Tower app

[Greg Parker]

Well clearing all waypoints is deleting the mission.

If you want you mean is that you want to delete the mission off of the Solo, then you have two options:

1. Clear all waypoints in Tower and then upload what is now a blank mission to the Solo.

2. Switch to Acro mode and fly your Solo at full speed into a brick wall.

Rather than clearing waypoints after each mission over and over again why not just create a mission with a special name such a "Blank Mission" with no waypoints.

You should then be able to save that mission to your phone or tablet. Once you are done flying a Waypoint mission all you should need to do is use Tower to load the new "BlankMission" to the Solo.

This can be confirmed by then using Tower to import the mission from the Solo and then confirm in the Tower flight editor that you have no WPs shown.

I think this is much faster approach than deleting WP for missions with a dozen WPs or more.

 

[KRVer]

Rather than clearing waypoints after each mission over and over again why not just create a mission with a special name such a "Blank Mission" with no waypoints.

You should then be able to save that mission to your phone or tablet. Once you are done flying a Waypoint mission all you should need to do is use Tower to load the new "BlankMission" to the Solo.

This can be confirmed by then using Tower to import the mission from the Solo and then confirm in the Tower flight editor that you have no WPs shown.

I think this is much faster approach than deleting WP for missions with a dozen WPs or more.

You can delete all in a batch. Also, the new beta version has a one touch "Clear Mission" button.

 

[erikgraham]

Rather than clearing waypoints after each mission over and over again why not just create a mission with a special name such a "Blank Mission" with no waypoints.

You should then be able to save that mission to your phone or tablet. Once you are done flying a Waypoint mission all you should need to do is use Tower to load the new "BlankMission" to the Solo.

This can be confirmed by then using Tower to import the mission from the Solo and then confirm in the Tower flight editor that you have no WPs shown.

I think this is much faster approach than deleting WP for missions with a dozen WPs or more.

Having a Blank mission saved is a great idea... however when you create that mission, make sure it is truly blank with no home coordinates appended - which could be disastrous in certain circumstance. Basically just be extra double sure it's truly BLANK. To be extra safe, upload the blank mission to your drone at the start of a flight day, rather than at the end. Just make it part of your routine to do first thing.

In terms of total clicks or finger taps, deleting all waypoints and uploading that is basically the same as loading a blank mission and then uploading that to the drone. In the first instance you just long press the trash can, hit ok to confirm you do indeed want to delete all way points, and then Upload to the drone. In the second instance, you click the drop down menu, click to load a mission, click to select the Blank mission from the list, and then Upload to the drone.

Both are pretty easy.

 

[erikgraham]

You can delete all in a batch. Also, the new beta version has a one touch "Clear Mission" button.

Clear mission. That's great. Does it clear from the drone, or just from Tower?

 

[Greg Parker]

erik,

I agree that both methods should achieve the same result with the same amount of effort.

In regards to home coordinates I always find that with my PH1 that they are always overwritten at the time of arming. Is there a reason to think that this different with a PH2?

 

[Raybro]

That's what I thought too but it wasn't the case upon actual testing. I ran another mission with a speed change to "23" (approximately half of my max "45") and those flew at 33mph - virtually no change from "Rabbit" in Solo App - perhaps the speed change did NOT happen on that mission?). FYI, I've got my units set to "Imperial" in Tower rather than "Auto".

OT (Off Topic):



Yes, the more I fly quads, the more aware I am of air traffic in my vicinity and I'm really quite surprised by the number of aircraft I've seen that appear (from my perspective) to be flying lower than they should be.

I particularly noted this when camping at a Southern California beach this summer. Our campsite was on a bluff about about 100' above the beach. In the days we were there, I saw a few planes that were flying over the populated beach - not the water - that were easily no more than 200' above the beach. A number more I saw flying this low over the water but definitely closer than 500' from the people on the beach. At least this low you can hear and see them coming but it is scary to think about what could happen.

One more quick story: In the early 90s, I was in a small rented 2-seater helicopter doing a video shoot for a private college. We did a few orbits of the college campus at 500' (the lowest my pilot would take me because we were over a populated area), got the shots and headed back to the airport. When we were almost back, the pilot turned to me and said, "You've paid for an hour, we've still got some time, wanna go have some fun?"

