newer solo owner, just had it fall out of the sky. HELP

Nexus08 · May 30, 2017

Went in on two new solos around the holidays last season when best buy was having their deals. First drone I've ever had and I loved it up until it fell out of the sky back in march. There was snow on the ground and I flew for two packs and then went up for the third. Was 200-300 feet in air when the drone seemed to lose power and free fall. The drone was toast. Go pro was okay though and oddly stopped recording mid fall. I contacted 3dr help right away and got a swift response that they would look at my logs. Well it's almost june now and my drone is still in pieces. I keep getting replies that they are looking at the logs. From what i've read on this site, some of you guys can figure out what happened pretty easily. I may be out of luck on getting this drone replaced but i'd at least like to know what the heck happened. If someone could help me out with the logs then that would be great. I want to put my other drone up in the air but i'm gun shy at this point. I don't want to crash another one.

IrishmanPDX · May 31, 2017

Nexus08 said:
Went in on two new solos around the holidays last season when best buy was having their deals. First drone I've ever had and I loved it up until it fell out of the sky back in march. There was snow on the ground and I flew for two packs and then went up for the third. Was 200-300 feet in air when the drone seemed to lose power and free fall. The drone was toast. Go pro was okay though and oddly stopped recording mid fall. I contacted 3dr help right away and got a swift response that they would look at my logs. Well it's almost june now and my drone is still in pieces. I keep getting replies that they are looking at the logs. From what i've read on this site, some of you guys can figure out what happened pretty easily. I may be out of luck on getting this drone replaced but i'd at least like to know what the heck happened. If someone could help me out with the logs then that would be great. I want to put my other drone up in the air but i'm gun shy at this point. I don't want to crash another one.

Not sure I can help you with the logs myself since I'm also a newbie, however I find it interesting that the gopro stopped recording mid fall. This would seem to indicate two possibilities:

1: Loss of power. I'm not sure if the Solo is supposed to initiate an RTL upon low battery, but I'm wondering if you possibly have a defective battery that caused a sudden loss of power. This would cause your drone to drop out of the sky and for the gopro to stop recording.

2: You said there was snow on the ground, were you wearing gloves at all? Wondering if it's possible you triggered an emergency engine shutdown by accident. Maybe you didn't realize it, but you could have been holding down the pause & A & B buttons at the same time. This would cause a sudden engine stop as well as shut off your gopro.

A 3rd option exists, but it would mean you were using solex and had enabled the "Kill engines" option and hit it by accident.

Pedals2Paddles · May 31, 2017

It does sound like a power problem. Did it go quiet like all the motors stopped? Or did it sound like the motors were running trying to save itself?

Download the logs and post them. Several of us here know what we're looking at and will have a look. I'm at work so I can't provide instructions on downloading the logs.

andrew.baker.142 · May 31, 2017

As for the GoPro stopping the recording during the fall-remember it takes a finite amount of time to write the data to the card. I'd propose that the recording stopped when the copter hit the ground, but also had not written the previous couple of seconds of video to the card so it looked like the recording stopped mid flight.

Nexus08 · May 31, 2017

I'm attempting to upload the video now so you guys can see. The motors kept going until impact, which is weird because it just fell straight down. I rotated left and it just nose dived a couple hundred feet in the air. I want to upload logs but I'm not sure how to yet.

Got it up on youtube.

Pedals2Paddles · May 31, 2017

Definitely not a power problem. That's in all likelihood a motor or motorpod failure.

andrew.baker.142 · May 31, 2017

Time to pick up a "Parts" Solo from eBay. That is the best way to get replacement parts.

Nexus08 · May 31, 2017

Good news! Heard back from 3DR after emailing them again. Got the results back for my case

3DR sent me:
"Thanks for your patience. We have reviewed the whole case scenario and found that the issue was caused by a motor pod that stopped responding properly.
After checking the time and place along with the video, we saw that the operating parameters Solo was flying into were barely within the functionality, reaching the 32° F and some gust winds of 30 mph, although the winds peed was not as high.

This time we are going to help you with the replacement of the unit, but please take into consideration the operating parameters for future flights, since the weather conditions are really important for the good behavior of the unit, you can find that information on the Solo manual on section "1.4 Operating Parameters"

Seems like I was close to operating temps! I'm very relieved. The return email says no gimbal though so I'll have to find out why that is. Thanks for the help everyone!