IRIS Run Amuk

Hello all,

I am not new to APM or arducopter, but I wanted something easy so I bought an Iris+. I have flown about 10 batteries and it was flying great until this afternoon.

I had one good flight, landed and put a new pack in and took off in Alt hold mode (since I am using the TX as it was setup). I Switched to loiter mode and the IRIS hovered fine for a minute, and then started acting unusual. It started to not respond to my inputs, so I switched to RTL and the IRIS started to climb and fly away. It was like I had very little input into what it was doing. I switched back into Alt Hold mode with no change. I managed to get it to come back to me and got all the way down to a few inches off the ground, put throttle to min, and it proceeded to accelerate sideways and slammed into the side of my house.

This is quote unnerving and I really need to get to the bottom of it before I fly again. I am running Copter 3.2.1. I have attached my log, if anyone has any insight into what the heck was going on I would greatly appreciate it.

-Steve

30.log

I had an IRIS+ which I immediately plugged in to APM planner an saw the 3.2.1 update so I updated it. Figuring everything would work out of the box I flew it it it also flew erratically(almost bought the farm) when I went into Loiter. Additionally it had a lot of trouble getting a GPS fix. I have an X8 which I upgraded previously from 3.1 to 3.2 and the main thing was to recalibrate the accelerometer/compass and GPS which I did and everything was fine. I thought since I had problems with the GPS fix and issues going into loiter(which requires the GPS) I would calibrate the accelerometer/compass and GPS on the iris+ as well. (very good how to vids in APM on how to do this from Randy). After all the calibration the iris+ worked as expected in stabilize and loitermodes. I also later moved the antena around inside the iris+ so they did not traverse the GPS which seemed to help with getting a GPS lock quicker(saw some vids on the internet on how to do this). I am not an expert by far in any of this stuff and you may have already done all this, but if not give it a try. BTW I also had a ticket open with 3DR and they also mentioned the calibration step.

Replies

- Justin H. > vf171 June 8, 2015 at 9:31pm
  
  Yes. Mandatory.
- DavidFolts > vf171 June 5, 2015 at 5:23pm
  
  Absolutely... compass and ESC calibrations required... unit was NOT flyable after 3.2.1 load
Frank G June 5, 2015 at 4:55pm

I had an IRIS+ which I immediately plugged in to APM planner an saw the 3.2.1 update so I updated it. Figuring everything would work out of the box I flew it it it also flew erratically(almost bought the farm) when I went into Loiter. Additionally it had a lot of trouble getting a GPS fix. I have an X8 which I upgraded previously from 3.1 to 3.2 and the main thing was to recalibrate the accelerometer/compass and GPS which I did and everything was fine. I thought since I had problems with the GPS fix and issues going into loiter(which requires the GPS) I would calibrate the accelerometer/compass and GPS on the iris+ as well. (very good how to vids in APM on how to do this from Randy). After all the calibration the iris+ worked as expected in stabilize and loitermodes. I also later moved the antena around inside the iris+ so they did not traverse the GPS which seemed to help with getting a GPS lock quicker(saw some vids on the internet on how to do this). I am not an expert by far in any of this stuff and you may have already done all this, but if not give it a try. BTW I also had a ticket open with 3DR and they also mentioned the calibration step.
- DavidFolts > Frank G June 5, 2015 at 5:14pm
  
  Similar experience to mine... as in not flyable out of the box after 3.2.1 update. once calibrated flew well until a flyaway one month ago... its now with 3DR....wonder of I get a Iris back...
  
  I have a working theory... did y'all notice this erratic behavior begin about the time the weather heated up? Potential component overheat? THE Iris pixhawk is in black box...black gets mighty hot in the south Texas sun... and mine started burping out GPS glitch on the Tower app before it eventually flew away on a later flight. 3 DR says gyro problem..hmm solid state component sensitive to heat?
- Gregg > DavidFolts June 26, 2015 at 5:56pm
  
  Could be the heat. DJI naza imu's hate the heat and guys were having problems if they were mounted on top of their drones in the direct sunlight.
- StevenK > DavidFolts June 5, 2015 at 5:20pm
  
  That is a sound theory. It was probably near 90 out today, and my first mission went fine, changed the battery and flew again and that's when I had my problem. However now that I had this happen today, I realize I had a similar event a few flights ago when it was still pretty cool out. I was 400 yards or so away and thought that I went out of range or something but now I know it was something messing up. Hope to find the smoking gun or I am not going to be comfortable flying this again.
  
  -Steve
- DavidFolts > StevenK June 5, 2015 at 5:26pm
  
  Lotsa processing going on... big UAVs have lots heat they get rid of...I think we may have a hi-temp induced hardware fault..firmware 3.2.1 may be causing more CPU load than was anticipated...load equals heat.
Jim Phelps June 5, 2015 at 4:12pm

I had a similar event recently and I have found not the cause of it yet. My IRIS was damaged and I waiting on parts. It flew fine several minutes in Loiter, then started to climb away with no response from the controller.

Jim
- vf171 > Jim Phelps June 5, 2015 at 4:31pm
  
  Again, sounds like same symptoms myself and a few others experienced recently. Did you send log files to 3DR? Did you recently update to 3.2.1?
- StevenK > vf171 June 5, 2015 at 5:15pm
  
  Mine came from 3DR with 3.2.1 on it.
  
  -Steve

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