Very Discouraged.

[Engine24blue]

Try calling them. I've found them to be really fast on the phones, and while their email support is also usually quick, a phone call speeds things up a lot.

Toll free at 1 (855) 982-2898 or direct at +1 (858) 225-1414

The 2 best things about the Solo (in my opinion) is
1) it's a better platform for video and photos than anything in its class
2) The customer support (including the warranty) is excellent

Thanks for the 411. I got a response with a RMA and I will be shipping it off tomorrow!!

 

[Maddog]

I don't consider myself an MP expert. My bet is that 3DR may have more detailed insight. That said, the last file just shows the Solo upside down, waiting to be turned over, get GPS and arm. It was turned over at the last minute, and that was it.

The previous file shows a few problems.

1. It shows the craft not level at takeoff. If it was, the calibration is offf, and you likely should perform a level calibration.

2. The home point was VERY near trees. About 10 feet away?. (usually not a good idea) though it got a good GPS lock. This is important. Some GPS satellites can be near the horizon. If trees are not in the way, you will have a lock, until you move, sometimes a few feet. At best, you can get bad data and drift, and at worst, If they are required for lock, you will lose lock and go into manual.

3. After takeoff the craft went a few feet toward the trees, and recieved a "pos horiz variance" error which they can look into inmore detail, but is most often caused by bad GPS, when there is a BIG difference between what the compass is telling it and the GPS readings. I "suspect" this is the major culprit...

4. It then drifted closer to the trees (the GPS shows it in or near one) with some stick input, nudging it, and it tumbled close to straight down from there.

5. It then got a "Bad AHRS" error, which is "Attitude and Heading Reference System" and a problem with the calculation/values used in it. That could just be because it crashed, but it could also indicate problems with the level etc.

Again... No expert. But that is what I saw.

I would do a full and accurate level calibration (anywhere you can measure level) and also do a compass calibration at this site. I would also program "Manual" to the B button (if you haven't already) and practice flying in manual in an open space to get used to it.

You also really should get MP. Download it. Install it, and at that point you can just double click on any ffile with a .tlog extension to open them (rename the ones that don't end in .tlog).

Once open, go to the "telemetry" tab (center/left) and "play" the file. It shows the craft moving on a map with heading, home point, etc.. You can speed it up/slow it down, rewind it etc. You can also select the "tuning" checkbox (bottom/center) and bring up a simultaneous live graph of anything in Solo, inlcuding the stick and other inputs (which are chXin) where X=the input #, as well as motor outputs etc. You also had an AH (Artificial Horizon) display with altitude, level, and any alarms etc. etc.. It will tell you almost everything about your flights. There are other displays (in other tabs) and it takes a bit to get all the important values, but I have found that looking at logs this way, along WITH my memory of what I was seeing and experiencing has been a VERY good teacher. If nothing else, you can follow along and corroborate/deny when 3DR tells you something about your flights

One last thing, that I "just" got.... Slightly off topic, but related. I just talked to a friend that gave me a good tip. He has his wife fly the craft up high somewhere away from everything while he looks away, then turn it some random direction, put it in manual, and hand him the controls.

This way he is disoriented, and a bit frantic getting the controller swapped to him etc. Usually the craft would be drifting at this point. Being up high, he won't actually hit anything, and with good GPS (also up high) if all else fails, he can hit "fly" but.... it is very good practice for emergencies when you go into "manual".

I am curious to hear wht 3DR says. Let us know will you?

Earl- is there anyplace to find out what the abbreviations in the tuning section stand for? Some are obvious, most are not.
Also, watching the lines plotted on a graph in the tuning section dont mean anything to me. How do you learn what this means?

Thanks!

 

[Earldgrayjr]

Earl- is there anyplace to find out what the abbreviations in the tuning section stand for? Some are obvious, most are not.
Also, watching the lines plotted on a graph in the tuning section dont mean anything to me. How do you learn what this means?

Thanks!

Mine has been a strange combination of running across things while hunting for others, getting tips from users here, asking developers, and hunting for something based on some need at the time...

There actually is a LOT out there, once you realize that it can be found in a number of areas. Arducopter, APMcopter, Mission Planner, Droid Planner, Tower, Pixhawk, PixHawk2, are all good hunting grounds... And don't forget YouTube. There are a lot of videos. As an example, I believe I found individual motor control watching a motor balancing video and seeing them do it in Mission Planner...

Here are a few examples that show different "places" to look.. The "place" is more important than the specific link.

common-Mission Planner Telemetry Logs | Copter

ardupilot.com - View topic - Help with telemetry parameters

Quickstart Guide - All Users Begin Here - PX4 Autopilot Project

The reason many of the values likely don't make sense is that they are not zero at rest. as an example I believe the sticks are at 1500 at rest and associated input parameters go from 0 to 3000 based on full left/right or up/down movement from the center point....

