Dear 3DR I love pixhawk FC and used it for years,, But Solo *********

[Richard]

As a fellow ERAU alum, you SHOULD NOT be listening to anything in this thread. lol... Go to DIYDrones and learn how to build a FC from scratch. lol

Starting to realize this for the whole forum sometimes. Most of the time there is good info but you have to research for it. Also take everything with a grain of salt!

 

[Rodney Johnson]

Here's what I'm talking about:



Aluminum, because it is a good heat sink, does NOT retain heat longer than plastic. What it does do is transfer heat from a warmer area to a cooler area quite well. This is why when you had the hand warmer, it would keep your hands from freezing - it was transferring the heat from the hand warmer through the aluminum to your hands. Plastic will not do this because it is a good insulator. If you have the hand warmer touching the plastic, it does not transfer the heat, keeps the hand warmer warm, and keeps your hands cold. So IF you have your hand warmer setup, aluminum is better, and if you don't, plastic is better.

What cracks me up is this new craze with the aluminum water bottles. People swear by them and how cold they keep their drinks. The reason you feel the cold is because it is such a good conductor and your drink is heating up much faster than if it was in a plastic bottle. It's sucking the heat out of your hands and the air and applying it to the drink (which is why it feels cold to you - it's taking heat from you).

my bad..yes.. after reading it again I did get ahead of myself. ALUM is a great heat sink and when I fly in the winter I would much rather have alum case with a hand warmer attached as it does transfer heat and retains the heat once you get the radio warm and keeps your hands warm.. plastic being an isolator your hands are on there own and your in for a fast flight..I have to agree with you on the alum water bottle.. there not isolated at all... there is no air gap.. no nitrogen, no foam,, straight alum...good point..

 

[Marich]

Y'all air atalkin'' a waaay yonder above my pay grade!
Being a novelist enamored of computers and things that fly (or, if you're a Democrat, a brilliant but misunderstood semiconductor technician and veteran astronaut who never-quite-got-the-go-nod, but likes writing weird stories anyhow, and thank god I'm Republican), I actually find all this sort of stuff fascinating!
With regards to being a true expert, I've never thought of myself as such at anything much (except for drinking beer... that's one one thing I truly excel at). Fact is, there's always something to learn and I always know more than I did the day before. To be a know-it-all implies an impossible state to achieve and one I would bloody well detest.
Oh well. Back to flying around making movies with my whirlygig thingy.
We all're supposed ta be havin' fun, ain't we?

 

[Rodney Johnson]

This thread got completely off track from what it was originally about..and that was very simple.
3DR has a ways to go to catch up to Dji in many ways if you have not spent time or own DJI to compare the two then you won't see my point,,As I have said many times.
I personally will stick with and keep supporting 3DR as I have for many years now and as much as I like some of the DJI equipment but I don't like horror stories of there warranty and repair services and there phone service is pretty much nonexistent, ,,
I can't say that about 3DR..When I sent my Solo back they gave me a RMA and a free shipping tag back to there facility and withing 3 days of 3DR receiving the shipment I recieved a check,, IN FULL for the purchase price and was given a thank you for your help and info I had provided.
You won't get that from dji..

Buy the way,, this was never about who has a bigger penis,,,





















But DJI could learn plenty about customer service and covering warranty and repair something that 3DR is on top of there game..

 

[Rodney Johnson]

Y'all air atalkin'' a waaay yonder above my pay grade!
Being a novelist enamored of computers and things that fly (or, if you're a Democrat, a brilliant but misunderstood semiconductor technician and veteran astronaut who never-quite-got-the-go-nod, but likes writing weird stories anyhow, and thank god I'm Republican), I actually find all this sort of stuff fascinating!
With regards to being a true expert, I've never thought of myself as such at anything much (except for drinking beer... that's one one thing I truly excel at). Fact is, there's always something to learn and I always know more than I did the day before. To be a know-it-all implies an impossible state to achieve and one I would bloody well detest.
Oh well. Back to flying around making movies with my whirlygig thingy.
We all're supposed ta be havin' fun, ain't we?

You said it brother

 

[SloppyDingo]

Starting to realize this for the whole forum sometimes. Most of the time there is good info but you have to research for it. Also take everything with a grain of salt!

yes, like most internet things there is a lot of misinformation out there... my favorite is seeing people using circular polarized antennas with a patch antenna. Never take what you "learn" from a hobby forum to the industry. lol

 

[Raybro]

It's great that some take pride in flying rc and others make money doing it, I give credit where it's due, I was actually interested in the point of view from someone who had a lot of experience in aerial and very little patience. I also agree that experience isn't going to make you a worse multi pilot as well. However getting on here calling yourself a prodigy and ranting how your the greatest to ever live after starting this thread with I don't believe in the word expert, completely contradicting all these statements is ridiculous.

