Hi, yeah I read the manual, but it doesn't explain why I would have it permanently displayed on my screen 250+ flights in a row. I'm guessing that if it were the normal behaviour it would be random, but 250 flights in a row? No change whatsoever, except that on occasions it wouldn't start until liftoff.
Solex for Solo
- Thread starter SteveReno
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Steve,
I' a newbie to Solo, but so far I love it. I have several drones, my biggest is a YuneecTyphoon. So I am used to flying but I learn something everyday, especially through these forums,a wealth of info. Thanks for doing what you do!
My question is I got a great deal on a Solo with everything ready to go, flys great!!. Everybody all ays wants more. So I bought the Solex app.
My question is the proper procedure for installing the app. I have installed it on my tablet, but I'm wondering about what files to download to my receiver and drone, because there is a lot. My solo is bone stock other than I removed the covering from the GPS and replaced it with a an aftermarket piece.
And my last question,can I still use the Solo app if I don' like Solex, which I doubt, just asking,lol.
Thanks,
Nathan( brig57)
I' a newbie to Solo, but so far I love it. I have several drones, my biggest is a YuneecTyphoon. So I am used to flying but I learn something everyday, especially through these forums,a wealth of info. Thanks for doing what you do!
My question is I got a great deal on a Solo with everything ready to go, flys great!!. Everybody all ays wants more. So I bought the Solex app.
My question is the proper procedure for installing the app. I have installed it on my tablet, but I'm wondering about what files to download to my receiver and drone, because there is a lot. My solo is bone stock other than I removed the covering from the GPS and replaced it with a an aftermarket piece.
And my last question,can I still use the Solo app if I don' like Solex, which I doubt, just asking,lol.
Thanks,
Nathan( brig57)
Don't download anything with out reading about the whys and hows in Matt's Open Solo threads. The upgrades require very careful attention to his installation instructions or you can mess up your Solo. You can continue to use the Solo App if you like.
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I have a couple of questions:
1. Do I just pay for the Solex app and I'm good to go on a stock 3dr solo?
2. Boat Mode setting
There's a new Boat Mode setting in Vehicle Settings, for people who are flying their Solos off of boats. When you turn the setting on, you'll need to reboot your Solo before the setting takes effect. (Green Cube ONLY!)
In order to use the Boat Mode, I will need the Green Cube? I
1. Do I just pay for the Solex app and I'm good to go on a stock 3dr solo?
2. Boat Mode setting
There's a new Boat Mode setting in Vehicle Settings, for people who are flying their Solos off of boats. When you turn the setting on, you'll need to reboot your Solo before the setting takes effect. (Green Cube ONLY!)
In order to use the Boat Mode, I will need the Green Cube? I
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SOLEX is a great product and the support is outstanding. Yes, purchase & download via the play store. It is Android only!
My understanding is boat mode is GC only. I don't have GC yet but one day soon.
So I bought the Geotagging app add-on, and I must be stupid today or something. I can't find in Solex where "Update Firmware" is.
"Under the "Firmware Updates" item on the main menu"
Where is that? I've check "advanced mode" and that didn't make it appear.
I am using version 1.6.3 - Dec 3, 2017
-----------------------------
The instructions I received, pasting them here because they aren't anywhere else on the internet I could find:
Geotagging
A GoPro doesn't geotag photos, but it's useful to have geotagged photos when doing surveys, scans, etc. The Geotagging feature in Solex is intended to fill that need. With it, you can take a set of photos gathered during a given flight, and geotag them so they refer to the locations in which they were taken.
Setup
The first thing to do is update your Solo so it lets the app know whenever a picture is taken. Under the "Firmware Updates" item on the main menu, pick the "Photo Events" package, and install it. Reboot your Solo. With the update in place, your Solo will send a message to the app whenever it takes a picture, and its location. This happens whether you manually trigger a photo, or a mission triggers it as part of a Survey, Camera Trigger action, or Take Picture action.
Capture
The obvious next step is to capture some photos. The ideal thing to do here is make sure your camera's SD card is empty to avoid potential confusion later.
A simple intro to this: Put the camera into Photo mode and fly around, taking pictures at various locations. You can also set up a mission with "Take Picture" actions at various waypoints, fly a survey with "Auto-start Camera" turned on, or set a Camera Trigger action on a mission. Any of those will work, but if you're looking to just understand this workflow, taking 10 pictures or so manually on a flight keeps things simple.
