Solo GPS Rev A / Rev B Availability... Official

[PdxSteve]

Iv been out of the loop on the Solo due to selling my house and moving.. So my Solo has been packed for a while!
But I notice that 3DR came out with a new mother board REV-B!
I'm just wondering what they did different to REV-B if you compare it to REV-A!
Is it that they only installed a new GPS Shield in REV-B and that's it??
And is that the only difference between REV-A and REV-B?
Or did they also do anything els in REV-B to improve anything els?

Cheers

Here's the thread to read up on that: Solo GPS rev B. Is the mod still necessary?

 

[Del]

Here's the thread to read up on that: Solo GPS rev B. Is the mod still necessary?

Thanks for the link.. I tried doing a search.. But could not find what I was looking for!

Cheers

 

[Toiletbowl]

There are a lot of solos sold abroad!
How can we have this shield in Europe?
I think 3dr should start shipping in other countries too!

yeah i don't understand why 3dr sell solo in selected country only i have a difficult situation in terms of ordering accessories the only way i can get is in jakarta LMAO, it's better to start a petition on this as a request to 3dr company to ship globally.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

I happen to have an M8N and @Ian [P13]'s mount for it sitting in a box waiting to be installed. I'm going to install that as soon my new shield arrives from 3DR. I've never used the M8N on my Solo before, so I'm expecting great things when combined with the new shielding.

 

[Nick F]

Well... maybe I shouted too early...
I managed to place my order at 3DR's Online Shop with delivery in Italy...
Let's cross the fingers...

 

[Rich]

So is this new shield simply the old shield and the cardboard gps mod rolled together? That would be strange as 3dr for almost a year has been telling us that all their measurements show that the cardboard mods never showed them any improvevent.

I was hoping there would be a way to get the Rev B gps, expecially since they found and fixed a gps battery issue.

 

[Anthony Horrigan]

There are a lot of solos sold abroad!
How can we have this shield in Europe?
I think 3dr should start shipping in other countries too!

I ordered one from Ireland, they confirmed the order with no shipping cost.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

So is this new shield simply the old shield and the cardboard gps mod rolled together? That would be strange as 3dr for almost a year has been telling us that all their measurements show that the cardboard mods never showed them any improvevent.

I was hoping there would be a way to get the Rev B gps, expecially since they found and fixed a gps battery issue.

Nope. Not at all. It's an RFI absorbent sheet as opposed to a random sheet of copper.

 

[Ian [P13]]

I happen to have an M8N and @Ian [P13]'s mount for it sitting in a box waiting to be installed. I'm going to install that as soon my new shield arrives from 3DR. I've never used the M8N on my Solo before, so I'm expecting great things when combined with the new shielding.

It's the other Ian (Ian Soler) that does the 3D printed gear.

The M8N really isn't recommended for Solo and can create more problems than it solves. So my personal recommendation would be to wait for your shield.

 

[RPM]

Frustrating that you need to have FB to get this info first hand. I even got an email back from Ryan from 3DR last week saying "There will be no upgrades on the GPS for the moment, you can send us the logs so we can review them and see if there is an issue with the GPS."
No mention of the shield or discount On June 24th.

 

[David Weston]

I have had an M8N since around last July, only had a good experience every flight. Just curious, what problems can an M8N cause?

 

[Chuck]

Thanks Jubalr. I just ordered mine. I haven't had many GPS issues, but it can only help.

 

[Ian [P13]]

I have had an M8N since around last July, only had a good experience every flight. Just curious, what problems can an M8N cause?

The M8N will typically be using a wideband antenna for GPS and GLONASS, that picks up more noise so it should be mounted on a mast, not internally for the best performance.

Cheap Chinese versions maybe not be correctly filtered and few if any have a ground plate of sufficient size.

For Solo the 7N was chosen for a reason and that was performance not cost.

Whilst nothing may come of it, Philip who's behind the manufacturer of the standalone Pixhawk 2 and GPS, has offered to build batches of the Rev 2 GPS at cost so that 3DR could offer that to existing owners at a competitive price. If there's any news on that in future I'll let you all know.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Everything I've read from people who switched to M8N report either better performance, or essentially the same performance, or within margin of error anyway. I hadn't seen any widespread problems. What "problems" could it cause? I do intend to keep the old GPS and cable in case it needs to go back to 3DR (again).

I totally agree that the M8N does tend to display more satellites than it can actually make functional use of. And people who fixate on number of satellites buy it based on that alone, which doesn't actually mean anything. So I'm not buying it to have a fancy sat count.

Some people get better acquisition time. Some stay around the same, or at least within a margin of error. I think the new RFI shield might make the acquisition time between the stock GPS and M8N remain more consistent and similar. At least that's my hope. If the M8N works better, super. If it works consistently well the same as the stock one, I'm happy with that too.

