Solo in the lake...

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

Today I went out to fly my Solo after setting up a simple flight in Tower. The flight plan was to track around the perimeter of a small lake near my apartment at 100ft AGL and film a couple regions of interest... essentially to test a new flat lens I had installed on the GoPro Hero Black. I tookoff manually to make sure everything was stable and once the drone was hovering nicely I started the mission. The solo gained altitude and started to get close to 100ft but the right side suddenly dropped and almost flipped Solo. Solo almost immediately compensated but started losing altitude toward the pond in a swinging motion as it sort of dropped like feather listing back and forth. I hit the manual override and could not get Solo to come out of the swinging motion and rapid loss of altitude. At this point unfortunately all I have is the controller... yea, lost the entire drone/gimbal/camera/new lens/sd card. What I am trying to determine is if there is a way to read any logs or flight data just from the controller to determine what may have failed. I also emailed 3dr to see what they can do on their end.

Thanks,
-Mike

RichWest · Feb 7, 2016

Have you been hanging out with @erikgraham ??

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

I'd go jump in the lake with my dive gear but there is about an 8ft alligator that lives in there and odds are that Solo won't be very reliable after taking a swim.

Thinking about what happened, it would be nice if Solo had a diagnostic mode where it could do a pre-flight check of the motor pods to ensure they are not overheating or close to failure. 3dr did replace my right rear motor pod at no charge shortly after I got the drone but I suspect there may have been another failed motor pod which caused the issue. I would be very curious to see if there is any log that got saved to the controller or my phone but question if there would have even been time for the Solo to transmit anything back before it went underwater.

Nerius · Feb 7, 2016

1/ Logs are in controller: you can download it from here.
2/ From first sight, looks like another motor failure.

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

How can you access the logs?

Nerius · Feb 7, 2016

System Logs | 3DR Solo Development Guide

Nerius · Feb 7, 2016

And then use mission planner to read logs info.

erikgraham · Feb 7, 2016

mecummings.cr said:
I'd go jump in the lake with my dive gear but there is about an 8ft alligator that lives in there and odds are that Solo won't be very reliable after taking a swim.

Thinking about what happened, it would be nice if Solo had a diagnostic mode where it could do a pre-flight check of the motor pods to ensure they are not overheating or close to failure. 3dr did replace my right rear motor pod at no charge shortly after I got the drone but I suspect there may have been another failed motor pod which caused the issue. I would be very curious to see if there is any log that got saved to the controller or my phone but question if there would have even been time for the Solo to transmit anything back before it went underwater.

Yup. Sounds like a failed motor pod. Same thing happened to me yesterday. See my post #27 in this thread: Follow Me at high speed - SOLVED

To send the logs, turn on the controller and open the Solo app. From within the Solo app you can submit a ticket. It will include the logs and send them to 3DR. Or just call them and they will walk you through it.

erikgraham · Feb 7, 2016

erikgraham said:
Yup. Sounds like a failed motor pod. Same thing happened to me yesterday. See my post #27 in this thread: Follow Me at high speed - SOLVED

To send the logs, turn on the controller and open the Solo app. From within the Solo app you can submit a ticket. It will include the logs and send them to 3DR. Or just call them and they will walk you through it.

Also, when you send the support ticket to 3DR from the Solo app, I *think* you can copy yourself. Then you'll have the logs and can post them here for one of us to look at.

Nerius · Feb 7, 2016

erikgraham said:
Also, when you send the support ticket to 3DR from the Solo app, I *think* you can copy yourself. Then you'll have the logs and can post them here for one of us to look at.

Someone in FB Solo group told recently, that CC to yourself option isn't available anymore.

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

I figured out how to download them from the controller doing a little googling...

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

I was able to login to the controller... is there anybody out there that could review the logs and/or point me in the right direction to understand what they mean? I did open them in mission planner and could watch the flight telemetry track which is pretty accurate based on what I saw happen. I am curious as to if there is a way to check the performance of the motor pods in the flight log. Attached are the logs for reference. Thanks, -Mike

PdxSteve · Feb 7, 2016

I know there is in MP, although I can't tell you exactly how unfortunately. I can get you most of the way, but I'm not positive on the exact parameters to look at.

In MP, when you've loaded your log file, on the right there is the map. Just below the map there is a "tuning" checkbox. Check it.
Now a graph will show up above the map. Double click the graph area (anywhere) and a box will pop up with all of the copters parameters. Select which ones you want to see and it will show the graph and update in realtime while "playing" back the telemetery file (log).

Also, while playing back the log file, you can select the "status" tab (to the left of the Telemetry Logs tab) and it will also show the numerical values of all parameters changing in real time.

This might be useful as well: common-Diagnosing problems using Logs | Copter

EyeWingsuit · Feb 7, 2016

erikgraham said:
Also, when you send the support ticket to 3DR from the Solo app, I *think* you can copy yourself. Then you'll have the logs and can post them here for one of us to look at.

I can't see where to do a CC in the app. Yesterday musta been a day to take a drone swimming. Either a gust of wind or a failed pod put mine onto the ice of a local skating rink, and as it slid across, it took a dunk. Buried the 01 motor in water and muck. GoPro is fine, battery *appears* to be fine, still drying out the vehicle itself. Hoping the gimbal and electronics are OK, but expecting to replace a motor.

erikgraham · Feb 7, 2016

EyeWingsuit said:
I can't see where to do a CC in the app. Yesterday musta been a day to take a drone swimming. Either a gust of wind or a failed pod put mine onto the ice of a local skating rink, and as it slid across, it took a dunk. Buried the 01 motor in water and muck. GoPro is fine, battery *appears* to be fine, still drying out the vehicle itself. Hoping the gimbal and electronics are OK, but expecting to replace a motor.

Yeah. @Nerius mentioned a couple posts up that you can't do that anymore.

pyrate · Feb 7, 2016

Nerius said:
Someone in FB Solo group told recently, that CC to yourself option isn't available anymore.

look in your sent folder from email

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

Attached is a tuning screen capture but I really don't know what I am looking at... it would be interesting to see the motor performance as the drone was flying. I am still waiting on a response from 3DR and will report back what they find. Thanks for all the great input... this was an expensive flight but hopefully some lessons learned can be realized from the experience. Cheers! -Mike

RolandS888 · Feb 7, 2016

Sorry for your loss @mecummings.cr, thats a real bummer, hopefully 3DR will come good on this and replace the lot as they have done for others.

The frequency of pod failure reports is becoming ridiculous .

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

Kind of ironic I just received a set of new bearings I ordered from Boca Bearings that I was going to swap in that first motor pod 3DR replaced a several months back. I have the bad motor pod sitting on my shelf and it spins ok but randomly loses power and caused my first crash with the Solo. I will let everyone know what happens... was considering buying an inflatable boat to go fishing for the Solo using a swimming pool net with a long pole as the lake is pretty shallow but the chances of an encounter with that Florida gator aren't very appealing. The attached photo was taken by the drone in the pond months ago when I first got the GoPro setup with the gimbal mount. Need a volunteer to stand guard with a rifle in case that gator were to show up again ;-)

mecummings.cr · Feb 7, 2016

Just received first response from 3DR... pretty efficient turnaround of just about 8 hours from my initial email to them. The technician that replied was the person that originally reviewed the logs when my right rear motor pod failed after first getting the Solo. Here's the response:

Hi Mike, Good day! I am so sorry to hear what happened to your Solo. I see that you have send your Logs already an engineer will review your logs and follow up with you once is done, please allow 1-3 days for this procedure. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.