Solo crash, looking for help understanding tlog file

[Crisp Rice]

Hi,

I have been reading up on some other crashes some folks here have had and I think I have a similar story.

I was landing yesterday and my solo didn't seem to understand it was down on the ground, I was landing on wood picnic table I took off from and I was standing about 10 feet from the table. Rather than shutting down, the motors started revving higher and would not stop trying to fly. After several seconds I thought that I should try and fly upwards and regain control. As I attempted to lift off, the solo shot sideways about 10 feet and smashed into the side of a boat and promptly sank into the lake.

It was a very clear day with almost no wind and the solo acquired gps very quickly (quicker than normal). I was landing on a wooden table, on a wooden dock, 75 feet from any high objects that would block gps signals.

I did retrieve the drone within 2-3 minutes and the lights were still flashing at in about 15 feet of fresh water. 2 props were broken but the otherwise visibly fine. Removed the gimbal and did my best to dry everything out in sun and breeze. We are out cruising for the week on a boat so a big bag of rice is not an option. The gopro (hero4black) seems to be fine ...

I did send the crash report to 3DR and am awaiting a response, but of course I have been reading this forum and remembered that you guys might have some advice and help.

I cannot make sense of anything from the tlog file I downloaded from the controller and I cannot download mission planner out on the water. Thank you to Del for his video explaining how to download the tlog.

If anyone has interest I would be grateful if you could have a look at the tlog and let me know if there is anything of interest, and whether this was my screw up or something else. I don't know how to upload the file as the uploader here says the extension is not allowed.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Can you put the tlog up on dropbox or google drive? If not, I can give you my email.

What firmware are you on? Did you do the update from Friday night?

 

[Crisp Rice]

Hi
I haven't done an update in the last two weeks, I have been operating on lte on vacation and confess I did not notice there was an available update until after the crash.
I will attemp to link a Dropbox file shortly.
Thanks!

 

[Crisp Rice]

Dropbox - CrispRiceaugust29.tlog.log

hopefully this works!

 

[Dash Hewes]

wow, that really is too bad.

Take everything apart and get it into a big box of uncooked white rice. This appears to work with fresh water, leaving it all in there for a day and replace rice for a another day. You should not see any rust or oxidation. If you do the process might not of worked, from there put it back together.

Make sure you send 3DR the logs, address Adram in the email with logs. He seems to be in charge.
Good luck.

 

[Crisp Rice]

wow, that really is too bad.

Take everything apart and get it into a big box of uncooked white rice. This appears to work with fresh water, leaving it all in there for a day and replace rice for a another day. You should not see any rust or oxidation. If you do the process might not of worked, from there put it back together.

Make sure you send 3DR the logs, address Adram in the email with logs. He seems to be in charge.
Good luck.

Thanks Dash
We head home today and I will grab a bag of rice and some drying compound from the hardware store. I have some enormous ziplock storage bags that should hold it all.
I linked the tlog above and hopefully someone will be able to diagnose it.

 

[Crisp Rice]

Last photo before crash

View media item 397

 

[Crisp Rice]

Can you put the tlog up on dropbox or google drive? If not, I can give you my email.

What firmware are you on? Did you do the update from Friday night?

Hi
I have added the link to the log below, I still haven't heard back from 3dr.
Chris

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Looks the same as the others. Compass variance followed by horizontal position error. Flight controller can no longer make heads or tails of its horizontal position and the usual result is a flyaway in some random direction. 3DR will recognize this failure in the log evaluation and it is covered under warranty. It's their call to evaluate, but we've seen this exact thing several times now from the bug in 2.4.

The firmware update released on Friday night fixes this. They will probably ask you if you received notice of the update, to which your answer would be no since you did not have internet access at the time. If you knew of the update and ignored it, they MIGHT have grounds to deny the claim, but I'm not sure they would.

 

[Crisp Rice]

Thank you so much for your help. Your news is a bit of relief, as I really didn't think I did anything unusual and was following best practices, as much as possible. Hopefully 3DR agrees with your analysis. And you are correct that I didn't know about a software update, we left the marina on Saturday morning and there isn't a lot of connectivity on the lake.

I just downloaded the mission planner software with the intention of figuring this out, it looks pretty cool and I will definitely enjoy that.

 

[SteveReno]

Hi,

I have been reading up on some other crashes some folks here have had and I think I have a similar story.

I was landing yesterday and my solo didn't seem to understand it was down on the ground, I was landing on wood picnic table I took off from and I was standing about 10 feet from the table. Rather than shutting down, the motors started revving higher and would not stop trying to fly. After several seconds I thought that I should try and fly upwards and regain control. As I attempted to lift off, the solo shot sideways about 10 feet and smashed into the side of a boat and promptly sank into the lake.

It was a very clear day with almost no wind and the solo acquired gps very quickly (quicker than normal). I was landing on a wooden table, on a wooden dock, 75 feet from any high objects that would block gps signals.

