Solex with no calibration options available

AlienPanda · Apr 9, 2018

I think I have experienced similar calibration grayed out calibration as well yesterday April 8, Sunday.

I turned on both controller and the drone then controller keep saying "level error", so tried to calibrate a few time successful, but keep saying "level error", and then back to greyed out. Actually turning on and off the controller and drones a few times, then I can finally fly. I think this happened after updating to Open Solo.

Experienced shaky video after update as well. Could this be related to the speed setting? I know I bumped it from slow (10mph) to fast or very fast (33 mph).

IrishmanPDX · Apr 9, 2018

AlienPanda said:
I think I have experienced similar calibration grayed out calibration as well yesterday April 8, Sunday.

I turned on both controller and the drone then controller keep saying "level error", so tried to calibrate a few time successful, but keep saying "level error", and then back to greyed out. Actually turning on and off the controller and drones a few times, then I can finally fly. I think this happened after updating to Open Solo.

Experienced shaky video after update as well. Could this be related to the speed setting? I know I bumped it from slow (10mph) to fast or very fast (33 mph).

The faster you fly the more the gimbal is going to struggle to mitigate any vibrations caused by wind/air resistance. This will be more obvious if you fly into headwinds etc. Plus if you have vibration present in your video at low speeds I would assume that working the motors harder would also product more vibration (which may not be entirely noticeable at lower speeds).

If you post video of your shaky video, I'm sure people could let you know what the most likely causes are.

AlienPanda · Apr 9, 2018

IrishmanPDX said:
The faster you fly the more the gimbal is going to struggle to mitigate any vibrations caused by wind/air resistance. This will be more obvious if you fly into headwinds etc. Plus if you have vibration present in your video at low speeds I would assume that working the motors harder would also product more vibration (which may not be entirely noticeable at lower speeds).

If you post video of your shaky video, I'm sure people could let you know what the most likely causes are.

Ok, I will try to do that tonight. What is the preferable method to post video here? YouTube? Or direct upload to this board? Etc?

AlienPanda · Apr 10, 2018

AlienPanda said:
Ok, I will try to do that tonight. What is the preferable method to post video here? YouTube? Or direct upload to this board? Etc?

Ok, here is my video that I captured with Solo on Sunday, 4/8/2017. I hope link work!

It was flown at McKinley Park in Chicago. Don't know if you guys have heard the news a year or two ago. They discovered a headless body in its lagoon. The head is still yet to be found. Scary, huh?

ThePirat · Apr 10, 2018

IrishmanPDX said:
I did manage to replicate this issue (at random). I reloaded open solo onto the drone, opened solex (but I did manage to calibrate), but exiting the app, re-entering, exiting and entering it again eventually led to the calibration options being grayed out. Strange, because the app still worked and I could access the drone controls and camera. Will play around more to see if there's a specific way to replicate the problem and resolve.

I saw this problem since the very first time I changed to OpenSolo...
The first time I opened Solex after (successful) firmware upgrade, I could see the option greyed out...after that I closed Solex, rebooted all the devices and reattempted...but with no luck.
I closed and opened Solex again several times...with no luck again though
Next I tried with Tower and finally it is born!
After the successful calibration, I tried again with Solex and this times the option was NOT greyed out....I dunno guys

IrishmanPDX · Apr 10, 2018

AlienPanda said:
Ok, here is my video that I captured with Solo on Sunday, 4/8/2017. I hope link work!

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It was flown at McKinley Park in Chicago. Don't know if you guys have heard the news a year or two ago. They discovered a headless body in its lagoon. The head is still yet to be found. Scary, huh?

Did you just upgrade to Open Solo or did you also install a green cube?

AlienPanda · Apr 10, 2018

IrishmanPDX said:
Did you just upgrade to Open Solo or did you also install a green cube?

No, I did not install green cube. Is it necessary? I haven't found one yet in USA, wonder if it's expensive. But I think I saw one on Aliexpress selling at least $500-600!!! Do they really cost that much?

AlienPanda · Apr 10, 2018

IrishmanPDX said:
Did you just upgrade to Open Solo or did you also install a green cube?

