Gee Thanks 3dr

Diving Santa · Feb 20, 2016

Well, I've been thoroughly impressed with customer service until now. Been working out of town a couple of weeks and not flying. I come home yesterday, load the new 2.0, update the bird and controller, put my settings back where I like them, charge up the batteries, and pack solo for a few flights this AM.

Get to the park this AM, and the controller stays on "waiting for solo" never connects. I figure, this is a 2.0 problem, I'll call tech support and all will be good. I'll go fly this afternoon. Wrong. No one answers now.

Anybody know why they discontinued the 24/7 call center?

Marich · Feb 20, 2016

I tried calling them today too, no dice.

skyhigh · Feb 20, 2016

I called them last week with a question on Saturday night. The call center was too busy and I hung up. The next day, on Sunday, I get a call..."This is 3DR Tech Support. We see that you called yesterday--Is there anything we can help you with?"

I had already resolved my issue--I had figured out on my own how to work the MPCC...but I was amazed and surprised that they had made a point of resolving my issue by cold calling me back when all I did was hang up.

Great customer service in my opinion. Not sure why you can't get through today.

Adimuzio513 · Feb 20, 2016

With any luck it's just an issue today if others had luck last weekend. I'm actually shocked the 24/7 service has lasted this long, how many companies offer this in the first place, much less in this space. I'm sure 90 percent of their calls can be fixed on a site like this or a faq with a little time and effort so for them to keep spending on 24/7 service is pretty impressive. Anyway hope they get you back in the air soon, good luck and fly safe.

Lance · Feb 21, 2016

Same here, crashed my solo after less than 30 seconds of flight, called 3DR and the message says they are no longer taking phone calls. Maybe their support staff is flooded with calls.

Jubalr · Feb 21, 2016

Upgraded to new FW/SW and the first full flight I had to test it was a commercial job of a new Wal-Mart about 4.5hrs away. Fortunately, everything went perfect. Did 3 videos and over 500 photos. Assembling the final project for the client now.

Ian [P13] · Feb 21, 2016

@Diving Santa

Waiting for Solo is not to do with the firmware. Try removing battery from the Tx and re-pair if necessary.

Diving Santa · Feb 22, 2016

Thanks Ian,

I have done all that and more. I also am now talking with support, ONLY via email.

Here is what the guy told me and hour ago.

Unfortunately, we don't have a phone system to provide tech support, as right now we only can provide support by email.

If the amber light is not flashing it means that the SD card inside is not responding, so we need to unplug the battery from the controller while is on and then perform a factory reset.

Please perform the factory reset and let us know your findings.

We just got the notification from headquarters, that we are not longer going to provide support by phone, but we are going to try our best to provide you with the best customer service by email.

Once again, we do apologize for this inconvenience and we hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,

I'm prepared to pull the micro SD from the Tx and reload the software if they can send it on an email or send me to a drop box to load it myself.
Although, without permission from the tech, I don't want to disturb the "warranty glue" on the SD card gate.

Diving Santa · Feb 22, 2016

Lance said:
Same here, crashed my solo after less than 30 seconds of flight, called 3DR and the message says they are no longer taking phone calls. Maybe their support staff is flooded with calls.

Lance,

Crashed as in, "in flight" or crashed as in "crashed hard drive" ? I'm assuming the former?
Either is unacceptable. Sorry to hear.

