Solo landed in lake. I'm F###ED!!!

It really comes down to having a good homepoint and knowing that before you take off.

Relying on another piece of technology to provide GPS location sounds like another set of battles to me. I think I would rather rely on the UAV GPS than my Samsung or something else.
 
I'm promoting that Dynamic Home Point is an option under the Advanced features. Its use need some thought and control. The user needs to use some thought before allowing the Solo to land as the Dynamic Home Point may not always be a safe place to have the Solo auto-land.

So I'm in agreement that this needs to be understood and controlled by the user, and thus buried in the Advanced menu as an option for use by experienced operators (with the appropriate warnings in the documentation).

So let's not kill it because a dumb user won't understand it. IMHO, this is no more difficult to understand than sport, drift mode, or Fly:Stabilize mode.

I am not saying it shouldn't or couldn't be implemented. I was just explaining why it is not already in the solo product. Right now 3DR has bigger issues to contend with like rewriting their Go-Pro plug-in for the solo app. I am sure at some point dynamic home point will be a feature in the advanced options but for now a good offense is your best defense so be sure you take off in a GPS assisted mode to ensure you have valid home point set before switching to a manual mode.
 
It really comes down to having a good homepoint and knowing that before you take off.

Relying on another piece of technology to provide GPS location sounds like another set of battles to me. I think I would rather rely on the UAV GPS than my Samsung or something else.

Rich,

This can help in many situations. For example, when using the Follow me mode and you have the Solo follow you on your bike, or car, or when hiking, perhaps now you're a far distance from that initial take off point. That initial home point may now have a crowd of kids standing on it, or something else?

Also, if you are on a platform that may have moved, such as flying from a boat, the acquired home point may be 50 feet away (in the water) as the boat has floated away or shifted on its anchor.

This Dynamic Home Point with an option to select if you want the Solo to hover above it or land right away when it was executing a RTH would help a lot with many different situations.
 
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Rich,

This can't help in many situations. For example, when using the Follow me mode and you have the Solo follow you on your bike, or car, or when hiking, perhaps now you're a far distance from that initial take off point. That initial home point may now have a crowd of kids standing on it, or something else?

Also, if you are on a platform that may have moved, such as flying from a boat, the acquired home point may be 50 feet away (in the water) as the boat has floated away or shifted on its anchor.

This Dynamic Home Point with an option to select if you want the Solo to hover above it or land right away when it was executing a RTH would help a lot with many different situations.

I agree with you that it can be implemented. As far are resetting the homepoint I like the option to be able to reset it manually anyway which I currently do with the other brand.

I don't have a use for follow me/moving homepoint so honestly I don't do a good job getting out of my own little box of flying needs.
 
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Carry on and I will move threads to a new related thread tonight.
 
I personally would like to see an auto reconnect to cancel the auto RTH/RTL function as a option/setting. Now with the smart shots it becomes more complex as what to do next for each scenario. I had my phone app crash at the same time I was RTL. What I learned was I did something wrong as I didn't understand the behavior of the SOLO. At least I had flight log so I could be educated, unlike the P2V+ errors/mistakes. Hopefully next time I remember what is going on.

As pilots we need to be aware we all bring unfixed mental capacities to the game. What we do in those unannounced critical second changes from day to day as do the scenarios causing them. My thoughts in regards to the pilot's work load is" if the sticks work then the aircraft should follow the command and not drift to some predetermined function else I am no longer the pilot in command". I hesitate to mention this as I don't like to give fuel to the 3DR whiners. I'm thankful I know this because on the DJI system I would still be clueless to is it my error or the systems. At least this way we can have an intellectual conversation as what make the most sense in moving forward. I thank 3DRs approach for letting me in on it with the openness of the system.

Thank you 3DR
 
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As far are resetting the homepoint I like the option to be able to reset it manually anyway which I currently do with the other brand.

In MP you can manually set the home point. I don't know if this is in Tower yet
 
Not positive, but that may be possible now... The setting wouldn't be in the Solo interface, but could already be in the parameters. It would be worth a post in the arducopter forum...

ArduPilot | Open source autopilot
Thanks Earl. Browsing around over there and don't want to get lost with a newbie mistakes. Is there a particular forum group I should post in? I know nothing of what version he sol is using.

Burke
 
seems common sense you would not want to fly over a lake while "Attempting to maybe get a GPS lock while in the air" . Maybe just me but there are tons of questions in my head and none of this makes sense


That being said, hope they sort you out and that you aren't SOL. In the future you have to use your head and think things through. Most all accidents can be avoided with basic foresight and common sense.
 