I did retrieve the drone within 2-3 minutes and the lights were still flashing at in about 15 feet of fresh water. 2 props were broken but the otherwise visibly fine. Removed the gimbal and did my best to dry everything out in sun and breeze. We are out cruising for the week on a boat so a big bag of rice is not an option. The gopro (hero4black) seems to be fine ...

I did send the crash report to 3DR and am awaiting a response, but of course I have been reading this forum and remembered that you guys might have some advice and help.

I cannot make sense of anything from the tlog file I downloaded from the controller and I cannot download mission planner out on the water. Thank you to Del for his video explaining how to download the tlog.

If anyone has interest I would be grateful if you could have a look at the tlog and let me know if there is anything of interest, and whether this was my screw up or something else. I don't know how to upload the file as the uploader here says the extension is not allowed.

Thanks,

Chris

Did you move Solo any distance, at any time after turning it on? 3DR said you can do. but just like to know..

 

[Crisp Rice]

Did you move Solo any distance, at any time after turning it on? 3DR said you can do. but just like to know..

Thinking back - I don't think so, I turned it on on the picnic table where I took off from. I recall the gimbal doing its wiggle thing there on the table.

 

[Crisp Rice]

Hi all

3DR are denying what I saw on mission planner and what Pedals (above) also determined. Any advice? Their email follows now:


Manuel (3DR)

Sep 2, 2:42 PM PDT

Hello Christopher,

Thank you for contacting 3D Robotics Tech Support, my name is Manuel, and I'll be assisting you.
I'm sorry for the issues your Solo had.

After analyzing the flight logs you sent, I couldn't find any hardware malfunction; the files showed that the Solo took off from a floating dock, this was moving when the Solo was initialized and when it touched the ground, I could also see that the pilot gave a fast Roll to the right before the sOlo touched the ground. The combination of all the previous mentioned things made the Solo unstable and couldn't detect the landing correctly, even when the pilot held the throttle down all the time.

In the next link, you can find recommendations give to our customer to avoid this from happening, this is all documented in the manual as well.
[Preflight Checklist | 3DR - Drone & UAV Technology]

For a smooth takeoff, Solo requires a flat and solid launch surface; you will also need a similar space to land the Solo, taking into account the accuracy of the Solo. Make sure Solo has 20 ft of space in each direction to take off from and land on. Depending on the GPS strength at your location, Solo’s Return Home feature might require a little extra room.

Since the crash was not caused by a hardware malfunction, we can't replace the damaged Solo; nevertheless, if the battery turns on for a second when it is in the Solo and then it turns off, it could be related to this issue [

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Accept third party cookies

].

If you want to pay for a repair service, I recommend you to contact our Authorized Repair Center (they are certified by us to repair our products).

Here is the repair center information:

CURRENT UAS
www.currentuas.com
Phone: 619-880-7827
871 Howard Place Ste 203
Chula Vista, CA 91914

Let me know if you have any other question.

Have a great day.

Best regards,
Manuel Mora
[3DR Technical Support Engineer]

 

[swells65]

Wow, after reading about this crash, I'm more convinced that I'm not crazy. It's strange that the very first post I read about a crash seems so similar to what happened to me about an hour ago. Setup my new Solo Monday night, updated firmware and corrected the compass calibration problem. Took the drone and camera out early Tuesday morning and everything worked like a charm.

I put everything back together this afternoon and took it out front again. Everything connected, camera picture perfect, start propellers, waited a couple seconds, take off, lift off to about 8 feet, 5 seconds later, a fast Roll to the right, the propellers GO FLYING OFF TO THE RIGHT, and the Solo drops like a brick. I didn't touch anything on the controller. The propellers can not be put on wrong, I just double checked, so how in the world do they just go flying off if they are only supposed to tighten while turning? Nice scratches on the gimbal and one arm, propellers found and a bit beat up.

I put everything back together and got one good flight out of it before it was time to go in. Tried to connect Solo to send a log and could never get the Solo to be recognized on the controller. However, I got the "looking for GPS" screen AND could spin up the propellers even though the icon for the Solo was not green. Absolutely crazy!

Back in the box and sent back to Amazon. Getting a replacement and trying again. I really want this to work, but the comment about the Solo freaking out and a hard Roll caught my eye.

Sorry about somewhat high jacking this post, but something is not right about what happened to Crisp Rice above and the reply from 3DR Support just doesn't make sense.

Anybody have any ideas?

-Steve

 

[Crisp Rice]

Wow, after reading about this crash, I'm more convinced that I'm not crazy.

Anybody have any ideas?

-Steve

Steve

Your situation is weird what with losing a prop. I didn't find one of mine but I assumed that the loss of a prop was related to hitting water. Now I am really interested.

Having said that, I have had 8 months of relatively normal behavior from my Solo and taken a lot of great pictures.

Hope your situation turns out better than mine.

Chris

 

[swells65]

Hi Chris,

It sure is interesting that yours came off too. I found all 4 of mine in the neighbors yard across the street. I saw them flying off out of the corner of my eye as my Solo dropped in front of me. I believe the only way the props could have come off is if they were spinning the wrong way. They were on fairly tight, so I imagine a few seconds lifting up full speed the wrong way would have drone the trick.