Lance · Feb 22, 2016

Crashed as in flight lol. Fell about 40' to a cement walkway on Friday. Lost sat signal about 20 seconds after take off. Did a return to home but since it was only about 20' from the ground it ran into the only tree around. I have my settings set to 100' for RTH so I'm a little confused as to why it started to move horizontally. I was under the impression it would go straight up to the 100' setting then move horizontally until it was over the spot it took off from and go straight down. 3DR is still reviewing my log but this is what she looks like. I almost cried and felt like my dog just died lol. Fell right into a pile of dog poop to boot

Diving Santa · Feb 22, 2016

Lance said:
Crashed as in flight lol. Fell about 40' to a cement walkway on Friday. Lost sat signal about 20 seconds after take off. Did a return to home but since it was only about 20' from the ground it ran into the only tree around. I have my settings set to 100' for RTH so I'm a little confused as to why it started to move horizontally. I was under the impression it would go straight up to the 100' setting then move horizontally until it was over the spot it took off from and go straight down. 3DR is still reviewing my log but this is what she looks like. I almost cried and felt like my dog just died lol. Fell right into a pile of dog poop to boot

All my crashes make my stomach knot up, at least until I can get the bird back in hand. I do know the feeling.

Your assumptions are correct re; RTH as far as I know. I set mine to 60' for RTH but trees are short where I fly.

No idea why yours did that. hopefully 3DR will figure it out. I don't think it was the software update. I did initially,(see the start of this thread) but I have since learned I had a loose SD card in my controller. Solved that, and did a 2 minute test flight. So far so good.

SOLO is a tough bird. In your case, that cement didn't have any give to it. Sorry for the loss.

Keep us informed, OK?

Hope you're back flying soon!

Jubalr · Feb 23, 2016

Lance said:
Crashed as in flight lol. Fell about 40' to a cement walkway on Friday. Lost sat signal about 20 seconds after take off. Did a return to home but since it was only about 20' from the ground it ran into the only tree around. I have my settings set to 100' for RTH so I'm a little confused as to why it started to move horizontally. I was under the impression it would go straight up to the 100' setting then move horizontally until it was over the spot it took off from and go straight down. 3DR is still reviewing my log but this is what she looks like. I almost cried and felt like my dog just died lol. Fell right into a pile of dog poop to boot

Lance, if you 'lost sat signal' then you did not RTH, as that requires sat lock. When Solo loses GPS it will go in to manual and drift with the wind or momentum, which explains why it did not climb. Many crashes with the Solo and others have been similar situations where the pilot did not realize what was happening at the time. They will be flying around there home or neighborhood with poor GPS, Solo will go in to manual mode and the operator will press Pause or Home button. Neither of which will have any effect without GPS. Then after Solo hits something they will be pissed and rant at what a poor machine it is and it' flew off on it own into (insert object here). Not saying that;s what happened to you, but you stated above it lost sat signal and didn't climb and moved horiz into a tree.

Lance · Feb 23, 2016

Jubalr said:
Lance, if you 'lost sat signal' then you did not RTH, as that requires sat lock. When Solo loses GPS it will go in to manual and drift with the wind or momentum, which explains why it did not climb. Many crashes with the Solo and others have been similar situations where the pilot did not realize what was happening at the time. They will be flying around there home or neighborhood with poor GPS, Solo will go in to manual mode and the operator will press Pause or Home button. Neither of which will have any effect without GPS. Then after Solo hits something they will be pissed and rant at what a poor machine it is and it' flew off on it own into (insert object here). Not saying that;s what happened to you, but you stated above it lost sat signal and didn't climb and moved horiz into a tree.

It said it was doing a RTH and I only panicked when it hit the tree. Pause did nothing. I had 9 - 11 sats at take off so it probably wasn't sat signal I lost but wifi. Makes no sense as solo was close enough to hit with a rock.

nvpowerdoc · Mar 2, 2016

I've been flying with two (attached) devices lately, my Android phone running DroidPlanner (or Tower) and my wife's iPhone running the Solo App for video (6S+ screen much bigger than Galaxy 5). What's nice is the audio call-out on the Android device indicating what flight mode the Solo is flying in, loss of 3D lock (GPS) and other indicators (like battery percentages, etc). In DP, I can easily change the Flight Mode to Stabilize if needed (the one I am most accustomed to from my custom Pixhawk Hex days). Tower seems to work pretty decent too (by itself), but the video is a little smaller. At some point, I'll figure out how to assign "Stabilize" to one of the A/B buttons (I'm sure its easy, just have to get the manual out again).

jschall · Mar 10, 2016

Lance said:
It said it was doing a RTH and I only panicked when it hit the tree. Pause did nothing. I had 9 - 11 sats at take off so it probably wasn't sat signal I lost but wifi. Makes no sense as solo was close enough to hit with a rock.