I understand your defending yourself but come on, basically dismissing, talking down to and acting better than everyone here's not the way to go about things. It's rc, it's a hobby and it's mostly for fun, we're not surgeons or gods gift to the world cause we fly these things.

I hate to even get into this and I'm not going back and forth but come on if you have so much experience and thought day 1 solo would be perfect with no bugs or issues to work on, well you know where I'm going with that. To say it's fact that solos flawed cause "an insider said it was to soon" , really well since too soon it's been updated and fixed, so you talked to your "insider" since then, your not an expert right so is he if they don't exist in the hobby?

Why do these threads always have to get so ridiculous, get off your high horse, if solos not for you great, fly one of the other hundred RCs you have. Don't come here acting all knowing and smarter than everyone cause you've flown little planes for years, and if your interested in solo, which being here I'm hoping you are, than try to help out with the issues you've seen.

As I said I'm happy and it's not cause I'm clueless like your pointing to above, plenty of folks with as much experience and expertise as you are loving solo as well. You got a bad one and gave in ASAP apparently thinking you would have perfection out of the box. I got a great one and didn't give up and now solo is a great aerial platform period. Still not trying at all to argue or offend you but come on man tone down the self promotion a bit. It's great you've been at this for years and I respect that, others just like you are here helping newer folks not acting like those who haven't been flying 30 years are beneath them and it's a much better look for you and the hobby as a whole.

Good luck and fly safe

If he was sooooo good, why did he bother with Solo? He could have built a much better quad. He just needs to get over it. I remember his posts several months ago.....flying through the trees and complaining about the GPS. A good pilot would not even use GPS.

 

[erikgraham]

A weird thread with a lot of overly long posts.

 

[Rodney Johnson]

If he was sooooo good, why did he bother with Solo? He could have built a much better quad. He just needs to get over it. I remember his posts several months ago.....flying through the trees and complaining about the GPS. A good pilot would not even use GPS.

Well as always
I guess you missed the point..If you seen the Solo video flying in the trees you should have also seen the video of my hex flying in the same tree canopy with ZERO GPS issues .
I do build my own and dont have issues with what I build and Solo was something I wanted to try being my first out of the box aircraft.
Solo
was designed and manufactured to be stupid proof for people that can't fly ,, Probably like yourself.
It was designed to be a video ship and all of its critical flight functions relying on GPS and when the GPS signal is week or interrupted and the Solo takes off what good is it.

If you read my last post. I flew the Solo on manual mode all the time because the GPS was unstable and that was only one of many other issues that my Solo had.
Also
It was not purchased to be another one of my FPV racers it was purchased for my 13 year old son for taking video when I have him out practicing his flying skills.

Solo couldn't handle the task and again I spent many hours writing emails to 3DR and sent in my logs just as many other have to get Solo doing what it was designed to do. What have you personally done to make Solo better..

Besides this thread was not a debate or a pissing match. Go back to the start and read my very First and original post and see if you can understand my point..many others could why can't you.

 

[Rodney Johnson]

A weird thread with a lot of overly long posts.

Ya ,, no shit

 

[tesmithp]

Ya ,, no shit

Starting with yours

 

[Rodney Johnson]

Starting with yours

Ya I know..next time I'm only writing two words..

 

[Ian [P13]]

The initial GPS issues have been addressed, there's even further enhancements in the next firmware release despite the fact all seems good now. There were some Solos that had shipped with the shielding touching the ublox feedline but that is trivial to resolve and 3DR will happily RMA to sort it.

 

[Rodney Johnson]

The initial GPS issues have been addressed, there's even further enhancements in the next firmware release despite the fact all seems good now. There were some Solos that had shipped with the shielding touching the ublox feedline but that is trivial to resolve and 3DR will happily RMA to sort it.

Solo is work in progress and it's evolving in the right direction every day and along with the gimbal. Once all the bugs are out and you NO LONGER read about issues then it will be the workhorse it was designed to be.
But as I said in the beginning of this thread,, DJI has some good ideas that maybe one day will be implomented into the solo making it better yet as DJI is already using some of the 3DR ideas on there newest update.

 

[Adimuzio513]

Without a doubt dji having a company like 3dr as competition these rtf setups are going to better than ever before from both companies.

