The ugliest face of DJI is not their technical issues, but their attitude to technical issues reported on forum.
DJI is a advertisement sponsorship of one of the biggest RC forum in China. Many DJI users report their issues(Wierd attitude behavior causing uncontrollable crash even flip to most basic flying mode, fly-away, all-motors-stop in air etc.) with logs attached and ask for DJI's help for analysis. DJI's responds is moving ALL those threads to no-one-will-visit region of this forum. DJI spends money to cover the problems rather than solve them. This is DJI in China.
I would like to offer my experiences and advice for your consideration.
I have 3 different platforms running APM based equipment; a quadcopter with an APM 2.5, a hexacopter with an APM 2.6, and a skywalker X-8 with a Pixhawk and RPi interface and photomapping capability. The quadcopter has been flying for 2 years, and has over 300 hours on it, with over 180 of them being fully autonomous. While all of the autopilots are genuine, every one of these aircraft use cheap parts from hobbyking, and I have never had a fly away or even major crash, regardless of the situation, environment, vibrations, soldering quality, or electrical malfunctions caused by the incredibly cheap (and sometimes faulty/disintegrating) parts. This includes breaking speed controllers, props, 30MPH winds, and rain. They all fly better in every condition than I do, even with 10 years of RC experience.
The only times I have ever had anything fail were solely user error, such as wiring or configuring the system wrong. I have even had motor failures on the hexacopter and the ardupilot recovered beautifully, flying almost perfectly for another 30 seconds, allowing me to land. I have had an absolute blast with these systems, doing everything from creating aerial networks, to flying for fun, to large international competitions. They have been so successful and reliable that I now run a research lab focused on applications of unmanned systems, where we use ardupilot as the workhorse for our testing. I know a lot of people with Phantoms and copters with Naza's, and their number one concern is always a fly-away, whereas I know my copters will not fly away, and that I can fly in confidence. Allow me to give an example of the redundancy and dependability of the ardupilot code.
During the international competition involving the plane, while we were flying at nearly a mile out when another team turned on their 3DR radio module on the same netID (yes, over half of the 28 international teams were using Ardupilot) and they knocked out our telemetry link. Immediately following, the 1.3GHz video link knocked out the 2.4GHz RC link. And, unluckily, the plane, within a second of loosing both links, flew beyond the geofence. Normally, this would be the perfect situation for a fly-away. However, the plane immediately followed the correct failsafe procedure and came right back within range, and we were able to complete our mission without a hitch.
I cannot recommend the Pixhawk strongly enough, because it is simply dependable and reliable, with a ton of functionality (and much more to come). After 2 1/2 years and 4 generations of ardupilot hardware, paired with many different generations of code, I can easily, and without question, claim that the ardupilot series has been consistently more reliable than any other hobby-priced system I know of. Even competitions teams using commercial grade autopilots (e.x. piccolo, a staple for years with this team, who won the competition for its 4th time) are switching to the pixhawk for it's ease of use and reliability. I personally used the Piccolo autopilot series this summer, and prefer the Pixhawk by a wide margin. Just my two cents, sorry to hear about your loss!
Thank you very much, that's the kind of replies I've been looking for. A lot of "experts" on here have been crying user error when system failure is the cause, with NO doubt!
So you where not looking for advice about "the best FC" but you where looking for some kind of stress relief for the fact that YOUR USER ERROR ! caused the loss of a 3000$ muticopter...
I can guarantee you that with every one of of the other FC's you will encounter problems or glitches and that every time you will blame the FC for your incompetence, that is why communities like this one do not need people like you !
Added by Admin( M):--( @Sergios, You don't have to be harsh/rude to get your point across. This is DIYD site where you are suppose to meet when you have issues and sort it out by asking/giving help. )
Go troll somewhere else, you obviously don't know you butt from your Serg face. Last comment to an idiot like you. Are you from a country where you are the only one flying? Your knowledge is so limited is why I'm asking. Have you seen ton of video on the Naza flip of death? I guess that was user error too huh genius?
I am closing this discussion due to idiots like you trolling. Have a great life. Tell your!!!!!I said hi.
( Edited out by Mod ) Such language will not be tolerated
Darrell Burkey > Jeffrey Scott AtkinsOctober 2, 2014 at 2:20pm
Fly aways are very disturbing and really worry me. I'm simply amazed that a much more serious incident hasn't happened as a result of one. The issue seems worse with DJI products and I personally believe they have a serious bug in their software. Unfortunately the Naza doesn't provide logs and DJI are quite well known for ignoring customer support requests so we will never know the root cause of these incidents.
I really think that in the interest of public safety companies that don't take safety measures such as being able to provide logs for post incident forensics and software restrictions to keep the device within safe limits should not be allowed to market their products to the public.
Thank goodness that software developers who subscribe to the ethics of producing software in an open environment became involved in this area. Not only are they creating very capable systems but now commercial vendors will be forced to do a better job if they want to survive in the market.