I can't wait to have 8 months of normal behavior, but I would settle for 8 days, or even 8 minutes right now! I'm letting Amazon sort this one out and was sure to use my AmEx with purchase protection just in case. Amazon had no problem issuing a return and sending me a new one.

I did get it to fly for a few minutes after the crash, but the neighbor came over to see what all the fuss was about. I saw him walking up behind me when I rotated the Solo around to face me. I landed about 10 seconds later then turned everything off after talking for about 10 minutes, and couldn't get it to work again.

Thanks for the reply and I hope this problem gets identified somehow. Good luck on getting yours up and running again. I'm still not convinced the hardware wasn't at fault. I'd like to hear 3DR's explanation for your props coming off! It's not like they just pop off on their own.

Cheers!
-Steve

 

[Crisp Rice]

This is nuts that all four of yours flew off. I didn't address the issue with the missing prop because I assumed it broke off during the strike against the boat or hitting the water.

 

[Crisp Rice]

I have written back to Manuel, it will be interesting to see how this plays out:

Hi Manuel,

Thank you for your email.

I am surprised by your verdict and have some further questions and observations that I would ask you to read and then hopefully re-evaluate your decision.

I would make an observation about your point concerning the "fast roll" to the right "before it landed" - could this be due to my having to correct for the sudden loss of control I was experiencing? Additionally, I would ask how certain that you are this actually happened before I touched down - this actually seems like what I did to correct the sudden sideways movement the solo self-initiated after it touched down. Clearly the drone did not know it had touched down so I am unclear on how sure you are that this happened before I initially touched down?

I would additionally ask about the movement you detected during initialization? Could you explain this in more detail? The dock is a very massive object anchored in a quiet bay, on a day with almost no wind and no water movement at all. I did post a picture in this email chain, taken minutes before the crash, that will show that I am being truthful about this.

During the last 4 days, while waiting for a response from 3DR, I started doing a lot of research as to what happened and why it happened.

I did this because my drone had exhibited bewildering behavior that I felt was not normal and not under my control. Behavior that I had not seen before and ended in a crash. I am typically a very calm pilot and fly slowly and deliberately (as you can likely see in the logs). My flying is purely to generate photos, and not for the joy of flying the drone. I will admit I was likely not calm when the drone refused to shut down upon landing and even less calm when it shot sideways into the side of a boat, and then into the lake. With my Go Pro. But I was calm until it refused to shut off after landing.

Over that 4 days of waiting and wondering, I did a fair amount of research. I found posts and read about others who had similar Solo failures and crashes. I also found the forum at 3DRPilots and spent many hours reading and learning about other people’s crashes and how they were treated by 3DR. I learned about an “EKF” error that had caused many others’ drones to behave in a manner similar to mine and crash in a similar manner. I then realized that I should make sure that I investigated this to the best of my ability and seek any help I could find.

So I created an account on the forums and posted asking for some help, explaining what had happened. Some helpful folks chipped in and told me to read up on how to extract the tlogs and they would take a look. Therefore I learned how to download the tlogs myself and uploaded them to the 3DRPilots forum. I didn’t receive an immediate response and so I also downloaded Mission Planner to see this for myself and see if I could understand anything.

I did receive a response from the forum from a kind member who appeared to be relatively experienced and familiar with understanding the telemetry logs. Here is his comment: “Looks the same as the others. Compass variance followed by horizontal position error. Flight controller can no longer make heads or tails of its horizontal position and the usual result is a flyaway in some random direction. 3DR will recognize this failure in the log evaluation and it is covered under warranty. It's their call to evaluate, but we've seen this exact thing several times now from the bug in 2.4.”

He also posted a picture on the forum boards extracted from Mission Planner that demonstrated these things.
[pic]

I then spent some time and played with Mission Planner myself and saw the same thing. Compass error and EKF, which I understand should cause the drone to revert to manual mode – which did not happen.

Based on the information above, I would respectfully ask that you take a second look at the files and, if necessary, escalate this to a supervisor. I was also advised to ask that Adram be apprised of this situation by a member of the forum.

Thank you,

Chris

 

[swells65]

Hey Chris!

I got a response from Ernie at Solo Suppoort regarding my crash report asking for logs, video, and serial #. I hadn't dropped off the return package at UPS yet, so I thought that I would give it one more try.

I turned on the controller and waited for it to fully boot. I turned on the Solo and waited for it to fully boot, I connected to Sololink wifi using my iPad Air 2 instead of my iPhone 6 this time, then I opened the Solo app on the iPad. Amazingly, everything is working and searching for gps.

I logged another crash via the app and was able to send all the logs this time, but I took no video. I'll be very interested in what was to blame. I'll try to post an update if/when I get anything back.

-Steve

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Chris, that's a very good response. I am perplexed by their response since the compass and position error is fairly obvious. I mean, it's in big red text. They do know more than me, so perhaps the see something I don't. Hopefully their response is positive.