Solo would land in front of me and I still wouldn't have a connection to it. I had one episode where I had to reset and re-pair to get them connected again. If this is what happened to you it isn't pilot error, but a serious 3DR safety issue.

 

[AussiePilot]

Watch to see if the controller is disconnecting from the Solo

Wow that's definitely a 3DR issue. Get it replaced! Mine was the same as the OP - very low battery and was < 1 foot away from landing safely in front of me. Unbelievable. And after waiting 5 months for my gimbal :\

 

[Matt Chevalier]

Geez guys, am I the only one who looses signal triggering RTH two or three per battery because I'm out 800 to 2000 getting a shot, especially doing orbits around things. And then another two RTHs for low battery that also happen during shots.

This is normal. Clearly I max out the solo right the edge almost every flight, but 70% of time I simply just press Fly and take back control. The other times, because it's so far away, it will need to fly back closer before I can gain control again.

When I fly over the ocean, I set my RTH altitude to something low like 40 feet. But when I'm flying around buildings or monuments, I change it to 150, 200, a few times even higher.

WHEN RTH triggers, you had better be prepared to clear obstacles. That your responsibility every time.

 

[Matt Chevalier]

And I'm always landing between 4% and 8% consistently.

 

[Soloing]

How are you prepared then if you don't know how to over ride the RTL? I had 1 second to react. If your take off area suddenly had some kids in it that wandered into the area, then what. RTL is the last thing you want then. You can say "Oh I would have just done this or that" Yeah that's easy to say now. But wait until the unexpected happens and you have to make the decision in 1 second and see how well you do. Sometimes things are out of your control and need to make decisions on the fly, but Solo can't adapt to that apparently. I will set the A button to manual fly now that I know. I went with the safest option I had available at that time and all would have been ok if it were not for RTL engaging during my landing procedure where I am in a descent and only 2 feet off the ground. This was the first time I've flown anywhere near the power lines too. Only landing spot I had.

Being prepared doesn't mean that I know everything. Besides, now that someone brought it up, I remembered that I used to hit the FLY button all the time to stop RTL. I let the Solo come back from a mile away, then hit FLY and took over.

Like I said, I don't know everything, but I know not to fly under something. Ever. Unless it is a quick pass under a bridge, fine. But why fly under something? The safest way is up, why take that out of the equation?

Having said that. Believe me, I dumb thumbed a million times myself. It happens to everyone. However, I don't blame it on the machine itself. You didn't think about it ascending at some point and hit something... To me that is not, "RTL crashed my Solo...", it is, "Sh*t, who would have thought about that...".

 

[Quality Control]

Why is everyone flying their batteries so low? Its really not good for a lipo to drain it to those levels and you will cause damage to the cells which will shorten flight times in the future. I am dumb founded to understand why you are all hitting the low battery thresh hold and agree with Marich. If you are trying to maximize flight times, buy more batteries. You have already invested hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, whats a couple hundred more on batteries?

 

[Ian [P13]]

100% agree with @Quality Control, if you're hitting the 10% fail safe you're already pushing the battery further than you should be, you should be landed around 20%. I've noticed the battery is hot at 15%...

The latest firmware stops RTL from fully kicking in as you're landing now which addresses most of the concern in this thread, but I can't understand people flying so long as to reduce the life of their batteries, especially given they're not cheap to replace.

 

[Quality Control]

100% agree with @Quality Control, if you're hitting the 10% fail safe you're already pushing the battery further than you should be, you should be landed around 20%. I've noticed the battery is hot at 15%...

The latest firmware stops RTL from fully kicking in as you're landing now which addresses most of the concern in this thread, but I can't understand people flying so long as to reduce the life of their batteries, especially given they're not cheap to replace.

I agree. I currently have 4 batteries. On site, if I go out in the boat and I want to fly a long mission, I do it in sections with the batteries. I don't try to fly one continuous mission.

 

[z-axis]

About letting the charge get so low: When this happens, the voltage drop it can make things really weird and sketchy REALLY fast. Don't do it.

 

[Doug Benson]

I really like my solo most of the time also but I have to also say that the speed at which solo sometimes goes in and out of gps control is scary, my solo lost control the other day and i was only 12 feet high and 10 feet away with fpvlr's and full bars. I am not used to having to hit the brakes (pause) button. It went into and out of gps control before i could get my head around what was happening it hit a tree branch. I caught control, and as I was landing it went into return home again and took off, I regained control and tried to slam land it before it hit another branch. It still hit some leaves and I crash landed it before it flipped and mowed some grass the hard way. I was in close quarters and flying near, through and around trees and branches (not recommended). I have done this numerous times in order to shoot a house front view, but this is ridiculous that it just goes in and out so easily especially when I had 9 sats. I thought Solo was suppossed to fly on only 6?
FYI all this happened in about 6 seconds.
Any thoughts on what happened?
Any thoughts on how to prevent mine and the OP question?

