Solo acting crazy on a boat

mike ruggirello · Mar 3, 2016

Hey everyone,

Was attempting to launch from a large aluminum boat today. After starting up (it didnt chirp) and connecting everything, my battery read out was at 0%. Swapped batteries (both were fully charged) and fired it up again to the same problem. No magnetic interference warnings, or calibration warnings, and this time it disconnected from the controller. Finally coerced it into manual mode and attempted to take off, it just flew straight back into the door of the boat chipping some props but not losing the bird thankfully. Once on shore it flew without a hiccup other than some battery drain problems, but I could let that slide if I can get this figured out.

Any advice helps, if youve run into this before or if you have a crazy idea, im open to anything.

ChrisM101 · Mar 3, 2016

I dont know what the 0% issue was, but it will not arm because of the subtle rocking of the boat most likely. I believe there is/was something in the works for boat mode which would allow it to A) override the sensors that prevent launch B) allow it to return to the connected device versus a RTH point which you would have drifted away from. I would advise you to get very good with manual flight on land before trying it over water and on a boat.

IceFyre13th · Mar 3, 2016

"Was attempting to launch from a large aluminum boat today."

Lots of metal all around, bet this caused lots of issues.....................and the boats movement as well.........hmmm wonder what could of gone wrong.

Maddog · Mar 3, 2016

Mike, welcome to the forum!

It is a known issue that Solo cannot be launched from a boat. As others have said, even tiny rocking, etc. motions will prevent Solo from arming. It's been discussed in this thread, but no solution yet:
Boat Mode

All that metal nearby can wreak havoc with Solo's GPS system even if you DON'T get a magnetic interference warning.

Rich · Mar 3, 2016

Yes, I posted on your Facebook post about this. The battery shows -1 volt, or something crazy. Check into the boat mode thread, and let 3DR know you want to use the Solo from a boat. They need to know that we want to do this, after all they show us nice videos from a boat, but don't let us do it.

George Raber · Mar 8, 2016

We just spent 13 days in Gabon Africa on the Ogooue River with 50+ boat takoffs and landings. The landings were all hand caught, but the we took off from a Pelican case near the motors of a 20 foot power boat. We did the gryo calibration failed message but it says press A to dismiss and then it would arm and we would be off.

Maddog · Mar 8, 2016

George Raber said:
We just spent 13 days in Gabon Africa on the Ogooue River with 50+ boat takoffs and landings. The landings were all hand caught, but the we took off from a Pelican case near the motors of a 20 foot power boat. We did the gryo calibration failed message but it says press A to dismiss and then it would arm and we would be off.

With Solo? Could you give more details as there are many folks here who can't launch from a boat but really want to!

Aus_solo · Mar 8, 2016

George Raber said:
We just spent 13 days in Gabon Africa on the Ogooue River with 50+ boat takoffs and landings. The landings were all hand caught, but the we took off from a Pelican case near the motors of a 20 foot power boat. We did the gryo calibration failed message but it says press A to dismiss and then it would arm and we would be off.

I also spent some time launching and retrieving from a boat out at the great barrier reef , scary but well worth the footage , the boat motion does affect gyro for launching but as George says hit dismiss and launch , I had the boat go as slow as possible for launching and always have a catcher to land .
I found it easier to land in fly mode
3dr do need the return to device mode , not sure how that will work if you lose connection and your moving in the opposite direction , how will it know where to go ? but it will be very useful when in range for sure
maybe a last known location before dropout ? I would like hear some thoughts on that , I had a moment of lost connection on the boat and the solo did a RTH from where it had last fixed its GPS location , i was doing 15knt in the opposite direction , luckily it reconnected within seconds and I hit manual to regain control. to say I crapped my pants is an understatement

Jubalr · Mar 8, 2016

Aus_solo said:
I also spent some time launching and retrieving from a boat out at the great barrier reef , scary but well worth the footage , the boat motion does affect gyro for launching but as George says hit dismiss and launch , I had the boat go as slow as possible for launching and always have a catcher to land .
I found it easier to land in fly mode
3dr do need the return to device mode , not sure how that will work if you lose connection and your moving in the opposite direction , how will it know where to go ? but it will be very useful when in range for sure
maybe a last known location before dropout ? I would like hear some thoughts on that , I had a moment of lost connection on the boat and the solo did a RTH from where it had last fixed its GPS location , i was doing 15knt in the opposite direction , luckily it reconnected within seconds and I hit manual to regain control. to say I crapped my pants is an understatement

I would recommend using Tower when flying from a boat or moving platform. Tower has the 'Return To Me' feature in it. I have tried it and it seems to work well. as you are flying, every few seconds Tower will announce 'New Home Point'. That means it updated the home point to the current location as you are moving. I'm sure they will add it to the solo app before long. But for now at least it is in Tower. But just thinking about it; I bet if you activate the RTM in Tower and leave tower running as you use the Solo App, Tower is updating the home point in the flight controller. That means it should work if flying with Solo smart apps and you hit RTH or lose connection with Solo.

Oliver Hodek · May 1, 2016

I've had luck launching from a pontoon boat (all flat and minimum movement) than we were on a 24ft hurricane deck boat and it would not let me launch it, had to do to the sand bar.