submerged

[smicklesmockle]

so new drone and gimble. all stock settings. practiced cable cam. set it up at point A1 at bow of boat. point A2 at stern. point b about 20 or 30 metres above the boat. not at ceiling. so 1 vertical leg transitioning to a horizontal leg. pressed record. pressed play. watched drone descend. concerned as it didnt seem to be slowing on descent from point B to point A2. thought dont panic - it is a smart drone it knows what it is doing. ok, start to panic at what I think must be point A2. drone continues to pelt towards the water. I hit the emergency brake button. makes no difference. watch drone hit water, props spinning. spent two afternoons dredging for it. realised it has probably continued to fly underwater for a short while so who knows where it is. major flooding through creek day after. it will be scoured out to the main river by now. start up was normal. had satellites before takeoff. drone battery at 87%. what now?

 

[Maddog]

Open up a support ticket with 3DR via the Solo app. The most recent firmware update has been causing lots of problems for Solo- many owners are afraid to fly right now because Solo has become unpredictable.

No way to know what happened until the logs are examined.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

And if they evaluate the logs and determine it was a malfunction (not user error), you'll have a new Solo and new GoPro on the way.

 

[RikMiddle]

eh... boy..
I'm grounded 'till this shakes out.

 

[Andy Tomczyk]

"Smickel", sorry for your crash. MPCC does not make sharp turns at each point. It will calculate an arc through each point to make smoother video capture. Your Point B at higher altitude caused SOLO to arc through A2 then come back up to A1. MPCC flight path for 3 points will look more like a "C" rather than "L". I always keep MPCC at least 20-25 ft above the ground for this reason. Also, just to be save, I test run manually with the sticks just to see flight path before I hit play. Hope Support comes through for you.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

^^ I've made that mistake! First and last time I set a MPCC point that low, and first and last time I didn't have my finger on the pause button!

 

[dronesquid]

As many issues I've had with the solo and MPCC disconnecting and being forced to fly manually, I've still managed to get multiple takes of waypoints 2-3 feet off the ground, and within a couple feet of myself. This was definitely an error on Solo's part. I would immediately submit a ticket and expect replacement for everything.

 

[pyrate]

this was a common crash scenario when MPCC first came out.
that curve being calculated threw a lot of people off, that is why I no longer do those type of shots at low altitude.
Another one to watch out for, is if you are free looking and running manually along the cable at a high speed solo will lose alttitude

 

[pyrate]

was a pretty extensive discussion on FB about how to use extra waypoints to tighten a curve,

this the result of a three pint versus what will happen if you add a fourth point to flatten it out

 

[pyrate]

For you tech heads out there this is the curve calculation used in MPCC

On-Line Geometric Modeling Notes