Hi Lance,
Has 3DR addressed your support ticket?

User Name · Mar 10, 2016

Lance said:
I have my settings set to 100' for RTH so I'm a little confused as to why it started to move horizontally.

I remember reading about a change in the RTL procedure where by it varies the RTL height based on the distance from the launch point - if you're close enough, it doesn't climb at all but rather returns at it's current altitude. This eliminates the need to do a full climb to the set height just to fly a short distance and then come all the way back down. The obvious problem is that it makes the totally unjustifiable assumption that there were no obstructions nearby the launch site.

I didn't like the sound of this change when I read about it, and reading this only confirms my concern. I get what they were trying to avoid, but I think it's always better to waste some battery/flight time to avoid a potential crash. I don't think a system should ever change a set parameter on a blind assumption about the environment it's flying in.

Lance · Mar 11, 2016

jschall said:
Hi Lance,
Has 3DR addressed your support ticket?

Yes, although I don't agree 100% they said I could've gained manual control before it hit the tree. I tried to pause and fly but pause did absolutely nothing and by the time I pushed fly it was in the tree. I've pre ordered the Phantom 4 and will slowly repair my Solo, then sell for cheap or hand it down to my son. Either way, I won't be buying another 3DR product and will discourage anyone I can from making the same mistake I did.

Jubalr · Mar 11, 2016

That's kind of funny to see both extremes between you and @jschall. And is like the ford vs chevy apple vs android, etc..It's all based on personal experience with a product. But certainly many more have purchased 3DR because of their experience with the other company (including me) than have purchased the other way around. But I don't get on the other thread and try to discourage anyone from purchasing, because many have had great success with the product.

I wish you great success with the P4.
YMMV..

Fly Safe,,

Mr_Chris · Mar 11, 2016

And fwiw, I pressed home/land being lazy yesterday and Solo flew up towards 60m, my RTL altitude, it was 5 metres from the takeoff coords...

But if the complaint guy wants to, he should be able to post the logs and they will show how the timing worked out. I can't say 3dr are going to be right or wrong without looking but my own learning curve involved learning how to take control in various circumstances.

If you're following and your ground GPS gets a bad moment, Solo will react to the signal received. But if the GPS on Solo has a issue, pause and RTL don't work... So grabbing the sticks and flying is still needed sometimes. People need to fly away from trees and other obstacles until they've gotten used to some basic panic responses and then in the tighter locations they will fare better.

Just my view... No disrespect to the fellow owner who hasn't enjoyed his Solo...

Lance · Mar 13, 2016

Mr_Chris said:
And fwiw, I pressed home/land being lazy yesterday and Solo flew up towards 60m, my RTL altitude, it was 5 metres from the takeoff coords...

But if the complaint guy wants to, he should be able to post the logs and they will show how the timing worked out. I can't say 3dr are going to be right or wrong without looking but my own learning curve involved learning how to take control in various circumstances.

If you're following and your ground GPS gets a bad moment, Solo will react to the signal received. But if the GPS on Solo has a issue, pause and RTL don't work... So grabbing the sticks and flying is still needed sometimes. People need to fly away from trees and other obstacles until they've gotten used to some basic panic responses and then in the tighter locations they will fare better.

Just my view... No disrespect to the fellow owner who hasn't enjoyed his Solo...

No disrespect taken....I did not lose satellite signal, I lost wifi connection about 20 feet from my location. I was told not to fly over water as the water can reflect the signal and cause issues.....Don't fly anywhere near trees, water, uneven ground, cloudy days or anything that can cast a shadow. Lesson learned.