Iris + Landing

Posted by Forrest Arndt on April 5, 2015 at 6:14am

Hello all,

I have had the Iris for about 7 flights, 5 were crashes, that is fixed now, but I can be paranoid so I have a question.

I had a hard time getting the Iris to shut down when I landed it today, I assume that with the sort legs the iris was not on a smooth enough surface and it had a bit of motion and assumed that it was not on the ground?  Does this make sense?

thanks!

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Replies

    • SkyRover > Erik Graham April 11, 2015 at 2:06pm

      I normally don't fly in stab mode. just take off/land. Coming from the hobby back when everything was all analog as everything got more sophisticated I always looked at it as they were all flying aids. Expo, gyros, simple autopilots, RTLs, etc were all safety/comfort to give you peace of mind or make it more enjoyable. Not things to be really relied on. Just like with newer cars that park themselves or have adaptive cruise control. You wouldnt 100% trust or use these features but they make driving easier.

      Of course, all this said, eventually new tech becomes reliable enough over time to the point where we do fully trust it. No one really worries about their ABS going out and having to remember to pump their brakes, self driving cars are proving they are safer than human drivers...

      I just like to always be prepared and its nice to know if anything happens I normally have a backup plan. 

    • Erik Graham April 5, 2015 at 7:49pm
      OK. So per Jack (above) and your post, I'm probably best staying with Alt Hold for the foreseeable future. Sounds like I'm not missing any key benefits. Maybe after a lot more flight hours with cheaper quads and in Alt Hold on the Iris, I'll try Stab mode, even if it's just for fun. But I've high jacked the thread... (Sorry Forrest). Original topic was landing procedure. The logs should help see what was going on with his landing.
    • Developer
      Bill Bonney > Erik Graham April 5, 2015 at 11:45pm

      I don't think switching into stabilize and disarming is advanced. I learned to fly in stablize first then moved to alt hold and loiter (If I remember correctly something might have been up with Alt-Hold not working as expected at the time, anyway).

      I think not being able to fly, even poorly, in stablize is like sailing and not being able to swim. 

      There's an element that new flyers need to get there wings, so are competent. Just like being able to drive a car. Stabilize is your friend, it's not that hard to control the decent of the craft to safe landing. auto modes (alt/loiter, pos hold etc, all have other things that can go wrong). even if it just controlling the throttle for a safe decent its a good mode. It does after all keep the craft upright ;)

      My suggestion is get a $20-$30 micro quad (husband) and practice fly that, you soon get used to controls, and they they are awesome fun :-D You thumbs will then evolve to be ninja good :-p

    • Erik Graham > Bill Bonney April 6, 2015 at 5:32am
      I think you might have skimmed over some things... I do have a few cheapo drones (including Husbans as a matter of fact) I practice with. Still NOT gonna risk stab mde for no tangible benefit on an Iris+ with 3 axis gimbal and camera. But this is off topic.
    • Steve Foster April 5, 2015 at 5:00pm

      Like others have said, I think some people go to "disarm" before Iris is ready, and that results with a yaw command, and usually a flip over or worse. I watched a youtube today, where this guy losses one of the tall legs, in flight. He maneuvers the Iris around, and lands it, with the arm with no leg resting on the curb. Really impressive flying.

      Here it is: http://diydrones.com/group/iris/forum/topics/prototyping-gone-wrong...

  • Larry Farquhar April 5, 2015 at 7:35am

    If you haven't already, upgrade your Arducopter firmware to 3.2.1. There were improvements made in the landing routine. I also learned, that if you're using the LAND or RTL to stay off the throttle until the Iris has landed itself and throttled down automatically. I thought I was being safe and would manually try to throttle down as soon as it touched down. Nope - let the Iris do it by itself when using these modes. It will power down and stop the props within 5 seconds by itself (when using these modes).

    When manually landing, doing as Erik states works for me.

    • Forrest Arndt > Larry Farquhar April 5, 2015 at 7:48am
      I have the latest firmware, i will pull the log later today. I hope that it is due to a wobbly landing zone with 1 leg not firmly down.
    • Erik Graham > Forrest Arndt April 5, 2015 at 7:54am
      I thnk what we are all saying, without saying it, is that no it's not because of a wobbly landing zone. We've all had that situation - short legs or long. The internal logic is simple. If the throttle is all the way down and the internal barometer does not report any decrease in altitude, then the Iris concludes it has landed.

      Also, this is a pretty common thing for new users to ask about and its almost always because they aren't holding the throttle down long enough... to quickly they are shifting the stick to the left to attempt a premature disarm. (ie before they hear the spin down).
    • Forrest Arndt > Erik Graham April 5, 2015 at 9:13am

      No worries, I would rather be wrong than crashing, My prev issues were the Iris taking off on its own and crashing at a high rate of speed. I will pay attention to how I land it the next time I fly and if I see the same problem I will upload my log for review!  Thank you for the input!

  • Developer
    Bill Bonney April 5, 2015 at 7:29am
    Can you post your dataflash file or state which version of the firmware you are using?
This reply was deleted.