 

[Doug Benson]

It does.

Also if the copter looses GPS location it would automatically go to an altitude hold and let you know via led or remote or led that you are not in GPS mode anymore.

It does.

Mine does not, it goes into return home mode every time. If I'm under a tree branch, I crash. Period.
Really sucks too.

 

[jerryn]

I don't understand the RTH feature where it climbs before returning. What if you're flying under a bridge or overpass and it loses signal? Also, watching videos using "follow me", I was wondering if you're driving down the highway and you're a good distance away from your starting point, if RTH kicks in, does it go, or try to go all the way back?

HMM.. you do know that the RTH altitude is adjustable, right ? Also It's illeagal to fly near a bridge, overpass, highway, etc.

I've been flying R/C aircraft since I was a teenager in the 70s. I've always flown from an open field. You can kill someone flying near a highway.. the bird weighs 4.5 lbs.
If it falls out of the sky and it crashes in a windshield of a car at highway speeds..it's not going to be good. Use common sense.



WOW.. no wonder the feds want to crack down. Take a look at the arial shots I posted. If you have a park like that.. ask the park ranger if there's a location in the park you can fly.

Join the AMA. You will learn about the fields that are open to members in your area.

Don't put your Drone in follow me mode while driving down the highway. You will ruin the hobby for all of us.

 

[jerryn]

I really like my solo most of the time also but I have to also say that the speed at which solo sometimes goes in and out of gps control is scary, my solo lost control the other day and i was only 12 feet high and 10 feet away with fpvlr's and full bars. I am not used to having to hit the brakes (pause) button. It went into and out of gps control before i could get my head around what was happening it hit a tree branch. I caught control, and as I was landing it went into return home again and took off, I regained control and tried to slam land it before it hit another branch. It still hit some leaves and I crash landed it before it flipped and mowed some grass the hard way. I was in close quarters and flying near, through and around trees and branches (not recommended). I have done this numerous times in order to shoot a house front view, but this is ridiculous that it just goes in and out so easily especially when I had 9 sats. I thought Solo was suppossed to fly on only 6?
FYI all this happened in about 6 seconds.
Any thoughts on what happened?
Any thoughts on how to prevent mine and the OP question?

Where are you flying ? Your location says Miami, FL. It's all about location. I am willing to bet there was a microwave signal close to 1.2Ghz - 1.5Ghz


I fly in a field away from everything. one up around 200ft GPS should be ok. learn to fly manually... once you can fly manually you can program switch A to cut over to manual flight.
That way you can land and not worry about losing GPS lock.


GPS interference will affect every make of drone. As a hobbyist ist's best practive to shield the GPS module from any emf coming from the motor controllers and the microproessor.
GPS/GLOSNAS recievermodule from ublox may help but ig ther's a signal stonger than all the sattelites you are recieving your are SOL and will loose GPS lock no matter what you are flying. That's why I have a button to swap back to manual mode.. just in case the bird goes off course.

 

[Doug Benson]

I fly manually very well most of the time but this clicked out and drifted so fast I didn't have time to recover twice, I was doing some real close tree trimming shots at the time.
Cutler bay area, less than 200 ft.
Too many heli-choppers buzzing around under 500 ft ceiling.
I Do have the manual button assigned but it's not muscle memory yet I guess. I also have the shielding done too, I do not how ever have the M8n Glasnost upgrade yet.
I see it in my future though.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

You're flying low and underneath trees and you're wondering why you lost GPS and hit trees?

 

[Doug Benson]

You're flying low and underneath trees and you're wondering why you lost GPS and hit trees?

It was more like a branch and I had 9 sats when it lost it. I'm sorry but if you fly under a branch and loose your 9 sats, then this thing (gps) is just plain crap. Period. I have a mobile sat radio installed in my car and i can drive though a garage structure and dont loose it as i drive through multiple floors, and I'm sure its not on 9 sats. Flying low or high really shouldnt matter should it?
Really... ? A freaking branch? Its just ridiculous, all the complaints and also all the upgrades you have to do just to get this thing to fly right and not crash into a random wind sheild. If I didnt have so much money and time invested into this platform (with all the promise from 3DR hype before they abandoned us) I'd probably just sell it and start over from scratch and build my own.
A freaking branch!

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Everything you just said is completely wrong.