Yea I think it's just a matter of very short time when some companies will be stepping over DJI's grave. I hope to be there with a shovel to throw in the last scoop!
Replies
The ugliest face of DJI is not their technical issues, but their attitude to technical issues reported on forum.
DJI is a advertisement sponsorship of one of the biggest RC forum in China. Many DJI users report their issues(Wierd attitude behavior causing uncontrollable crash even flip to most basic flying mode, fly-away, all-motors-stop in air etc.) with logs attached and ask for DJI's help for analysis. DJI's responds is moving ALL those threads to no-one-will-visit region of this forum. DJI spends money to cover the problems rather than solve them. This is DJI in China.
I would like to offer my experiences and advice for your consideration.
I have 3 different platforms running APM based equipment; a quadcopter with an APM 2.5, a hexacopter with an APM 2.6, and a skywalker X-8 with a Pixhawk and RPi interface and photomapping capability. The quadcopter has been flying for 2 years, and has over 300 hours on it, with over 180 of them being fully autonomous. While all of the autopilots are genuine, every one of these aircraft use cheap parts from hobbyking, and I have never had a fly away or even major crash, regardless of the situation, environment, vibrations, soldering quality, or electrical malfunctions caused by the incredibly cheap (and sometimes faulty/disintegrating) parts. This includes breaking speed controllers, props, 30MPH winds, and rain. They all fly better in every condition than I do, even with 10 years of RC experience.
The only times I have ever had anything fail were solely user error, such as wiring or configuring the system wrong. I have even had motor failures on the hexacopter and the ardupilot recovered beautifully, flying almost perfectly for another 30 seconds, allowing me to land. I have had an absolute blast with these systems, doing everything from creating aerial networks, to flying for fun, to large international competitions. They have been so successful and reliable that I now run a research lab focused on applications of unmanned systems, where we use ardupilot as the workhorse for our testing. I know a lot of people with Phantoms and copters with Naza's, and their number one concern is always a fly-away, whereas I know my copters will not fly away, and that I can fly in confidence. Allow me to give an example of the redundancy and dependability of the ardupilot code.
During the international competition involving the plane, while we were flying at nearly a mile out when another team turned on their 3DR radio module on the same netID (yes, over half of the 28 international teams were using Ardupilot) and they knocked out our telemetry link. Immediately following, the 1.3GHz video link knocked out the 2.4GHz RC link. And, unluckily, the plane, within a second of loosing both links, flew beyond the geofence. Normally, this would be the perfect situation for a fly-away. However, the plane immediately followed the correct failsafe procedure and came right back within range, and we were able to complete our mission without a hitch.
I cannot recommend the Pixhawk strongly enough, because it is simply dependable and reliable, with a ton of functionality (and much more to come). After 2 1/2 years and 4 generations of ardupilot hardware, paired with many different generations of code, I can easily, and without question, claim that the ardupilot series has been consistently more reliable than any other hobby-priced system I know of. Even competitions teams using commercial grade autopilots (e.x. piccolo, a staple for years with this team, who won the competition for its 4th time) are switching to the pixhawk for it's ease of use and reliability. I personally used the Piccolo autopilot series this summer, and prefer the Pixhawk by a wide margin. Just my two cents, sorry to hear about your loss!
So you where not looking for advice about "the best FC" but you where looking for some kind of stress relief for the fact that YOUR USER ERROR ! caused the loss of a 3000$ muticopter...
I can guarantee you that with every one of of the other FC's you will encounter problems or glitches and that every time you will blame the FC for your incompetence, that is why communities like this one do not need people like you !
Added by Admin( M):--( @Sergios, You don't have to be harsh/rude to get your point across. This is DIYD site where you are suppose to meet when you have issues and sort it out by asking/giving help. )
I am closing this discussion due to idiots like you trolling. Have a great life. Tell your!!!!!I said hi.
( Edited out by Mod ) Such language will not be tolerated
Fly aways are very disturbing and really worry me. I'm simply amazed that a much more serious incident hasn't happened as a result of one. The issue seems worse with DJI products and I personally believe they have a serious bug in their software. Unfortunately the Naza doesn't provide logs and DJI are quite well known for ignoring customer support requests so we will never know the root cause of these incidents.
I really think that in the interest of public safety companies that don't take safety measures such as being able to provide logs for post incident forensics and software restrictions to keep the device within safe limits should not be allowed to market their products to the public.
Thank goodness that software developers who subscribe to the ethics of producing software in an open environment became involved in this area. Not only are they creating very capable systems but now commercial vendors will be forced to do a better job if they want to survive in the market.
Speaking from my own experience, APM is pretty good. One nice feature is that if you experience weird problems,
- you can grab a log file that documents the problem
- there are lots of smart, helpful people that can look at the log file and give you advice.
And of course in these modern time, we pronounce APM as PixHawk!!
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