Here is the entire list of params....
Copter Parameters | Copter

But it is a LOT...

 

[Maddog]

Thanks Earl! I looked at the copter parameters previously but the "names" don't match up to the abbreviations in the MP tuning list.
I was just hoping someone had compiled a list of what the abbreviations mean. (Hint-hint)

 

[DattaGroover]

Here's what 3DR emailed me today about my SOLO RMA:

Replace Pixhawk, Artoo IMX6 Wifi board. Replace all 4 motors, test fly with new gimbal, OK.

Hopefully that will solve it.

Very fast customer service!

 

[Engine24blue]

Here's what 3DR emailed me today about my SOLO RMA:

Replace Pixhawk, Artoo IMX6 Wifi board. Replace all 4 motors, test fly with new gimbal, OK.

Hopefully that will solve it.

Very fast customer service!

This is what I got on Monday and Thursday this week. Sent the same email to me twice.

Your product has been repaired! It has been fully tested and in perfect working order. Please see below for a description of what was done:

Tix; 152465

Order: the customer bought it from Best Buy (the proof of purchase is attached at the bottom)

Items: SOLO, controller, Gimbal.

Reason: Solo Crash due to failure in motor # 3.

Notes: We will repair the SOLO, controller, Gimbal right screw loosen up, and send a set of propellers (silver and black).

Troubleshooting: logs show that the reason of the crash was due to a failure in motor #3, this motor don’t respond to commands.

Tech: Sergio



11/9/15

Replaced motorpod #3. Performed flight and video tests with Gimbal attached. Calibrated the Controller. Unit is in good working condition.



All products go through our comprehensive repair process and calibrations. A flight test has been conducted to ensure your vehicle functions and performs as intended.



It won't be long until your copter is on its way to you! Please allow an additional 1-2 business days for us to carefully pack it and ship it to you. Please do not hesitate to let us know if there is anything else we can do for you. We are always happy to help.



Best regards

 

[locutus]

What is artoo? I received an email asking for that to be returned.

 

[Maddog]

What is artoo? I received an email asking for that to be returned.

I had seen that in another thread- it turns out it is the controller for Solo! Have no idea how it got that name. Somebody said it was from Star Wars- "R2-D2"..

 

[BlueRidgeVis]

One last thing, that I "just" got.... Slightly off topic, but related. I just talked to a friend that gave me a good tip. He has his wife fly the craft up high somewhere away from everything while he looks away, then turn it some random direction, put it in manual, and hand him the controls.

This way he is disoriented, and a bit frantic getting the controller swapped to him etc. Usually the craft would be drifting at this point. Being up high, he won't actually hit anything, and with good GPS (also up high) if all else fails, he can hit "fly" but.... it is very good practice for emergencies when you go into "manual".

[/QUOTE]


I had mine go a little erratic today. I flew fine for about 10 minutes, landed it in the back of my pickup, which is the same place I launched from (horrible idea, I know.... I was getting cocky). I went for another take-off.... Manually of course. Then when it got to about 10-12 feet in the air, it started doing a CCW orbit of about 20-30 feet almost slamming into my truck and a nearby truck. I could tell that it was receiving some of my input on the sticks but I really had no control of it. All attempts were failing. I was ready to attempt a crash landing when I remembered (in my panic) my preset "A" was manual mode. I hit that, and BOOM she leveled out and I had 100% control again. I landed her in the gravel where it was after flying around for about 10 seconds to make sure I truly had full control. I packed her up and went home.

Lesson learned. Stay in OPEN areas. Don't fly near large metal objects like a pickup truck. It could have ended badly due to my negligence. I'm so happy I got out of it ok. I;m assuming, the GPS got major interference from the objects around me.

 

[erikgraham]

One last thing, that I "just" got.... Slightly off topic, but related. I just talked to a friend that gave me a good tip. He has his wife fly the craft up high somewhere away from everything while he looks away, then turn it some random direction, put it in manual, and hand him the controls.

This way he is disoriented, and a bit frantic getting the controller swapped to him etc. Usually the craft would be drifting at this point. Being up high, he won't actually hit anything, and with good GPS (also up high) if all else fails, he can hit "fly" but.... it is very good practice for emergencies when you go into "manual".

I had mine go a little erratic today. I flew fine for about 10 minutes, landed it in the back of my pickup, which is the same place I launched from (horrible idea, I know.... I was getting cocky). I went for another take-off.... Manually of course. Then when it got to about 10-12 feet in the air, it started doing a CCW orbit of about 20-30 feet almost slamming into my truck and a nearby truck. I could tell that it was receiving some of my input on the sticks but I really had no control of it. All attempts were failing. I was ready to attempt a crash landing when I remembered (in my panic) my preset "A" was manual mode. I hit that, and BOOM she leveled out and I had 100% control again. I landed her in the gravel where it was after flying around for about 10 seconds to make sure I truly had full control. I packed her up and went home.

