- Joined
- Jul 29, 2020
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 13
- Age
- 58
I thought I’d share my pleasure in how straightforward it turned out to be in successfully re-commissioning a 3DR Solo I purchased recently and that hasn’t flown for two years. The previous owner sold it because he was frustrated trying to get his GoPro and his iPhone working with the aircraft and controller. I didn’t pay much for it but felt as though I was taking a risk, as I knew that 3DR had moved on and that the kit is not currently supported by them.
With that in mind plus having seen quite a few threads on this forum about old and unsupported vs new app, device etc. I was a bit unsure how this would all pan out, so I reserved myself a few hours to read up, and a Sunday afternoon to take my time and go through the motions.
I spent a good hour reading various posts and experiences on this forum, and read through the user manual on Sidepilot - in particular, the section on updating aircraft and controller - From all that it was an easy choice of which way to go - My iPhone is the 8 plus and it looked like that wouldn’t work fully with the Solo App, so I decided that I would go Sidepliot rather than the Solo app...
...I also looked up detail on GoPro on this forum - my Solo came with gimbal but no camera- I could see that 4 Black would certainly work - thank you well-known online auction site, I grabbed a GoPro4 black with lens cap but no other accessories at all for £35 and which tested fine via my mobile.
So I got the Solo batteries charged and loaded up Sidepilot on the iPhone and then followed the instructions in the Sidepilot manual, clipped the GoPro into place and starting with boot-up of aircraft and controller.
I didn’t get much further having fired up the aircraft and controller - while they were already paired, the previous owner had applied a different WiFi password to the default, so I couldn’t get a WiFi connection working for the phone.
No problem, I just went straight to the factory reset section in the Solo manual to clear the previous WiFi password - that worked first time - and then went ahead with the Sidepilot Clean Configuration Firmware upgrade on both.
About twenty minutes later I had both Aircraft and Controller updated to 4.0 via Sidepilot and paired. I then turned to the camera and display on the Sidepilot app and - when I remembered to remove the lens cap
- there was video too!
Very happily trouble-free getting back into 3DR Solo operations, and delighted to have taken the chance on an older aircraft system I knew from before, rather than a new one that would have cost me what, six, seven times more than I have invested here... and thanks to the forum for all the advice I needed in the one place!
With that in mind plus having seen quite a few threads on this forum about old and unsupported vs new app, device etc. I was a bit unsure how this would all pan out, so I reserved myself a few hours to read up, and a Sunday afternoon to take my time and go through the motions.
I spent a good hour reading various posts and experiences on this forum, and read through the user manual on Sidepilot - in particular, the section on updating aircraft and controller - From all that it was an easy choice of which way to go - My iPhone is the 8 plus and it looked like that wouldn’t work fully with the Solo App, so I decided that I would go Sidepliot rather than the Solo app...
...I also looked up detail on GoPro on this forum - my Solo came with gimbal but no camera- I could see that 4 Black would certainly work - thank you well-known online auction site, I grabbed a GoPro4 black with lens cap but no other accessories at all for £35 and which tested fine via my mobile.
So I got the Solo batteries charged and loaded up Sidepilot on the iPhone and then followed the instructions in the Sidepilot manual, clipped the GoPro into place and starting with boot-up of aircraft and controller.
I didn’t get much further having fired up the aircraft and controller - while they were already paired, the previous owner had applied a different WiFi password to the default, so I couldn’t get a WiFi connection working for the phone.
No problem, I just went straight to the factory reset section in the Solo manual to clear the previous WiFi password - that worked first time - and then went ahead with the Sidepilot Clean Configuration Firmware upgrade on both.
About twenty minutes later I had both Aircraft and Controller updated to 4.0 via Sidepilot and paired. I then turned to the camera and display on the Sidepilot app and - when I remembered to remove the lens cap
- there was video too!Very happily trouble-free getting back into 3DR Solo operations, and delighted to have taken the chance on an older aircraft system I knew from before, rather than a new one that would have cost me what, six, seven times more than I have invested here... and thanks to the forum for all the advice I needed in the one place!