Yes, I've only had just upgraded to Open Solo, both 3.0 on the controller and drone.

IrishmanPDX · Apr 10, 2018

No the green cube is not necessary for the Open Solo upgrade (but it is advised). And no, they are not worth $500 - $600. I think the price is usually around $168 and there should be more available the end of this month I think (can't remember what the last update was).. Ok, just wanted to know if you had opened your drone, maybe loosened the gimbal plate or anything, but if you just did a software install, then that's likely not the case.

What I'm seeing in the video doesn't look like wind sheer or wind speed causing the judder. I'm not seeing how the Open Solo upgrade would be causing it either (I've upgraded 5 birds, have never had any gimbal issues). You may want to try a reset to see if that clears it up. If not, then probably a gimbal issue.

AlienPanda · Apr 10, 2018

IrishmanPDX said:
No the green cube is not necessary for the Open Solo upgrade (but it is advised). And no, they are not worth $500 - $600. I think the price is usually around $168 and there should be more available the end of this month I think (can't remember what the last update was).. Ok, just wanted to know if you had opened your drone, maybe loosened the gimbal plate or anything, but if you just did a software install, then that's likely not the case.

What I'm seeing in the video doesn't look like wind sheer or wind speed causing the judder. I'm not seeing how the Open Solo upgrade would be causing it either (I've upgraded 5 birds, have never had any gimbal issues). You may want to try a reset to see if that clears it up. If not, then probably a gimbal issue.

I did open up the drone to inspect what's loose and what not. Also inspected the gimbal for anything that might be loose, but couldn't find anything that could raise concerns. However, I noticed all four rubber holding the gimbal plates are kinda springy. Are they supposed to give some bounces or should be firm?

I did hard reset both the drone and the controller two times yesterday, because I was trying to fix the "sweep preset" that's gone haywired after Open Solo update. Glad I got that fixed.

Tomorrow's weather is going to be warm around 60ish, so I hope to go out and do a test run. Until then I'll report back to let you know if that's fixed or not.

Thanks for your help!!!

IrishmanPDX · Apr 11, 2018

The gimbal plate should be kinda springy as you put it due to the fact it's supposed to absorb vibration, if it was firm it would just conduct that vibration all the way through to the gimbal itself forcing it to work harder.

Might help if you could do the following:

Take three pictures of your gimbal, one from head on, one from the side and one with the solo on it's back. May help people see if there's any damage evident.
Take some pictures or even a video of the solo powered on as you would normally have it, just tilt the drone slightly left, slightly right, pitch backwards and forwards and then one with it sitting level. Just so we can see if there's any unusual movements. Make sure you take the props off first, will make it easier and safer to handle.

Check your props, see if there's any damage, nicks etc. that may be causing excessive vibration.

AlienPanda · Apr 12, 2018

IrishmanPDX said:
The gimbal plate should be kinda springy as you put it due to the fact it's supposed to absorb vibration, if it was firm it would just conduct that vibration all the way through to the gimbal itself forcing it to work harder.

Might help if you could do the following:

Take three pictures of your gimbal, one from head on, one from the side and one with the solo on it's back. May help people see if there's any damage evident.
Take some pictures or even a video of the solo powered on as you would normally have it, just tilt the drone slightly left, slightly right, pitch backwards and forwards and then one with it sitting level. Just so we can see if there's any unusual movements. Make sure you take the props off first, will make it easier and safer to handle.

Check your props, see if there's any damage, nicks etc. that may be causing excessive vibration.

Hey Irishman,

I have posting 3 pictures here of the gimbal from 3 angles you have recommended. Let's see if you can spot anything suspective. I will follow up with a video after posting this. It will take a while. [emoji16]

AlienPanda · Apr 12, 2018

Here is a follow up with the video of the gimal movement

AlienPanda · Apr 12, 2018

I flew my drone on a near perfect weather day yesterday around my neighborhood's small park in Chinatown. Looks like the gimbal is not shaking as much as before. Here is 1 of 2 videos I will share here.

