Hello 3DR Pilots!
Relatively new to droning and Solo. I've done a little sniffing around here in the FAQ and elsewhere and lots of great info here - actually a lot more answers and useful solutions here then I can get contacting 3DR support!
A little background on my introduction to the brand and drone piloting...
I purchased a used Solo package a couple of months ago and after a first few trouble free test flights I had serious trouble getting reliable video feed with the unit. When it worked, the ease in and out on the smart shots was amazing for beautiful smooth video but obviously not very easy to utilize w/o any video to line up way points or allow for flying manual and keeping my subject in frame. Unfortunately after a couple months of ownership on a test flight after initiating a cable cam flight path above a tree the unit immediately took a dive in altitude and did not respond to the pause button eventually leading to a crash and cracked hull, and damaged motor pod. On speaking with the great guys at Current UAS it sounds very likely one of the onboard computers was fried and causing the poor video feed issues (rolling video, frozen video, very poor range, black video). The crash happened 3 weeks outside of warranty so even though I had been contacting customer support for about 6 weeks during the warranty period trying to resolve the video feed issues and getting advice like "only use the stock antennas" and "check the RSSI levels" 3DR was not willing to look at my flight logs to determine if a system failure caused the crash and my video feed issues.
So it has been a bit of a frustrating learning curve after multiple emails and live chat sessions with tech support trying to get the unit operating properly and being forced to fly only by line of site on a couple jobs on location shooting motorcycles. I also found the GPS acquisition a bit lacking as well. But... from the beginning and during some of my early test flights I had seen the great potential with the Solo for acquiring smooth flowing video with one operator relatively easily through smart shots' logrithmic ease in and ease out and the potential in fast work flow for my jobs up by creating and saving smart shots at my "go to" locations before shoots.
I ended up purchasing a replacement unit as I already extra batteries, and a backpack, and 3DR price slashed the units, although my experience with my first unit and customer support had me seriously looking a Phantom 4. After having to re calibrate the sticks, compass, and level on my new unit it seems to be working fine and giving a decent video feed.
Which brings me to my question.
1) How does one initiate recording on a GoPro Hero 4 Black using the Tower app? Do I have remove the GoPro from the gimbal and start record, re-insert in gimbal, then follow procedure for arming Solo in Tower?
2) Is there a way to use Tower to initialize an autonomous flight and switch to the Solo app for manual control/smart shots during part of the flight then switch back to the flight on Tower?
Relatively new to droning and Solo. I've done a little sniffing around here in the FAQ and elsewhere and lots of great info here - actually a lot more answers and useful solutions here then I can get contacting 3DR support!
A little background on my introduction to the brand and drone piloting...
I purchased a used Solo package a couple of months ago and after a first few trouble free test flights I had serious trouble getting reliable video feed with the unit. When it worked, the ease in and out on the smart shots was amazing for beautiful smooth video but obviously not very easy to utilize w/o any video to line up way points or allow for flying manual and keeping my subject in frame. Unfortunately after a couple months of ownership on a test flight after initiating a cable cam flight path above a tree the unit immediately took a dive in altitude and did not respond to the pause button eventually leading to a crash and cracked hull, and damaged motor pod. On speaking with the great guys at Current UAS it sounds very likely one of the onboard computers was fried and causing the poor video feed issues (rolling video, frozen video, very poor range, black video). The crash happened 3 weeks outside of warranty so even though I had been contacting customer support for about 6 weeks during the warranty period trying to resolve the video feed issues and getting advice like "only use the stock antennas" and "check the RSSI levels" 3DR was not willing to look at my flight logs to determine if a system failure caused the crash and my video feed issues.
So it has been a bit of a frustrating learning curve after multiple emails and live chat sessions with tech support trying to get the unit operating properly and being forced to fly only by line of site on a couple jobs on location shooting motorcycles. I also found the GPS acquisition a bit lacking as well. But... from the beginning and during some of my early test flights I had seen the great potential with the Solo for acquiring smooth flowing video with one operator relatively easily through smart shots' logrithmic ease in and ease out and the potential in fast work flow for my jobs up by creating and saving smart shots at my "go to" locations before shoots.
I ended up purchasing a replacement unit as I already extra batteries, and a backpack, and 3DR price slashed the units, although my experience with my first unit and customer support had me seriously looking a Phantom 4. After having to re calibrate the sticks, compass, and level on my new unit it seems to be working fine and giving a decent video feed.
Which brings me to my question.
1) How does one initiate recording on a GoPro Hero 4 Black using the Tower app? Do I have remove the GoPro from the gimbal and start record, re-insert in gimbal, then follow procedure for arming Solo in Tower?
2) Is there a way to use Tower to initialize an autonomous flight and switch to the Solo app for manual control/smart shots during part of the flight then switch back to the flight on Tower?