Lesson learned. Stay in OPEN areas. Don't fly near large metal objects like a pickup truck. It could have ended badly due to my negligence. I'm so happy I got out of it ok. I;m assuming, the GPS got major interference from the objects around me.

Sounds like you were toilet bowling. Caused by a faulty compass. Recalibrate and don't take off from metal. Solo shouldn't even allow that.

 

[BlueRidgeVis]

Sounds like you were toilet bowling. Caused by a faulty compass. Recalibrate and don't take off from metal. Solo shouldn't even allow that.

But it says do not calibrate unless instructed to do so..... Should I wait and see if it asks me to?

 

[erikgraham]

But it says do not calibrate unless instructed to do so..... Should I wait and see if it asks me to?

It can't hurt to calibrate the compass, but yeah you should have gotten a warning. Even if you try to take off in Manual, I'm sure the Solo would have alerted you to magnetic interference.

In any case, you don't need to be that far from metal to be in the clear... but you probably shouldn't take off from inside a metal pickup bed.

It's still possible you have some other issue by the way, although it does sound like toilet bowling.
Toilet bowling happens when the compass tells the drone it is moving in one direction, but the GPS position of where it ends up is not where the drone thought it was going. So it tries to get back to where it thinks it's should be, but heads in the wrong direction to get there because it use the compass to determine heading. So now it ends up even further away from where it thinks it should be and tries even harder to get back. This starts out as small little circles which rapidly grow in a spiral.

 

[BlueRidgeVis]

"Toilet Bowling" as you described it is exactly what it was doing. Kept getting slightly worse and worse. So glad I got it to true manual flight in time. I can see how so many new pilots crash. One little odd action like that even cause me to freeze up a bit and almost panic.

 

[erikgraham]

"Toilet Bowling" as you described it is exactly what it was doing. Kept getting slightly worse and worse. So glad I got it to true manual flight in time. I can see how so many new pilots crash. One little odd action like that even cause me to freeze up a bit and almost panic.

Well, we should probably confirm that it throws the compass warning when you take off in manual. I'm wondering if you took off in manual, bypassing that check, so that when you switched to FLY GPS (loiter), it was already out of wack. I'm no longer recommending people take off in Manual unless they have to.

 

[DattaGroover]

One last thing, that I "just" got.... Slightly off topic, but related. I just talked to a friend that gave me a good tip. He has his wife fly the craft up high somewhere away from everything while he looks away, then turn it some random direction, put it in manual, and hand him the controls.

This way he is disoriented, and a bit frantic getting the controller swapped to him etc. Usually the craft would be drifting at this point. Being up high, he won't actually hit anything, and with good GPS (also up high) if all else fails, he can hit "fly" but.... it is very good practice for emergencies when you go into "manual".

I had mine go a little erratic today. I flew fine for about 10 minutes, landed it in the back of my pickup, which is the same place I launched from (horrible idea, I know.... I was getting cocky). I went for another take-off.... Manually of course. Then when it got to about 10-12 feet in the air, it started doing a CCW orbit of about 20-30 feet almost slamming into my truck and a nearby truck. I could tell that it was receiving some of my input on the sticks but I really had no control of it. All attempts were failing. I was ready to attempt a crash landing when I remembered (in my panic) my preset "A" was manual mode. I hit that, and BOOM she leveled out and I had 100% control again. I landed her in the gravel where it was after flying around for about 10 seconds to make sure I truly had full control. I packed her up and went home.

Lesson learned. Stay in OPEN areas. Don't fly near large metal objects like a pickup truck. It could have ended badly due to my negligence. I'm so happy I got out of it ok. I;m assuming, the GPS got major interference from the objects around me.[/QUOTE]
Right you are about only launching in the open , and about having manual control on the A button.

 

[DattaGroover]

Well, we should probably confirm that it throws the compass warning when you take off in manual. I'm wondering if you took off in manual, bypassing that check, so that when you switched to FLY GPS (loiter), it was already out of wack. I'm no longer recommending people take off in Manual unless they have to.

I thought it wouldn't let you take off in manual with a compass error.

 

[erikgraham]

I thought it wouldn't let you take off in manual with a compass error.

I think your right, but I just want to double confirm that... it's just a little hard to test unless you already have a compass error.

 

[DattaGroover]

I think your right, but I just want to double confirm that... it's just a little hard to test unless you already have a compass error.

When I was having compass errors with my Solo (that I just sent in for warranty repair), it wouldn't let me fly in manual with a compass error. Not that I tried, of course

 

[RolandS888]

I think your right, but I just want to double confirm that... it's just a little hard to test unless you already have a compass error.

Confirmed.
Playing with scrap Solo parts at the moment including main board.
Has a compass error as compass sensor is dangling around and it wont let me go into FLY:manual mode.