This one, it keeps beeping at the end. Does it do that when you pressed the "Return Home" button? The color of the video looks kinda washed out. Am I supposed to set the GoPro color to "GoPro" or "Flat"?

AlienPanda · Apr 12, 2018

Here is the 2nd part of the videos. I was a quite a bit aware of the sounds from the motors, especially when it's landing near me toward the end of this video. The motors made loud screeching / whining noises. While in the air, those motor sounds are normal as well? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, because I was wondering if the motors are going bad or something. Is it possible to lube the motor?

jimloss · Apr 12, 2018

AlienPanda said:
Here is a follow up with the video of the gimal movement

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Your gimbal needs balancing. You have a filter on your lens that is throwing the balance off.

jimloss · Apr 12, 2018

AlienPanda said:
I flew my drone on a near perfect weather day yesterday around my neighborhood's small park in Chinatown. Looks like the gimbal is not shaking as much as before. Here is 1 of 2 videos I will share here.

This one, it keeps beeping at the end. Does it do that when you pressed the "Return Home" button? The color of the video looks kinda washed out. Am I supposed to set the GoPro color to "GoPro" or "Flat"?

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The sound is a low battery alert.

Regarding the vibration/shake:
Make sure that your props are balanced
Install some Sorbothane between your battery tray and main board to limit vibration at the Cube

Prevent vibration from getting to video:
Pull your battery tray and ensure that your HDMI cable isn't coming in contact with the gimbal
Make sure that the gimbal dampeners are attached at all eight points
Consider modifying your gimbal dampeners

Changing to a rectilinear lens with a narrower FOV will keep the Solo's leg out of view - can also change the GoPro FOV to medium with your current lens to help this

Use the GoPro or Flat setting that you are comfortable with - depends on how you feel about GoPro color and how much editing you want to do.

jimloss · Apr 12, 2018

AlienPanda said:
Here is the 2nd part of the videos. I was a quite a bit aware of the sounds from the motors, especially when it's landing near me toward the end of this video. The motors made loud screeching / whining noises. While in the air, those motor sounds are normal as well? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, because I was wondering if the motors are going bad or something. Is it possible to lube the motor?

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That high pitched sound is normal - nothing to worry about. If you want to eliminate the sound, and possible source for some vibration, you can replace the motor bearings or the motors themselves.

IrishmanPDX · Apr 12, 2018

AlienPanda said:
Here is a follow up with the video of the gimal movement

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So basically the only reason I wanted you to post photo's and video's was not that I could actually deduct anything from either (unless it was glaringly obvious) but just to actually see how the gimbal and drone were being handled. Had one guy blaming his gimbal woes on open solo also, he then posted a video of him starting up the solo, with no camera in the gimbal (a big no no), on his bed where the gimbal was basically being jammed in place by his leopard print duvet (an even bigger no no). All pointing to indications that he broke his gimbal by treating it like trash.

While this video isn't as bad as that, it doesn't inspire me with hope. You were doing fine until you started overextending the range of the gimbal motion, subjected it to a maneuver I can only describe as "shaking the sh*t" out of it, and then started swatting it with your hand. Gimbals are delicate. More delicate than a baby... and I certainly wouldn't shake the sh*t out of a baby (people tend to go to jail for that)...

If you were trying to replicate flying conditions....... well hell, I certainly wouldn't be flying in that type of weather either....

Jimloss is correct in saying you should balance your gimbal. With the filter on it the gimbal is having to work harder than normal to keep everything balanced, however depending on what the gimbal has been subjected to already, it may or may not alleviate some of the issues you're seeing. He's also given you some good advice on reducing vibration to the gimbal. The less work it has to do the better. I found that investing in the flat HDMI cables really helped with vibration reduction.

IrishmanPDX · Apr 12, 2018

AlienPanda said:
The color of the video looks kinda washed out. Am I supposed to set the GoPro color to "GoPro" or "Flat"?

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It depends on how much post production that you want to do afterwards. If you really like video editing, use flat. If you just want to take video and post it with no editing, I'd go with GoPro color.