Solo Crashed Itself

klamberton · Jan 2, 2016

Hey 3DR pilots,

This is my first post and unfortunately its not a great one. I was having some trouble with my gimbal, it was not responding to the camera control angle well. Every time I tried to manually adjust the camera angle it got stuck facing 45 degrees downward. After lots of searching and waiting for 3DR to respond to my support ticket (which they never did..) I tried the stick calibration technique using terminal and it completely fixed my gimbal issues!

Naturally I was excited to try flying again so I powered it up, and the second it launched it started spinning uncontrollably counter-clockwise approximately 3-5 rotations per second. I'll include a link to a video for you to see what I'm talking about. Nothing I did on the controller made its way to Solo and it crashed into a tree on the edge of my property. Anybody else have some crazy stuff happy after a stick calibration? Thanks,

Kurtis

<iframe src="3DR Solo Crash Footage - Hits a Tree! from Kurtis Lamberton Photography on Vimeo" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href=" ">3DR Solo Crash Footage - Hits a Tree!</a> from <a href="Kurtis Lamberton Photography">Kurtis Lamberton Photography</a> on <a href="Vimeo: Watch, upload and share HD videos with no ads">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Jubalr · Jan 2, 2016

Looks like there was an error in your calibration routine or there was a motor failure. It's about the only thing that would cause spinning like that. Can you post the tlog from the flight?

pyrate · Jan 2, 2016

if all four motors were spinning, it is possible that stick calibration went really bad, making solo thing you had the yaw pulled all the way in one direction,

Did all four motors arm and spin up?

RichWest · Jan 2, 2016

Glad no one got hurt...That was awesome!

SteveReno · Jan 2, 2016

My guess is, Bad calibration. Who told you to calibrate your stick ?

Maddog · Jan 2, 2016

Oooo- I got dizzy..

klamberton · Jan 2, 2016

Jubalr said:
Looks like there was an error in your calibration routine or there was a motor failure. It's about the only thing that would cause spinning like that. Can you post the tlog from the flight?

I was afraid of that. How can I get access to the tlog? I have APM Planner 2.0 but cannot for the life of me figure out how to view any of my logs.

klamberton · Jan 2, 2016

pyrate said:
if all four motors were spinning, it is possible that stick calibration went really bad, making solo thing you had the yaw pulled all the way in one direction,

Did all four motors arm and spin up?

Yes, all four motors spooled up like normal.

klamberton · Jan 2, 2016

SteveReno said:
My guess is, Bad calibration. Who told you to calibrate your stick ?

How could I tell if the calibration went off. I was reading another forum post on here about gimbal issues and they showed a message sent by a 3DR rep that sent over a PDF of how to recalibrate your controller and I followed the directions to the letter and it completely fixed my gimbal issues. But apparently it screwed my yaw.

SteveReno · Jan 2, 2016

As long as you sent in a support ticket, they will figure it out for you.
We are saying that the calibration must have set your yaw wrong, cause the next time you attempted to fly Solo, it did this.
I never read a Solo doing this before other then a bad Pod "Motor"
3DR is good at helping to get you back in the air quickly.

klamberton · Jan 2, 2016

SteveReno said:
As long as you sent in a support ticket, they will figure it out for you.
We are saying that the calibration must have set your yaw wrong, cause the next time you attempted to fly Solo, it did this.
I never read a Solo doing this before other then a bad Pod "Motor"
3DR is good at helping to get you back in the air quickly.

Yeah, I think that's a valid guess as to why it happened. I wish I could tell during the calibration that the values are way off stock value. I did submit a support ticket minutes after the crash and sent them video and pictures of the drone at the crash site so we'll see what 3DR says about that.

Thanks for the insight!

Vu.3DR · Jan 3, 2016

klamberton said:
Yeah, I think that's a valid guess as to why it happened. I wish I could tell during the calibration that the values are way off stock value. I did submit a support ticket minutes after the crash and sent them video and pictures of the drone at the crash site so we'll see what 3DR says about that.

Thanks for the insight!

Hi Klamberton,
Please let me know if you don't get an answer to your ticket by EOD tomorrow. We'll get to the bottom of this!

klamberton · Jan 3, 2016

Vu.3DR said:
Hi Klamberton,
Please let me know if you don't get an answer to your ticket by EOD tomorrow. We'll get to the bottom of this!

Will do! Thanks Vu

User Name · Jan 3, 2016

Ouch, that was scary to watch. I'm sure 3DR will take care of you, seems like a pretty clear malfunction.

Any time you make any changes, it's always a good idea to do an initial slow, manual takeoff, or at least slowly raise the throttle to get it just light enough for something like that to start showing itself. It would have started to yaw as soon as it got light on it's feet and you'd have been able to cut the throttle before it took off or got too high. Once it's up in the air spinning like that, there's just no way to control it.

I had a small quad go into wild gyrations while trying to tune the PID's. I fought it for probably 15 seconds, but it was doomed the second it got off the ground. Had I cut the throttle a few inches off the ground, I might have just busted some props, but I let it get a few feet up and ended up snapping the frame when it finally came back down. Live and learn!

klamberton · Jan 3, 2016

Vu.3DR said:
Hi Klamberton,
Please let me know if you don't get an answer to your ticket by EOD tomorrow. We'll get to the bottom of this!

So I got a response from 3DR:

"I was able to retrieve the parameters of your SOLO with the logs provided, there issue seems to be caused by the frame parameter which was changed to 3(H frame) from 1(X frame).
First of all we would need to change the parameter back 1 please connect the vehicle to APM planner or tower and search for the frame parameter under the full parameter list and then write/upload it. after that your SOLO should be good to go."

Unfortunately I'm a total newbie at APM Planner (using a Mac) and can't seem to figure out how to use the program. On the bottom right side of the screen I see a "Parameters" window and under it there's a long list of them, one of them being a "frame" with a value set to (3). So I double click that, change it to (1) and click Write (ROM) and it says: "There are locally changed parameters. Please transmit them first (<TRANSMIT>) or update them with the onboard values (<Refresh>) before storing onboard from RAM to ROM."

Does anybody know how I can write the new parameter to Solo?

klamberton · Jan 9, 2016

Well looks like I got he code fixed. Whats strange is that my Solo only stays connected to APM Planner 2.0 for about 60 seconds while its automated voice keeps repeating errors messages. Quickly I navigate through the parameters list and switched the frame from (3) - H frame to (1) - X frame and hit write. It seems to freeze and then it says "Solo Disconnected" and it not longer gets active flight data from Solo.

So I turn it off, reload APM and connect again and it loads the frame parameter with (1) so I think it's saved to the hardware on Solo now.

Waiting for new props and then off to try it again. Wish me luck!

Daniel Rodriguez · Jan 12, 2016

Wow that was painful to watch!

Any damage to the drone?

klamberton · Jan 12, 2016

I haven't flown it since be have I'm waiting for replacement rotors. However, everything powers up fine - the motors spool up fine as well. A few scratches on the battery case but all in all I was very fortunate after it fell 25' out of an apparently very soft tree.

I'll put up a post if there's more damage or other after effects tomorrow (when the new rotors arrive).

thg · Feb 7, 2016

Ok, I just had this exact problem and changing from H frame to X frame fixed it! Only my pride and a set of propellers are damaged. I admit I had my heart in my mouth as I hit A!B and Pause and shut the insane UAV down at around 25'..... all good now and I have learned a whole lot!