You probably lost connection with the controller because of the unusual attitude of the Solo. Remember the stock antennas are vertically polarized. There is something like a 20dB loss if the transmitting and receiving antennas are 90 deg apart. That is why it is important to have the controller antennas pointed up or down when flying any decent distance away.
WTF happened to this drone? It just fell...
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Plus it descended below the tree line. Far away behind trees and sideways. That signal is toast.
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That graph shows that you did indeed go to low throttle while in stabilize mode which is going to cut power to the motors while at the same time you were already descending quickly with a lot of forward speed. This would allow the speed and descent rate to cause it to roll one direction. As you got close to the ground it lost controller signal long enough to go in to RTL. It then climbed to your programmed RTL height, which given the hill side was not enough to clear the trees.
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So actually this is a really good case for the RTL_CLIMB_MIN parameter. This is the distance it will climb, even if it's already above the RTL altitude. The default is 10 meters. So for example, if your RTL altitude is set for 100ft and you're at 50ft, it will climb up to the 100ft RTL altitude as expected. But if you're at say 250ft, it will still climb up that minimum 10 meters. Or, if you're at 90ft, it will still climb up past the RTL altitude to 120ft. A lot of people think that's a useless waste of power and time having it climb for no reason even if above the RTL altitude. But this is a perfect case for where it is important. If you're behind an object that happens to be higher than your RLT altitude, it gives you a chance to survive. Had the default RTL_CLIMB_MIN been a little higher, say 15 meters, I bet the Solo would have popped up right over the tree canopy and continued with the RTH... in what could be one the biggest miracle recoveries ever...
Another thing this shows is the Pixhawk's ability to recover from a tumbling free fall! The loss of signal triggered the RTH. That spun the motors up and made it try to right itself, even while free falling sideways and upside down. It flipped itself upright and gunned it just in time, arresting the fall just as the legs hit the ground. Then continued to climb up 10 meters, and proceeded to RTH. Sadly, there was a tree in the way. Again, a great fully automated miracle recovery.
Another thing this shows is the Pixhawk's ability to recover from a tumbling free fall! The loss of signal triggered the RTH. That spun the motors up and made it try to right itself, even while free falling sideways and upside down. It flipped itself upright and gunned it just in time, arresting the fall just as the legs hit the ground. Then continued to climb up 10 meters, and proceeded to RTH. Sadly, there was a tree in the way. Again, a great fully automated miracle recovery.
Got it.. slip of the thumb. So how can I change the RTL and STABILIZE parameters? Let's say, climb 100 feet on RTL and maybe an 18% minimum power in Stabilize? That might be a good starting point for me.
Thanks again fellas! You guys are awesome! I'm going to go film the girl dog combo from the top this morning. Wish me luck, I'll try to post some footy later
Thanks again fellas! You guys are awesome! I'm going to go film the girl dog combo from the top this morning. Wish me luck, I'll try to post some footy later
Yeah, sometimes it's difficult to distinguish cause from effect in the logs. I was thinking the same thing about the stick, that you would have felt the stick bottoming out and remembered if you did. One thing your video did show was that this is a pretty amazing quadcopter. It would have completely recovered from the tumble if it wasn't for that tree.
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Parameter RTL_CLIMB_MIN in your case should be set higher than the height of the trees you may end up behind. So if you have 100ft trees, set it for like 35 meters. The parameter value is actually in cm, so it would 3500.
Parameter MOT_SPIN_ARMED default is 7.5%. You can up that to maybe 15%. The parameter value would 150. That would give you a little bit more idle thrust. BUT, the pitch/roll/yaw stabilization is still offline at minimum throttle stick no matter what. There is no way to change that. So I don't think changing this would be very effective.
@Abraham- a lot of the videos you see here have been uploaded to a site like YouTube, Vimeo, etc., first because of their length.
Then a link to the video is posted here.
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I can now confirm from personal experience, that this is exactly what happened. And by personal experience, I mean I had a close encounter with a blackhawk helicopter. In a fit of abject terror, I punched stabilize mode and dropped the throttle to get the (@!*& out of the way. It was a highly effective evasive maneuver. It dropped 100ft in two seconds while flipping over. Recovered and popped back up when i let go of the stick. Thankfully I had about 100 extra feet under me so it didn't hit the trees before recovering. And thankfully was not sucked into the turbine of a helicopter.
Sadly I was taking photos at the time so I do not have this escapade on video. Also, if you're familiar with Turrets Guy on you tube, that's about what I sounded like during this incident. I may have even made some new words up.
Sadly I was taking photos at the time so I do not have this escapade on video. Also, if you're familiar with Turrets Guy on you tube, that's about what I sounded like during this incident. I may have even made some new words up.
I'm impressed how good and concise U can interpret the many data provided. I learned a lot following U explanations. Personally I had to learn the hard way, that flying a drone, it is way more economic and fun to adhere to the recommended safety / operational guidelines and allow for some extra error space. It took 3 Solos to come to this conclusion. Flying Solo at that hight, temp. and speed is indeed a daring adventure! But I enjoy the lessons learned.
As you wish..I JUST wanted to comment that scenery and territory rocks in the video. Aside from the diagnosing here, I personally would love to see a Solo vid of a skier/boarder tearing up that gap. I heli-skied the Rubys 2 years ago, one of my favorite adventures that my wife allowed me to do, and it was all I could think about while watching (the good part of) that video.
Where is that taken? And share a vid of a skier please, if you can (or direct me where I could check it out).
...ok, back to the smart guys figuring out the hard stuff.
Sorry the audio was cut out because somebody thinks they "own" that song. *Sarcasm
I'll upload with a different song and remove the 9 seconds of black later.
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They have a pretty good life. Gunner doesn't really like the drone though. He kinda flips his shit about it.
Beautiful video. If you don't have a commercial certificate yet, you should get one. You can sell your video as stock footage. Nothing like the first set of tracks in pristine powder!
Interesting idea, could you point me towards a few locations to do that? I'd like to check into it, and perhaps that might be the motivation I need to take the test. It's been on my list.
Pond5.com is a good place to start for selling stock footage. You don't have to buy anything there, you can just sell. Some sites want you to pay to join, or have some other monetary requirements. There are a lot out there, a quick google search should pull up some options. Pond5 you upload your videos, they showcase them, and you split the profits from any sales.
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