Front Left LED turned solid Geen during landing.

erikgraham · Jan 9, 2016

No crash. No damage. Just a question about LED lights.

While landing I noticed the front left leg LED was solid green. I haven't seen that before and I don't see any info on it here: LED Meanings | 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology

More detail:
- I was testing some new lenses I swapped into my GoPros.

- I created a mission in Tower and ran it 3 times, swapping on different GoPro between each flight (each GoPro has a different lens installed).

- After each mission I had the Solo follow me briefly back to the other side of the house to my landing site (driveway)

- On the 3rd test flight, everything went fine, but I had a bit of trouble getting it out of Follow Me mode - I had to press the FLY button a couple times.

- As I brought it in to land, I noticed the front left LED was solid green. The other LEDs were normal (front right white, both rear LEDs red.

These flights were all done in Tower. Never used Solo app.

Bigskyflyer · Jan 9, 2016

erikgraham said:
No crash. No damage. Just a question about LED lights.

While landing I noticed the front left leg LED was solid green. I haven't seen that before and I don't see any info on it here: LED Meanings | 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology

More detail:
- I was testing some new lenses I swapped into my GoPros.

- I created a mission in Tower and ran it 3 times, swapping on different GoPro between each flight (each GoPro has a different lens installed).

- After each mission I had the Solo follow me briefly back to the other side of the house to my landing site (driveway)

- On the 3rd test flight, everything went fine, but I had a bit of trouble getting it out of Follow Me mode - I had to press the FLY button a couple times.

- As I brought it in to land, I noticed the front left LED was solid green. The other LEDs were normal (front right white, both rear LEDs red.

These flights were all done in Tower. Never used Solo app.

Erik, I am not sure, but what I have read on this forum it might be a motor pod getting ready to fail. I'm not sure what color it turns when a pod fails. I guess I would check with 3dr, maybe they can shed some light on it for you. Hope it is nothing to worry about. Let us know what you find out.

J R · Jan 9, 2016

erikgraham said:
Never used Solo app.

Erik,

I will not be able to shed light on the LED issue you described, I will however, give an uneducated opinion. Approximately 6-8 months ago I had a lengthy discussion with a very prominent 3rd party flight developer. He described to me, in very technical terms, well beyond my ability to even comprehend, why "follow-me" in its current structure would not work and would be subject to many erratic failings. He did provide a very good way to implement it but felt it would require different hardware and an entirely different approach to work properly. He also told me that many developers would continue to provide it in its current form as the consumer was dead set on getting it. Based on his articulation, I have chosen not to deploy "follow-me" on any app or platform. The variables presented are just too suspect to failure. I'm not pointing to this as your issue but thought I should inform you on my limited, and uneducated, knowledge regarding "follow-me". Maybe something worth consideration or exploration. I'm only throwing this out here because you have been so helpful to me and many others on this forum.

Jerry

RolandS888 · Jan 9, 2016

Erik, FWIW, when I power up bare motor pods for testing/balancing with only DC power and an esc signal wire (no data for color) the default color of the leds in the pods is green.

erikgraham · Jan 9, 2016

I have an email in to 3DR. Lets see what they come back with.

I think it probably has something to do with an issue releasing out of guided mode (aka follow me).

Andy Tomczyk · Feb 28, 2016

Eric, I am curious on response from 3DR on LEDs. Last night I noticed that I had one Red and one Green LED in the back. Front LEDs were white as normal. All normal flight conditions, no isses and landed safely. I changed batteries, restarted Solo and lights were normal???

pyrate · Feb 28, 2016

Tower still does some strange things with solo I think

Nerius · Feb 28, 2016

One of my Solo pods turned to green during flight. Landed immediately, rebooted Solo, everything seems back to normal. I made a few test flights: no more green light, but short after that one of my Solo motor pods failed. I believe it can be some undocumented self testing and early failure warning system.

Andy Tomczyk · Feb 28, 2016

pyrate said:
Tower still does some strange things with solo I think

I'm running iOS, also updated to latest latest Solo firmware last week and had about 4 flights since then.