Once you've taken your pictures, land your Solo and open the Map view under the flight screen. Click the "Flight Logs" item. You should see a list of flight logs where there was something to save. There should be one named for the current date and time (as of whenever you landed and disarmed). Click that, and you should see a number of "photo" icons, one at each location where you took a picture.
Long-press the flight log in the list, pick "Rename Flight Log" and give it a useful name (e.g. "Flying around" or something). This will come in handy later.
Transfer Files
The next thing to do is get the pictures into Solex. For this example, I assume you're using a PC (or Mac) for this.
Pull the SD card out of the camera and copy the files to your PC. Put them all in a directory together. Inspect them and notice how they don't have any GPS EXIF tags, and the time on the photos is way off. If you don't set the clock on the GoPro, creation timestamps can be off by a couple of years.
Zip all of the photos for a given flight up into a zip file with the images in the root directory of the file (no subdirectories). Call it flying-around.zip or something.
The next step is to make this file available to Solex. You can email this file to yourself as an attachment, but there's typically a limit on how big an attached file can be. So a better idea is to use somehing like Google Drive, or (much better) Dropbox. We'll use Dropbox in this example because it's awesome. So make sure you have that installed on your PC and Android device where Solex is also installed. Or you can use something else. The important thing is that you're able to transfer a sizable zip file to your Android device and have some way of opening it by something that can share it with other apps.
Copy flying-around.zip file to your PC's Dropbox directory. Dropbox will do its thing and after a few minutes, the file will be accessible on your Android device. (Open the folder in Dropbox where you put the file, and pull down on the screen to refresh the list.)
Open the zip file in Dropbox. It will download it if necessary, and then show you a list of installed apps that can handle zip files. Solex will be one of the apps in the list. Click on Solex.
Solex will pop up and ask if you want to import some data. Say yes. Solex will show a progress view and show some files being extracted. When it's done, it will open a screen with a map on it, and a list of flight logs on the left side.
Geotagging
This is the point where you associate a group of photos with the flight where they were taken. If you're following this example to the letter, you should have a flight log named "Flying around" or something. That's the one you want. Click on it, and the map will pan to the location where the flight took place. You'll see markers on the map wherever photos were taken. They're rotated so the little pointer on the top of them is pointing in the direction the copter was flying when the photo was taken. On the right side, there's a vertical list of photos. At this point, if you click on an image, nothing happens. If you click a marker, nothing happens then either, except a little info window showing the time/altitude/heading and some other info.
Ideally, all you have to do at this point is click "Geotag All" and associate the locations with the images.
If the number of locations and the number of photos match, this process is really easy. But just as often (especially with a long flight containing a high number of photos), there's likely to be cases where there will be a mismatch, and it will warn you that the number of locations and the number of image files doesn't match. If that's the case, there's a number of reasons why that could be:
Note that there is literally nothing in the way of information to work with in the pictures, aside from the difference between their creation times. Which is only accurate to 1 second. So what Solex does when geotagging the pictures is based largely on guesswork, following the same kind of process a user might go through when trying to geotag files manually. Solex just does it faster and without getting as annoyed as a user might in the process.
The time-difference inaccuracy means that it's best if you don't take pictures more often than once per second. If you do, and the camera fails to actually take a picture, it gets more difficult for the app to figure out which photo goes with which location. (In cases where the location and photo counts actually match, it's not an issue.) Even then, it can typically figure things out, but it's easier if pictures are at least 1 second apart.
Validation
Once you've geotagged the photos, you can click on the marker for a photo and see it in a small inset in the lower right of the screen to check if it looks right. To get a better look, click the inset, and the picture will show larger. At the bottom is some info about the photo: The time, altitude, heading, filename, and how close the file's geotag is to the location. Usually it's no more than a foot away, usually more like 6 inches. (The difference is due to conversions between lat/lng and DMS locations used in EXIF tags.)
You will probably see some spaces where there are pin icons instead of photo icons once you've geotagged the images. This is most often caused by the camera failing to actually take a picture when instructed to. You can at least verify that the surrounding pictures are at the right locations by clicking the images in the list and making sure the markers adjacent to the pins are highlighted.
One relatively quick way to verify the photos are at the correct locations is to use the vertical image list at the right side of the screen. Click the first one, and the first location in the flight path should be highlighted. Click the next one and the next location should be highlighted. You can go down the entire list this way and verify that the highlight moves from one marker to the next in the flight path. If the highlight skips around, then you've hit upon the unlikely case of it getting things totally wrong.