He then took me to an undeveloped area where he flew probably no higher than 75-100' above a snaking river as he followed it's path. It was cool, but this is the same type of terrain that one of today's quads would love to be flying - I hope that pilots today are being made aware that when they're down that low, even legally (which I'm not entirely sure he was), they need to be extra alert.

500 ft rule
An aircraft must maintain an altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

1000 ft rule
An aircraft must maintain an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons.

Other aircraft, such as helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft, are not required to meet the FAR 91 minimums, so long as their operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface.

 

[erikgraham]

erik,

I agree that both methods should achieve the same result with the same amount of effort.

In regards to home coordinates I always find that with my PH1 that they are always overwritten at the time of arming. Is there a reason to think that this different with a PH2?

No reason. Mainly just paranoia left over from using older versions pre-droid planner 2 I think. Also I think there may still be an issue with Mission Planner and home points. I really can't recall. What I do recall is having a mission with a take off to 10 meters and nothing else. The drone took off and headed right for the trees. It was trying to get to a spot where I last flew and made the mission. I could dig through some history in diydrones to try to find the specific issue. I know that ever since I've been deleting all waypoints (until recently, one at a time) and uploading right at the start of every session.

 

[erikgraham]

No reason. Mainly just paranoia left over from using older versions pre-droid planner 2 I think. Also I think there may still be an issue with Mission Planner and home points. I really can't recall. What I do recall is having a mission with a take off to 10 meters and nothing else. The drone took off and headed right for the trees. It was trying to get to a spot where I last flew and made the mission. I could dig through some history in diydrones to try to find the specific issue. I know that ever since I've been deleting all waypoints (until recently, one at a time) and uploading right at the start of every session.

As I think about it more, a bunch of us were trying to figure out a way a researcher (cal tech I think) could build a mission that would take off to 100 meters. Drop in 10 meter increments and then land. At each stop he had instruments to take measurements. Temperature, pressure, other "forestry guy stuff". So he wanted a mission that would do that each time, regardless of home location. At the time, I think he ended up having to reprogram the mission for each location. While experimenting myself I had the near crash. Probably had a waypoint at 10 meters and it had nothing to do with the home point. The conversation ended up veering off to him trying to get permission to fly over national Forrest land. It's on DIY drones from last fall or maybe 2 falls ago.

Anyway, it's a moot point now once they release the update with the Clear Mission button KRV mentioned. That would be better than either of our methods.

 

[Greg Parker]

I

Anyway, it's a moot point now once they release the update with the Clear Mission button KRV mentioned. That would be better than either of our methods.

Have you confirmed that it clears the mission from both the Tower device and the Solo with just the push of one button.

 

[KRVer]

I


Have you confirmed that it clears the mission from both the Tower device and the Solo with just the push of one button.

No, once waypoints are cleared from the Tower app, you still need to upload the blank mission to Solo if you want to clear Solo memory. But Solo will not fly a waypoint mission in its memory unless you tell it to from Tower.

BTW, the actual steps to clear are:
1) From Editor screen in Tower, tap trash can icon.
2) "Clear Mission" option appears. Tap.
3) Confirmation message appears. Confirm that it is OK to clear all waypoints from map.
4) Tap menu icon in upper right corner.
5) Tap "Upload Mission". Once "Waypoints Sent" message appears, solo memory is clear.

 

[RichWest]

Is there really a need to clear an uploaded mission at all? Seems once you've cleared it within Tower there is no mission to activate from there...since Solo's controller has no hardware switch to activate a mission... Or maybe I missed that cue.

 

[KRVer]

Is there really a need to clear an uploaded mission at all? Seems once you've cleared it within Tower there is no mission to activate from there...since Solo's controller has no hardware switch to activate a mission... Or maybe I missed that cue.

I don't know why a mission would need to be cleared from Solo as long as the next time you run a mission you make sure that you've loaded what you want it to do.

 

[erikgraham]

I don't know why a mission would need to be cleared from Solo as long as the next time you run a mission you make sure that you've loaded what you want it to do.

Ever flipped into auto by accident and watched your drone head straight for the trees trying to get to a waypoint 300 miles away?