What sells me on the M8N is it's ability to KEEP a lock better than the stock GPS. When I walk up to the Solo and lean down to look at the GoPro, the GPS is lost. When it pick it up to carry it, the GPS is lost. That tells me it just barely has a descent lock and a bird flying by at the wrong time could kill it. Whereas people with the M8N report significant improvement when keeping a lock once it's acquired. Now, again perhaps the RFI shield will help with that too. But if the M8N is already better at that, the RFI shield can only help it be even better. That reliability means a lot to me.

Plus, it's something to tinker with. It's either that or watch 7 hours of Law and Order reruns.

 

[RichWest]

Basically 8.5x11" sheet, I presume 6 parts could be made per sheet. Thinner, 0.5mm is around $45 a sheet, which is likely what 3DR used. It's not cheap material...

Correction, 9 parts could be made from a sheet. The die cut shield is roughly (+4mm) 80x70mm and a full sheet is 210x297mm. In either case, 3DR's offering is still a bargain at $15 when its all said and done. I'd hate to cut one of these out by hand, let alone 9 of them..... You're welcome.

 

[Ian [P13]]

Everything I've read from people who switched to M8N report either better performance, or essentially the same performance, or within margin of error anyway. I hadn't seen any widespread problems. What "problems" could it cause? I do intend to keep the old GPS and cable in case it needs to go back to 3DR (again).

I totally agree that the M8N does tend to display more satellites than it can actually make functional use of. And people who fixate on number of satellites buy it based on that alone, which doesn't actually mean anything. So I'm not buying it to have a fancy sat count.

Some people get better acquisition time. Some stay around the same, or at least within a margin of error. I think the new RFI shield might make the acquisition time between the stock GPS and M8N remain more consistent and similar. At least that's my hope. If the M8N works better, super. If it works consistently well the same as the stock one, I'm happy with that too.

What sells me on the M8N is it's ability to KEEP a lock better than the stock GPS. When I walk up to the Solo and lean down to look at the GoPro, the GPS is lost. When it pick it up to carry it, the GPS is lost. That tells me it just barely has a descent lock and a bird flying by at the wrong time could kill it. Whereas people with the M8N report significant improvement when keeping a lock once it's acquired. Now, again perhaps the RFI shield will help with that too. But if the M8N is already better at that, the RFI shield can only help it be even better. That reliability means a lot to me.

Plus, it's something to tinker with. It's either that or watch 7 hours of Law and Order reruns.

I know of 2 crashes on M8N rigs that lost GPS admittedly who's to say that wouldn't happen anyway.

What I do know is Philip has been saying a year before the Solo came out not to use the M8N, he says it to this day. He's equipping Pixhawk 2 with the M8P and using a larger ground plate than any M8N that would fit inside Solo.

Personally I wish someone would make a clean mod for a mast installation of a high spec 7N or M8P.

 

[RichWest]

Personally I wish someone would make a clean mod for a mast installation of a high spec 7N or M8P.

I second that request....

 

[pyrate]

Was just flying with that rev B board and shield this morning. HDOP once locked was below 1 all morning, and it hit its marks crazy good,
Going to be interesting to see how that matches up to rev A with the shield

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

I know of 2 crashes on M8N rigs that lost GPS admittedly who's to say that wouldn't happen anyway.

What I do know is Philip has been saying a year before the Solo came out not to use the M8N, he says it to this day. He's equipping Pixhawk 2 with the M8P and using a larger ground plate than any M8N that would fit inside Solo.

Personally I wish someone would make a clean mod for a mast installation of a high spec 7N or M8P.

Third! I'd buy it.

I seem to remember Phillip saying something along the lines of the M8N won't solve the problems that are there regardless of what kind of GPS. But I'm fairly new to Solo since putting my DIY birds in the closet for a bit. I've never seen him say anything super specific, which I would love to read.

 

[PdxSteve]

Philip has gone into several detailed posts on FB on how they extensively tested 8/7N all over the world and why they went with the 7N. It had some specifics. Good luck finding those with all of the common terms though. But he responds a lot to posts in the comments and gives a little info here and a little there so that's where you need to look lol. I really dislike FB as a data source and trying to find stuff. It wasn't designed for that. But having been reading his posts for 9 months, he is still hardcore against the 8N even to this day, despite some people using it very successfully. I personally have not seen any evidence that a 8N works better than a working 7N. My stock gps has been more or less rock solid for 9 months now. If I lost gps as much as I used to lose wifi signal which was fixed with FPVLR, I might be more tempted to give it a try. I simply haven't had the issues that some others have had. Sure I've lost GPS a few times, but it's pretty rare and kind of expected in the areas I was flying.