For exact reasons such as this, I have been promoting a Dynamic Home Point.

Unfortunately 3DR has not acknowledged that they think it is a good idea or not. I'd love to see this as a future feature. It would solve issues such as this.

Of course, almost nothing will help if you lose complete communications with the Solo and can't control it at all. In the past, I have lost communications when the Solo was only about 40 feet from me with nothing between the controller and the Solo.

I still wish 3DR had not used WiFi for the essential control communications protocol. I am still thinking about writing an article about my thoughts, but it would only stir up a lot of negative vibes, so for now, I'm keeping it to myself, as we only have WiFi to use for now.


3DR did officially say that they are coming out with this feature. I think they called it Boat Mode. Can't find the link though
 
I had issues launching from a boat is a little choppy water and when I shared this with 3DR I too was told of a boat mode coming. Forgot what little specific were shared.
 
Your right, I was overconfident and overly impatient. I can't believe I did something that stupid.
 
Your right, I was overconfident and overly impatient. I can't believe I did something that stupid.
I prefer to call these incidents as educational. Maybe the second occasion but defiantly the third could be classified as stupid.
 
My under standing is you can change the RTL settings so that it will loiter above your home spot instead of landing. I was thinking of doing this so if launched from my boat I may have time to get control before it goes it the drink.
 
Thanks. I hope so as well. Has anybody else sunk there solo and what was the outcome?
I learned from a professional recovery diver who rescued my Phantom out of a canal in the Netherlands that before you let it get dry, soak and rinse it in distilled water (available at automotive supply stores). Of course, that's for next time).

My P2 was a partial loss, not total. Waiting to see what DJI has to say (they are looking it over now).
 
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Your right, I was overconfident and overly impatient. I can't believe I did something that stupid.
I have been there, and done that. Um, more than once. Some of us are slow learners. I think my next drone will be one of those waterproof jobs. Maybe this:
Tayzu

There is a lot of great opportunity for flying over water, and the risk is much higher than over land (at least to a non-waterproof drone)
 
So the other day I take solo out and I obviously don't have a GPS lock, I launch it to get a better GPS signal. My intentions were to have it return home so it has a home location. It looks like I did not do that.
Solo was out about 200 feet and about 75 feet up and not surprisingly I lose the signal. I have a DBS antenna as well. So It returns home although home was 20 feet offshore...OVER THE FRIGGIN LAKE..... solo would not reconnect as it was about 30...30 feet away!! It sunk and was submerged for about 45 minutes.

I blew it out with an air compressor and let it dry overnight inside of a hot vehicle. Everything seemed to be dry the next day. As I plugged a good battery in, Green lights lit up and although it made strange sounds. There was no communication.
One of the motor pods blew smoke from a capacitor. I sent the logs into 3dr and since it was launched without home location, I'm shit out of luck.


Aram (3D Robotics)

Sep 10, 4:18 PM

Hello Andrew,

I have been reviewing the log file you send, and now I understand what happened.
It seems like the vehicle was armed without having a GPS lock, so it took off on FLY: Manual (without GPS dependency). The home position is established as soon as the vehicle acquires GPS lock, the vehicle acquire a GPS lock while it was over the water around the GPS coordinate 42.614891 -70.807954. When the vehicle lost connection with the controller, it engaged Return to Home, but since the home position was over the water, there is where it lands. I am attaching a picture where it shows where was the home position established.
Home Position page 16, Section 3.7.
Solo User Manual | 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology

I am really sorry that this happened to your vehicle. We want to help you getting your vehicle working again. Hopefully is not a total vehicle loss, and I believe the best thing to do at the moment would be waiting for it to dry completely, and then check after what is the overall damage on it to see what we would need to replace. Despite the loss of communication between the Controller and Solo this is cannot be considered a hardware or software malfunction, as the loss of communication is somehow expected to happen under certain conditions, for that reason the flight controller has Fail Safes implemented on software, to prevent harm when something the communication is lost.

Let me know if you have additional questions Andrew, or if there's anything I can help with while we wait to diagnose the damage on the vehicle.

Aram Robledo
[Technical Support Engineer]



Attachment(s)
Home Location.



Sent from my iPhone
A couple of submerged Solo's here on this board, & they came out good.
they dryed out for a long time. I think you should have waited longer.
 

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