Editing
If things don't look right, the first thing to do is verify that you're looking at the right set of photos for the flight log you're on (which is why it's handy to give flight logs descriptive names). If you're sure about that and things *still* don't look right, then it's because Solex wasn't able to figure things out. In that case, it will geotag what it can, and leave the rest. Here are some steps you can take:
"Under the "Firmware Updates" item on the main menu"
Where is that? I've check "advanced mode" and that didn't make it appear.
I am using version 1.6.3 - Dec 3, 2017
-----------------------------
The instructions I received, pasting them here because they aren't anywhere else on the internet I could find:
Geotagging
A GoPro doesn't geotag photos, but it's useful to have geotagged photos when doing surveys, scans, etc. The Geotagging feature in Solex is intended to fill that need. With it, you can take a set of photos gathered during a given flight, and geotag them so they refer to the locations in which they were taken.
Setup
The first thing to do is update your Solo so it lets the app know whenever a picture is taken. Under the "Firmware Updates" item on the main menu, pick the "Photo Events" package, and install it. Reboot your Solo. With the update in place, your Solo will send a message to the app whenever it takes a picture, and its location. This happens whether you manually trigger a photo, or a mission triggers it as part of a Survey, Camera Trigger action, or Take Picture action.
Capture
The obvious next step is to capture some photos. The ideal thing to do here is make sure your camera's SD card is empty to avoid potential confusion later.
A simple intro to this: Put the camera into Photo mode and fly around, taking pictures at various locations. You can also set up a mission with "Take Picture" actions at various waypoints, fly a survey with "Auto-start Camera" turned on, or set a Camera Trigger action on a mission. Any of those will work, but if you're looking to just understand this workflow, taking 10 pictures or so manually on a flight keeps things simple.
Once you've taken your pictures, land your Solo and open the Map view under the flight screen. Click the "Flight Logs" item. You should see a list of flight logs where there was something to save. There should be one named for the current date and time (as of whenever you landed and disarmed). Click that, and you should see a number of "photo" icons, one at each location where you took a picture.
Long-press the flight log in the list, pick "Rename Flight Log" and give it a useful name (e.g. "Flying around" or something). This will come in handy later.
Transfer Files
The next thing to do is get the pictures into Solex. For this example, I assume you're using a PC (or Mac) for this.
Pull the SD card out of the camera and copy the files to your PC. Put them all in a directory together. Inspect them and notice how they don't have any GPS EXIF tags, and the time on the photos is way off. If you don't set the clock on the GoPro, creation timestamps can be off by a couple of years.
Zip all of the photos for a given flight up into a zip file with the images in the root directory of the file (no subdirectories). Call it flying-around.zip or something.
The next step is to make this file available to Solex. You can email this file to yourself as an attachment, but there's typically a limit on how big an attached file can be. So a better idea is to use somehing like Google Drive, or (much better) Dropbox. We'll use Dropbox in this example because it's awesome. So make sure you have that installed on your PC and Android device where Solex is also installed. Or you can use something else. The important thing is that you're able to transfer a sizable zip file to your Android device and have some way of opening it by something that can share it with other apps.
Copy flying-around.zip file to your PC's Dropbox directory. Dropbox will do its thing and after a few minutes, the file will be accessible on your Android device. (Open the folder in Dropbox where you put the file, and pull down on the screen to refresh the list.)
Open the zip file in Dropbox. It will download it if necessary, and then show you a list of installed apps that can handle zip files. Solex will be one of the apps in the list. Click on Solex.
Solex will pop up and ask if you want to import some data. Say yes. Solex will show a progress view and show some files being extracted. When it's done, it will open a screen with a map on it, and a list of flight logs on the left side.
Geotagging
This is the point where you associate a group of photos with the flight where they were taken. If you're following this example to the letter, you should have a flight log named "Flying around" or something. That's the one you want. Click on it, and the map will pan to the location where the flight took place. You'll see markers on the map wherever photos were taken. They're rotated so the little pointer on the top of them is pointing in the direction the copter was flying when the photo was taken. On the right side, there's a vertical list of photos. At this point, if you click on an image, nothing happens. If you click a marker, nothing happens then either, except a little info window showing the time/altitude/heading and some other info.
Ideally, all you have to do at this point is click "Geotag All" and associate the locations with the images.
