SOLO PANIC BUTTONS

[Microsprint]

Panic Buttons
If you experience a problem during one of your flights, the following procedures can help you avoid trouble.

Pause Button
The Pause button freezes Solo mid-air like an emergency air brake. This can be useful to stop Solo from hitting an obstacle or to re-orient Solo for navigation. Pressing Pause during Return Home or Land will also freeze Solo during these maneuvers.

Return Home
The Return Home button allows you to bring your flight to an end by recalling Solo to its launch location and landing. Keep in mind that Return Home requires enough battery to get back to the launch point, so if you need to end your flight immediately then land manually or hold the Fly button. Return Home requires GPS lock prior to takeoff.

Solo will not avoid obstacles during its journey home, so make sure the return path is clear before activating Return Home.



Solo’s default altitude for Return Home is a 49 ft. minimum. So if Solo is below this altitude it will first ascend to 49 ft. before returning home, or if above 49 ft., Solo will maintain its current altitude and head home. Once above the home location, Solo will hover in place for 5 seconds before proceeding to land.

Land
If you need to immediately, hold the Fly button to land Solo at its current position.

Motor Shutoff
In the event that Solo’s motors do not stop after landing or for an emergency in-flight kill switch, Solo includes an emergency motor shutoff procedure. To shut off the motors at any time, either in flight or on the ground, hold the A, B, and Pause buttons at the same time. An initial screen will appear on the controller to confirm the shutoff command.

Continue to hold A, B, and Pause buttons to activate motor shutoff. If activated during flight, Solo will crash, so use this procedure only in case of emergency

 

[LaLoGec]

Thanks for the info, this is very helpful. I was losing control on a recent flight and had just passed under a Hi-line. Afraid to push the Home button having experienced the increase in altitude before landing and fearing it might interfere with the wires, I cut the power and landed (not to gracefully) In a corn field. The lesson for me is don't continue the fight, pause and regroup. Study your post and have your plan B available.

Regards

 

[Rich]

Keep in mind, if for some reason you don't get GPS lock when you arm (start) your motors (perhaps you decided to fly in 'manual' mode), and the Solo acquires a GPS lock sometime after take-off, if you press the Home button, or the Solo needs to automatically fly 'home', the location where it will fly to, will be where ever it acquired that first GPS lock and not the point where you armed the motors, and probably not the point where you first took off.

Because of this, (and as a shameless plug of one of my ideas) I still would like 3DR to allow us to choose an option of using a Dynamic Home Point (a.k.a.: Return to ME) where the home point is continuously sent to the Solo as a point close to the controller.

 

[DevRogue]

try

UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN-B-A-START

 

[Jubalr]

Keep in mind, if for some reason you don't get GPS lock when you arm (start) your motors (perhaps you decided to fly in 'manual' mode), and the Solo acquires a GPS lock sometime after take-off, if you press the Home button, or the Solo needs to automatically fly 'home', the location where it will fly to, will be where ever it acquired that first GPS lock and not the point where you armed the motors, and probably not the point where you first took off.

Because of this, (and as a shameless plug of one of my ideas) I still would like 3DR to allow us to choose an option of using a Dynamic Home Point (a.k.a.: Return to ME) where the home point is continuously sent to the Solo as a point close to the controller.

Dynamic Home point is a good idea and needed feature. But home position is stored when motors are armed. If armed before 'lock' it will be your position at arming but at whatever accuracy you had at take off. If you had just 3-4 sats, it might be within 20-100', but will at least get you in the vicinity if RTH is triggered. But it does not lock dynamically after arming.

 

[Rich]

Maybe it depends on how you interpret the manual:

The autopilot saves the home position at the location where the motors are
started only after achieving GPS lock.

And here it hints that the home position is the one achieved after motors are started and a GPS lock occurs: http://3drobotics.com/kb/home-position/

The autopilot saves the home position at the location where the motors are started only after achieving GPS lock.

So maybe we are interpreting this differently?

 

[Rich]

FYI I just tested this with firmware 1.05 and it confirms my interpretation of the manual.

The Solo home position is set at the point it has GPS lock if it occurred after the motors are armed. So watch for this if you fly in manual mode, you could be surprised!

Here is how I tested this: I started my Solo and armed my motors and then went into manual mode before it could get any satellites. I then flew about 45 feet away in manual mode and hovered until I heard the GPS acquired message.

Then I flew to a different position and pressed the Fly Home button. The Solo proceeded to fly to the position where it first got GPS lock, not where the motors were first armed.

I didn't try yet to wait for just one or two GPS sats before moving to s different position to see if a weak lock will be used as a GPS home point. If I get a chance I may test this too.

It's slow doing tests with only one battery!

 

[Jubalr]

FYI I just tested this with firmware 1.05 and it confirms my interpretation of the manual.

The Solo home position is set at the point it has GPS lock if it occurred after the motors are armed. So watch for this if you fly in manual mode, you could be surprised!

Here is how I tested this: I started my Solo and armed my motors and then went into manual mode before it could get any satellites. I then flew about 45 feet away in manual mode and hovered until I heard the GPS acquired message.

Then I flew to a different position and pressed the Fly Home button. The Solo proceeded to fly to the position where it first got GPS lock, not where the motors were first armed.

I didn't try yet to wait for just one or two GPS sats before moving to s different position to see if a weak lock will be used as a GPS home point. If I get a chance I may test this too.

It's slow doing tests with only one battery!

Good Info Rich! Thanks for testing this and clearing it up. I just got in my battery I ordered from BB last Thursday. I'm going to cancel the extra battery from BHP. That gives me 3 now (2 from BB) and if/when the free one comes from 3DR that will give me 4 and should be plenty. I just couldn't stand to have only 1 battery!

 

[Rich]

Another confirmation of this, I found this clarity in the Advanced settings part of the manual:

http://3drobotics.com/kb/advanced-flight-modes/

If Solo acquires GPS lock mid-flight, the autopilot will save a home position at that location. To prevent a potentially unsafe situation, do not use Return Home if Solo did not acquire GPS prior to takeoff.

Considering that this is the documented behavior I may not do more tests.

 

[KRVer]

Another confirmation of this, I found this clarity in the Advanced settings part of the manual:

http://3drobotics.com/kb/advanced-flight-modes/

If Solo acquires GPS lock mid-flight, the autopilot will save a home position at that location.

Hi Rich. I had seen that in the manual and understood that behavior to be true but had never tested it out - thanks for confirming, good to have that reinforcement.

I was in a situation yesterday flying in a new location over a small lake. I was so tempted to take off manually without waiting for GPS lock but didn't want to run the risk of my home position being set to the middle of the lake during flight. I've never had satellite issues so it was reassuring to know that if I lost controller connection the bird would be coming back to me and not going in the drink.

 

[Rich]

Yes, I fly over water a lot, as I have a boat, so we need to take care of this issue!

This is why I'd like the 'dynamic home point' aka 'return to me'. Where the GPS position of the controller is sent to the Solo every 10 seconds or so to be used as the new home point. Then just have the Solo come to me, and hover 20 feet up and 20 feet out and wait for me to tell it to land or fly it to the ground myself.

This would solve many problems, such as when the operator may move around (such as when using Follow Me), or when the take off GPS position wasn't set correctly (when flying manually and you don't yet have a GPS position on take off).