I have.

It's just a good habit to clear your drone of any old missions when you start flying. There are other examples where an old mission can cause problems, usually in the form of something that looks like a fly away a first, until you realize your mistake. I admit I don't always bother to do it, but its something quite a few arducopter pilots do.

 

[KRVer]

Is there really a need to clear an uploaded mission at all? Seems once you've cleared it within Tower there is no mission to activate from there...since Solo's controller has no hardware switch to activate a mission... Or maybe I missed that cue.

I've run the same mission multiple days and have used the mission stored in Solo to do so... Just "download mission" from Solo, check map waypoints to make sure they appear where I expect them to be, and then double check my waypoint altitudes from the Editor screen to make sure nothing is screwy.

I always double-check (or even triple-check) my waypoints before an autonomous mission to make sure I know where the bird is going to go when I hit "Auto". Once I'm satisfied that all waypoints are good, I'll "Upload mission" to replace the old mission on Solo - whether or not I made any changes - this assures me that my double-checked mission is what Solo is going to fly. As a matter of safety, I also manually (via controller) take off and rise to a clear altitude where I know that the path to my first waypoint will be clear before hitting "Auto" and starting autonomous flight.

At the end of the mission, I may initiate a "Home" command but take over landing via controller once the bird is close to home.

 

[erikgraham]

Is there really a need to clear an uploaded mission at all? Seems once you've cleared it within Tower there is no mission to activate from there...since Solo's controller has no hardware switch to activate a mission... Or maybe I missed that cue.

It's definitely less of a risk than on an Iris where there is a hardware switch for auto on the controller. But you can initiate an auto mission inside Tower.

 

[erikgraham]

I've run the same mission multiple days and have used the mission stored in Solo to do so... Just "download mission" from Solo, check map waypoints to make sure they appear where I expect them to be, and then double check my waypoint altitudes from the Editor screen to make sure nothing is screwy.

I always double-check (or even triple-check) my waypoints before an autonomous mission to make sure I know where the bird is going to go when I hit "Auto". Once I'm satisfied that all waypoints are good, I'll "Upload mission" to replace the old mission on Solo - whether or not I made any changes - this assures me that my double-checked mission is what Solo is going to fly. As a matter of safety, I also manually (via controller) take off and rise to a clear altitude where I know that the path to my first waypoint will be clear before hitting "Auto" and starting autonomous flight.

At the end of the mission, I may initiate a "Home" command but take over landing via controller once the bird is close to home.

I do EXACTLY the same thing... except when I'm not actually planning to run a mission. In that case I like to make sure to upload a blank.

 

[KRVer]

It's definitely less of a risk than on an Iris where there is a hardware switch for auto on the controller. But you can initiate an auto mission inside Tower.

You're right, I can see the need for clearing the mission before flying from TOWER again - but if just flying from the controller or Solo App, it's not a problem.

 

[RichWest]

Ever flipped into auto by accident and watched your drone head straight for the trees trying to get to a waypoint 300 miles away?

I do understand what you are saying and it is a good practice to clear both Tower and Solo, for the sake of safety. But being this is different than other 3DR products to date, the concern appears to make Tower's usage more complex than it really is...

But you can initiate an auto mission inside Tower.

With no mission waypoints active within Tower?

 

[erikgraham]

With no mission waypoints active within Tower?

Absolutely. Whatever the last mission you ran will still be in there until you upload a new one. If Tower is blank, that old mission will still be in your drone and still run when you hit auto. If Tower has a new mission that you just planned out right there on the display (but didn't upload), the drone will still run the old one when you hit Auto.

So it's just easier to blank it all out first thing and prevent any confusion.

 

[KRVer]

But you can initiate an auto mission inside Tower.

With no mission waypoints active within Tower?

Well... Yes and No... Mostly, Yes, though.

Even if you have no waypoints in Tower, once you Arm Solo (or start the motors from your controller), any waypoints in Solo are downloaded into Tower, assuming Tower is open. So now you have waypoints in Tower even if you had cleared it prior to arming. You DO receive an alert so if you're not expecting that, it would be a good time to Disarm/Shut down motors and reassess before flying.