If the number of locations and the number of photos match, this process is really easy. But just as often (especially with a long flight containing a high number of photos), there's likely to be cases where there will be a mismatch, and it will warn you that the number of locations and the number of image files doesn't match. If that's the case, there's a number of reasons why that could be:
- You picked the wrong flight log.
- You didn't actually put all of the files for that flight into the zip file.
- At some point during your flight, the camera was told to take a picture, and didn't actually do it.
- Something caused the Solo to send an "I took a picture" event to the app, but it didn't really take a picture. (Pretty much the same as the previous item.)
Note that there is literally nothing in the way of information to work with in the pictures, aside from the difference between their creation times. Which is only accurate to 1 second. So what Solex does when geotagging the pictures is based largely on guesswork, following the same kind of process a user might go through when trying to geotag files manually. Solex just does it faster and without getting as annoyed as a user might in the process.
The time-difference inaccuracy means that it's best if you don't take pictures more often than once per second. If you do, and the camera fails to actually take a picture, it gets more difficult for the app to figure out which photo goes with which location. (In cases where the location and photo counts actually match, it's not an issue.) Even then, it can typically figure things out, but it's easier if pictures are at least 1 second apart.
Validation
Once you've geotagged the photos, you can click on the marker for a photo and see it in a small inset in the lower right of the screen to check if it looks right. To get a better look, click the inset, and the picture will show larger. At the bottom is some info about the photo: The time, altitude, heading, filename, and how close the file's geotag is to the location. Usually it's no more than a foot away, usually more like 6 inches. (The difference is due to conversions between lat/lng and DMS locations used in EXIF tags.)
You will probably see some spaces where there are pin icons instead of photo icons once you've geotagged the images. This is most often caused by the camera failing to actually take a picture when instructed to. You can at least verify that the surrounding pictures are at the right locations by clicking the images in the list and making sure the markers adjacent to the pins are highlighted.
One relatively quick way to verify the photos are at the correct locations is to use the vertical image list at the right side of the screen. Click the first one, and the first location in the flight path should be highlighted. Click the next one and the next location should be highlighted. You can go down the entire list this way and verify that the highlight moves from one marker to the next in the flight path. If the highlight skips around, then you've hit upon the unlikely case of it getting things totally wrong.
Editing
If things don't look right, the first thing to do is verify that you're looking at the right set of photos for the flight log you're on (which is why it's handy to give flight logs descriptive names). If you're sure about that and things *still* don't look right, then it's because Solex wasn't able to figure things out. In that case, it will geotag what it can, and leave the rest. Here are some steps you can take:
- Manually geotag photos. On the options menu, select "Manual". In this mode, you can click on an image and then click on a location and it will geotag that image with the location you selected. Note that there's nothing stopping you from tagging an image with an obviously wrong location. If you do that, you can always fix things by just switching back to Auto and clicking "Geotag All" again.
- One easy way to verify the photos are in the right place is to use the photo list. Click on each image in turn and the corresponding marker will be highlighted on the map. The images are shown in the order they were created, so clicking each one in the list in order should follow the flight path.
Hi All
I'm a new who bought mission and geo-tag add-ons for Solex, and have some trouble with "survey" waypoint camera settings.
I've created a survey waypoint and draw the survey area, then got the auto-generated grid flight plan,
however the camera type is "Cannon A2300/A2400", whatever I changed it to GoPro 4 or other camera else,
the lateral grid distance of the flight plan didn't change at all.
I've tried with my 2 tablet and all got the same issue, does anybody have the same experience with me?
Or what's wrong with my step?
Another question is about the GeoTag function, does it work if I don't update any firmware from Solex to my default SOLO (i.e. no modification excluding default 3DR-SOLO update)?
I'm a new who bought mission and geo-tag add-ons for Solex, and have some trouble with "survey" waypoint camera settings.
I've created a survey waypoint and draw the survey area, then got the auto-generated grid flight plan,
however the camera type is "Cannon A2300/A2400", whatever I changed it to GoPro 4 or other camera else,
the lateral grid distance of the flight plan didn't change at all.
I've tried with my 2 tablet and all got the same issue, does anybody have the same experience with me?
Or what's wrong with my step?
Another question is about the GeoTag function, does it work if I don't update any firmware from Solex to my default SOLO (i.e. no modification excluding default 3DR-SOLO update)?
I posted this question a couple of weeks ago on the main discussion group but figured I'd ask it here to.
Recently, after upgrading to the Solex version prior to the latest, I've been having issues with my Nexus 7 2013 video locking up after about 8-10 minutes into the flight. The only way to remedy it is to reboot the tablet.