Andy Tomczyk · Feb 28, 2016

Nerius said:
One of my Solo pods turned to green during flight. Landed immediately, rebooted Solo, everything seems back to normal. I made a few test flights: no more green light, but short after that one of my Solo motor pods failed. I believe it can be some undocumented self testing and early failure warning system.

Nerius, Thanks for the feedback, I kind of think it could be motor pods as well. I've sent ticket into 3DR. I'll stay on the ground until I hear from them.

Maddog · Feb 28, 2016

J R said:
Erik,

I will not be able to shed light on the LED issue you described, I will however, give an uneducated opinion. Approximately 6-8 months ago I had a lengthy discussion with a very prominent 3rd party flight developer. He described to me, in very technical terms, well beyond my ability to even comprehend, why "follow-me" in its current structure would not work and would be subject to many erratic failings. He did provide a very good way to implement it but felt it would require different hardware and an entirely different approach to work properly. He also told me that many developers would continue to provide it in its current form as the consumer was dead set on getting it. Based on his articulation, I have chosen not to deploy "follow-me" on any app or platform. The variables presented are just too suspect to failure. I'm not pointing to this as your issue but thought I should inform you on my limited, and uneducated, knowledge regarding "follow-me". Maybe something worth consideration or exploration. I'm only throwing this out here because you have been so helpful to me and many others on this forum.

Jerry

I've tried follow- me but it just didn't seem to work very well so I stopped using it.

erikgraham · Feb 28, 2016

erikgraham said:
I have an email in to 3DR. Lets see what they come back with.

I think it probably has something to do with an issue releasing out of guided mode (aka follow me).

I can't remember how they responded. I know it wasn't conclusive. It hasn't occurred again. It's just something to keep an eye on for now.

Anttler · May 6, 2016

Did you ever find out what the green light indicated? I have had it happen a couple of times, and it makes me a bit nervious.

Andy Tomczyk · May 6, 2016

Anttler said:
Did you ever find out what the green light indicated? I have had it happen a couple of times, and it makes me a bit nervious.

3DR Support said it will turn green if it does not complete the pre-launch checks properly. Restart SOLO and if normal lights then SOLO booted up OK. It could be many things that turn the light green.

Anttler · May 7, 2016

The light turns green during flight. It goes out red/blue and returns with one pod green. So the pre-launch tests were good.

Patricio Rasquetti · Oct 6, 2016

Hi, everyone.-
I have the same ploblem. My solo crushed upside down and broke the two grey propellers.
It seems it has no scratches, but in the same episode I was using the Tower app, and now my front right led y always light green (SO I don't know if it's for the crush or the app). I opened the led plastic and unscrewed the motor. I've noticed than when I screw too hard, the light does not work, but when I unscrew a little the light turns light green, and unscrewing even more, the light turns solid green. By this behavior can you tell if its harware or software?
Thanks in advance.
Regards.-

Maddog · Oct 6, 2016

Hi Patricio- welcome to the forum. When you say "grey" props do you mean the two with the silver metal hubs?

It sounds like a broken/loose wire, connection, circuit board

Right front is motor #1, and turns counter-clockwise. You might try swapping positions with #2 and see if the problem moves to the #2 position. If so, the problem is with the motor pod. If not, it is probably the wiring or a connection from the pod to the main board.

Or, it's a software issue.

Patricio Rasquetti · Oct 6, 2016

Thanks for the welcome, and for the answer.-
I'll try next weekend and post the results.
Regards.-

Flying Oyster · Oct 7, 2016

I posted about this same problem a few weeks ago. I'm my case the front right light turned green and the front left light flashed between white/blue and red. I've flown a half dozen flights since then and have had no problems.

Odd LED lights combo..warning? (no replys)

Marich · Oct 7, 2016

Here's a funky little quirk I just noticed today. While doing some semi-selfie shots (Solo very low, in close for a second a shot then out and up via MPCC), I noticed that when approaching the front light on the controller side began to strobe slowly (white still). Something about it reminded me of the backup alarm on construction equipment.
Dumb, I know... carry on!