I wonder why everybody expected 3dr to have a perfect quad out of the gate but still deals with the issues the phantoms have had for years. Dji has had years of this design and doesn't even admit to things like fly always, I guess everybody had unrealistic expectations cause 3dr is US based and has service. I think their moving fast to fix any issues and am exited to see where both companies go from here personally. I'll be happy to buy another setup if either steps up and puts out a considerably better bird down the line. We're in for exiting things in this hobby, I can't wait to see where we go from here.

 

[Rodney Johnson]

Without a doubt dji having a company like 3dr as competition these rtf setups are going to better than ever before from both companies.

I wonder why everybody expected 3dr to have a perfect quad out of the gate but still deals with the issues the phantoms have had for years. Dji has had years of this design and doesn't even admit to things like fly always, I guess everybody had unrealistic expectations cause 3dr is US based and has service. I think their moving fast to fix any issues and am exited to see where both companies go from here personally. I'll be happy to buy another setup if either steps up and puts out a considerably better bird down the line. We're in for exiting things in this hobby, I can't wait to see where we go from here.

UP

 

[Rich]

The initial GPS issues have been addressed, there's even further enhancements in the next firmware release despite the fact all seems good now. There were some Solos that had shipped with the shielding touching the ublox feedline but that is trivial to resolve and 3DR will happily RMA to sort it.

I wouldn't say they are addressed. The GPS is still a weak point on the Solo. All I have to do is lean over my Solo for a brief second or two and the GPS will lose lock. This doesn't occur on my other 3DR GPS.

I know my Solo's GPS shield is not hitting my antenna stub, I was very careful to position it, and confirm it's ok and at least 4mm away from the stub.

But my Solo will have a hard time getting GPS lock, and keeping GPS lock, where my other 3DR GPS (the one I purchased with my Pixhawk) works perfectly without all of these issues. This one works great with the PixHawk: 3DR uBlox GPS with Compass Kit - 3DRobotics Inc

I also believe the Solo has sub-par GPS and communications link compared to the state of the art and what is possible today. Many have tried to argue differently, but my own experience with the Solo shows the WiFi link is sub-par to what is available for controlling the bird, and the GPS is sub-par to what is available.

Let me be clear that I'm comparing the Solo to other 3DR products, so don't think I'm trying to compare it to the DJI or any other brand.

I've heard some people are now saying that first batch Solo's are better than later batches. If this is the case, please, someone tell me how to get 3DR to update my Solo to be as good as the later batches, and let's have 3DR tell us how to determine if our first batch Solo's are sub par? What serial number did changes in manufacturing occur to fix any issues?

 

[Rodney Johnson]

I wouldn't say they are addressed. The GPS is still a weak point on the Solo. All I have to do is lean over my Solo for a brief second or two and the GPS will lose lock. This doesn't occur on my other 3DR GPS.

I know my Solo's GPS shield is not hitting my antenna stub, I was very careful to position it, and confirm it's ok and at least 4mm away from the stub.

But my Solo will have a hard time getting GPS lock, and keeping GPS lock, where my other 3DR GPS (the one I purchased with my Pixhawk) works perfectly without all of these issues. This one works great with the PixHawk: 3DR uBlox GPS with Compass Kit - 3DRobotics Inc

I also believe the Solo has sub-par GPS and communications link compared to the state of the art and what is possible today. Many have tried to argue differently, but my own experience with the Solo shows the WiFi link is sub-par to what is available for controlling the bird, and the GPS is sub-par to what is available.

Let me be clear that I'm comparing the Solo to other 3DR products, so don't think I'm trying to compare it to the DJI or any other brand.

I've heard some people are now saying that first batch Solo's are better than later batches. If this is the case, please, someone tell me how to get 3DR to update my Solo to be as good as the later batches, and let's have 3DR tell us how to determine if our first batch Solo's are sub par? What serial number did changes in manufacturing occur to fix any issues?

Well that stinks, you might have to do a GPS reciever update as I have brought to the table in other threads and a few are doing so with very good results.

 

[SloppyDingo]

Well that stinks, you might have to do a GPS reciever update as I have brought to the table in other threads and a few are doing so with very good results.

Do you have a link to this Receiver Update thread?

 

[RichWest]

I know my Solo's GPS shield is not hitting my antenna stub, I was very careful to position it, and confirm it's ok and at least 4mm away from the stub.

I'd recommend a spacer to create a physical gap for the copper shielding. I tried insulating the factory copper foil with Kapton tape to insulate contact with the battery, antenna stub and ublox. Reapplied like factory. Results were the same. I then fashioned a plastic board to fit the gps module, about an 1/8" thick, and supplied a replacement copper sheet. After the mod I was getting a solid gps lock within a minute at various locations.

Source example for copper sheet shielding - 1126-8"X10" 3M Electronic Specialty | Mouser