My brother has the same setup and he had the same issue. Also after upgrading to the next to latest Version.
One of the group suggested checking any added apps on the tablet. It's a good idea but I haven't used any of it in months. So nothing has been added.
I've emailed Kelly twice asking for advice but haven't heard from him. That's kind of unusual. Usually he's pretty responsive.
I'm not sure what to do to remedy this. I may end up uninstalling and reinstalling it completely.
Anyone else have this issue? Seems odd the my brother and I are seeing this after the Solex update.
Thanks.
Recently, after upgrading to the Solex version prior to the latest, I've been having issues with my Nexus 7 2013 video locking up after about 8-10 minutes into the flight. The only way to remedy it is to reboot the tablet.
My brother has the same setup and he had the same issue. Also after upgrading to the next to latest Version.
One of the group suggested checking any added apps on the tablet. It's a good idea but I haven't used any of it in months. So nothing has been added.
I've emailed Kelly twice asking for advice but haven't heard from him. That's kind of unusual. Usually he's pretty responsive.
I'm not sure what to do to remedy this. I may end up uninstalling and reinstalling it completely.
Anyone else have this issue? Seems odd the my brother and I are seeing this after the Solex update.
Thanks.
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Just updated to the latest SOLEX and its broken I cannot connect to my solo with a green cube. sees the solo wifi but will not even acknowledge its connected to a solo? EDIT it does not work with either of my solos one stock one green cube both running open-solo Help!!!!
Edit: Got it to work had to switch the connection type to USB hit connect then back to UDP and hit connect, it finally connected. Must be some kind of glitch..
Edit: Got it to work had to switch the connection type to USB hit connect then back to UDP and hit connect, it finally connected. Must be some kind of glitch..
Last edited:
I like that the "in app" documentation links now work. Thanks for fixing. [emoji106]
I have noticed that when I plan missions the camera select menu does not seem to work. It keeps defaulting to the first camera on the list. This occurs when you have the mission then re-open and the camera is back to the first one in the list.
Awesome app. I'll try connecting to my solo tomorrow. Excited to learn about the new updates.
I have noticed that when I plan missions the camera select menu does not seem to work. It keeps defaulting to the first camera on the list. This occurs when you have the mission then re-open and the camera is back to the first one in the list.
Awesome app. I'll try connecting to my solo tomorrow. Excited to learn about the new updates.
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So is this app working with the new SkyViper GPS I was under the impression it would? It see's the SkyViper WiFi but will not connect using UDP so it will not download the parameters. Are there any changes that need to be made on the Solex app for it to work?
EDIT: Found the solution on Facebook via RCGroups
the Sfyviper uses Mavlink2 Solex does not so you have to change the serial one protocol to 1 for Mavlink 1, it works but no battery Telem...Video streams better than the SkyRocket APP though,
Great work Kelly!
EDIT: Found the solution on Facebook via RCGroups
the Sfyviper uses Mavlink2 Solex does not so you have to change the serial one protocol to 1 for Mavlink 1, it works but no battery Telem...Video streams better than the SkyRocket APP though,
Great work Kelly!
Last edited:
Newb here think I might have bricked my solo with new open solo installed from solex it's stuck just nonstop beebing can anyone help been doing it now for 15 mins
Update
Got brave enough to pull the battery and reboot....... Then it started back up and did the pair but not sure it took the new firmware how can I check?
Update
Got brave enough to pull the battery and reboot....... Then it started back up and did the pair but not sure it took the new firmware how can I check?
Last edited:
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Just curious - why does Solex exclude the ability to assign Smart Shots to the controller's buttons?
Maybe I'm the only one but I still use the old Solo app to assign them to the A/B buttons every so often.
On a bright sunny day I can easily see the artoo's display, not so much the tablet's screen.
Also, are there plans to add in the short/long-press buttons now in Open Solo 3.0?
I've been using JuiceSSH to edit the solo's /usr/bin/extSettings.conf file to reassign the short/long press buttons and it works fine, but having this in-app would be nice.
Maybe I'm the only one but I still use the old Solo app to assign them to the A/B buttons every so often.
On a bright sunny day I can easily see the artoo's display, not so much the tablet's screen.
Also, are there plans to add in the short/long-press buttons now in Open Solo 3.0?
I've been using JuiceSSH to edit the solo's /usr/bin/extSettings.conf file to reassign the short/long press buttons and it works fine, but having this in-app would be nice.
Last edited:
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