The IRIS+ is my second quadcopter and first one with GPS modes. My 5th flight with a new IRIS+ went sour. The vehicle took off as soon as it was armed in loiter mode and would not respond to RTL or Land. I was lucky I found it at all. 3DR analyzed logs, declared a gyro at fault and repaired the quadcopter. The main reason I bought the IRIS+ is the failsafe modes....that failed. I now have it back in hand but I'm a bit gun shy now.
I've read a good bit including the 3DR manual and info pages, the APM:copter wiki and many of the posts on this forum. I'm thinking I should be able to disable geofence, change the loiter mode out for stabilize via tower or Mission Planner and fly under full manual mode. The 3DR manual says to install the long legs if I use stable mode to avoid vibration from the short legs.
I have a gimbal and camera but no plan to install them until I'm comfortable they won't just fly away. Any recommendations or suggestions to help me regain confidence in the IRIS+ will be appreciated.
Replies
I was gunshy too after a tunning debacle. Due diligence do diligence on and the tall grass thing too. And don't press OK if MP tells you values have changed dramatically. Check it out and then know wtf it does. Yes I am a dumba$$ but I'm learning the hard way. Best of luck to you but it gets better till you do it again. Youn aint flying if y'aint wrecking!
Keep your gimble off and fly over tall grass. I had problems with mine loosing power and crashing. thank goodness my testing grounds is in a field with 3 ft tall grass. check out my you tube channel and you will see one of my bad flights. gregg gargan is my ch name... I had not installed the newest firmware and when i did it fixed the problem. But now im flying my new inspire which is amazing!!! I also re calibrated the radio, escs, compass and accelerometer.
Good luck!
Thanks for the input Gregg. Mostly corn fields, wheat and woods around here but I'm looking for more open areas. This vehicle just got back from 3DR with a new pixhawk so I'm thinking the firmware is up-to-date but I'll check.
I checked out some of your videos. I'll look at more another time.
Hi Jeff, We are in the same boat. I trashed a DJI Phantom(my fault) So I decided to go for the Iris as a replacement after reading all the hype from 3DR about it but now I'm afraid to fly the damn thing after reading all the reports of erratic behaviour, lost signals and failures to respond. I've had it for a couple of weeks and haven't even put the props on yet! I'll be watching with interest.
Just fly it. If you're questioning your motor skills (don't we all), get a micro and fly for about a month to get the muscle memory/riding a bike responses.
I've pranged mine a few times, broke an arm, etc. I have had no real technical problems, fly-aways, etc. Maybe I'm lucky, but not likely. I too was a little gun shy and it looks like a common reaction. I am enjoying it more each day.
I try to fly in stabilize mode as much as I can, but the autonomous modes are a definite hoot. I would say that for every bad day, there are multiple (4 or 5) good days. YMMV.
Thanks Kevin. I've flown and crashed a Swann 5C for several months now. Crashed the Iris+ on the 5th flight due to a bad gyro. 3DR did a great job of support and repaired it right away. I've flown the Iris+ on 7 different days since my original post here and am gaining confidence in it. Not saying I don't have a lot to learn about flying a quad but getting over the jitters about possible hardware malfunctions is the trick. I'm working on it and each flight is more relaxed and enjoyable than the previous one.
Richard, Most of us have a tendency to report issues and don't post every time we have a good flight day. I've come to the conclusion a gyro, or any other component, could fail at any given time so I need to just fly my IRIS. The sooner the better because if I encounter another glitch I want to be able to go back to 3DR support with it. I'm just trying to hedge things in my favor by making sure I can fly in a manual mode without too much worry. Stay safe.
Fly it like you own it!!! I trashed a dji s900 hex, pile of carbon fiber after the faulty wookong shut off at 50 ft. I too was a bit paranoid to fly anything..then had a good talk with myself. My Iris and x8 flew like crap out of the box and I have recalibrate everything and installed the new firmware. Everything is great now and both fly great.Never had a fly off! I generally do not use RTL or auto take off and fly as much as possible in a non GPS mode. If you know where your ship is..as you always shud as a good pilot, RTL isnt necessary. When starting autonomous missions I always take her up to desired height manually before starting a mission. Upon return I switch back to stable mode and land her.
My feelings is that the least you make the poor little pixhawk work, the happier he is! Just my 2 cents worth..Happy Flying!!!!
Thanks Gregg. I give it a try under alt hold or stabilize mode as soon as we have a day with a little less wind.