After spending many hours troubleshooting and waiting days for responses from support I finally took back my first Solo the was eventually deemed defective by 3DR for a number of issues. It took another 2.5hrs at the retailer to perform the exchange and a 5 day wait with a 3 hour commute to pick up Solo #2 at the nearest retailer with inventory.
I will say that I was quite excited when unboxing #2 as the whole process was extremely smooth compare the previous one. in less then 10 minutes #2 was updated to 1.05 and fully calibrated. It had 12-13 satelites registered and locked in seconds from startup. #1 took a minimum of 4-5 minutes if I was lucky to lock 6 for auto fly. Not to mention the controller showed full bars for solo connectivity and telemtry readings in the app were dead on.
With such good flight conditions before packing up the kids in the car to head over the field I decided to take #2 up and down just to confirm flight first. here is #2's first flight video 10 mins from coming out of the box.
Solo - $999
Gimbal(still haven't recieved) - $399
GoPro 4blk - $499
Xtra batterys - $597
spare parts - $80
40+hrs invested in troubleshooting/support and exchange of 1st Solo - $3000
Capturing this majestic first flight on video - Priceless!
Enjoy.
Replies
DJI connectors and wiring are much, much better. No argument there. They tend to get used more in high value set-ups when the cost of the FC is really not that significant and autonomy is not a requirement.
You do pay for that though. Quite a lot extra. It is just a consumer choice really.Why so angry?
As for the Solo. Noone here is being ripped off. It is not quite like buying a washing machine that does not work and your clothes are dirty and you are out of pocket. It is offering new capabilities and it may need some firmware revisions and early adopters may experience many frustrations. They have a return policy as well I think.
Consumers will decide at some point what they want to buy. Does this have to be elevated to a moral tirade?
(oh and I bet you read all the replies :) )
Why do some people think it is their mission to decide what is best for everyone else?
@Bob,
Yes Bob, you'll read it. You said the last post you weren't coming back.
Have you checked your Phantom 3 motor mounts for cracks? It may be a good idea. Youtube is chocked full of DJI crashes, flyaways and malfunctions. Do a search for "DJI crashes".....holy monopoly Batman!
I don't have a DJI, but know a few that do. They see all the options available and get overwhelmed; I explain you do have to understand what the parameters are and how they work before meddling with them. Then there are missions. You actually think DJI is out in front on this? Surely you jest.
Telemetry issues? Oh look! http://forum.dji.com/thread-12441-1-1.html
http://www.inspirepilots.com/threads/master-controller-disconnects-...
What I've found is most DJI pilots want something simple and don't want to have to know much about the flight controller. Arducopter requires the desire to do more, yet allows the pilot to keep things simple if they wish.
Nobody forced me to buy anything from 3DR.
No, I'm not dreaming.
The Pixhawk2 has a second "companion" computer to give higher level function and communication, but connected to that is essentially a standard Pixhawk doing all of the things any other pixhawk is doing while running software that is 99% identical. Many improvements made to the Pixhawk project can directly benefit the Solo and vice-versa.
Bottom line:
There's a huge amount of shared code between this:
https://github.com/3drobotics/ardupilot-solo
and this:
https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot
Not a dream, a reality.
Craig Issod> "There is no distinct line between user errors and machine errors."
You must be very new to drones, and/or only have very limited experience with toy drones with no logging capabilities. The ability to distinguish between user and machine errors is actually a great strength of Ardupilot underlying the Solo.
Oh but wait ...
DG> "Always read the comments,and look for the motive of the person posting the video. [...] I wouldn't doubt a few here at DIYDrones are from RCG that simply do not like 3DR and post day after day over there regurgitating the same barf mulch over and over. You know who you are."
Great post DG. No kidding! :)
Hi John, thanks for the very informative posts. I do always wonder why you get these trolls and fanboys spending all this time bashing the other side, I feel sorry they have nothing better to do with life..
This had the potential to be an interesting thread before it descended into playground arguments. It is becoming clear that the solo was released before it was ready and well tested which is a shame as it looks like in the long term it will be an awesome product. Constructive and honest feedback and criticism will help improve it and get where it needs to be.
Yes, the fan boyz and their motives are easy to spot, right John....It's clear you ignore the bad and have a lot of rainbow paint on hand. I returned my Solo without even flying it just because of the bad taste the 3DR paid and free trolls left in my mouth.
Straw man comment, Steven: There's a world of difference between describing or acknowledging possible shortcomings or failures of a product, when you have direct experience and you know what you are talking about, and making an ignorant statement like the one I quoted. Calling out ignorance and challenging false statements has nothing to do with "ignoring the bad", or "rainbow paint" ...
If you don't agree with that view, have at it on that specific technical argument, user vs machine error detection, that is ...
I really don't see the point in John's video; it's a typical propaganda campaign against a competitor by a "fanboy" as they're called. It doesn't prove anything, other than with a few no matter how easy a RC to fly, you just cannot fix stupid.
Always read the comments,and look for the motive of the person posting the video. He's obviously a DJI guy, and I wouldn't doubt a few here at DIYDrones are from RCG that simply do not like 3DR and post day after day over there regurgitating the same barf mulch over and over. You know who you are.
All or none in the video may be the fault of the drone, but someone apparently from 3DR set the record straight on a few of them, one of which has been well known for a long time. Did any of you read it? Obviously not. The first example was replied to by the owner and said 3DR replaced it and has been working fine; maybe the replacement had the latest update? Or it could have been a defect.
I waited until v1.0.5 was released as it seemed to have fixed some or most of the issues I read about, bought one, kept it for two weeks, put it in the car to return to BB, but read a response from 3DR I was allowed to make parameter changes that if not linked to a crash/flyway, would not void the warranty. Early on it was said using Tower would void the warranty, which also turned out to be untrue. So I decided to keep it. Thus far, 20+ flights without issue. Being an experienced RC'er, 35+ years, only 2 in MR's, it's become easy to spot those that really care and those that are here only to cause trouble. You also know who you are. I don't fly where it shouldn't be flown (as seen in the video), I check the solar K-Index before flying (have forgotten on a few occasions), etc. etc. and take my time.
Quite honestly, there is no way on God's green earth I would spend or even admit to "40+hrs invested in troubleshooting/support and exchange of 1st Solo - $3000". Sorry, that is just ridiculous.
As for the gimbal, I haven't received mine either; patiently waiting until BB has them stock so I can use the rewards money. Who has received it? A few maybe, don't know. Will it be as good as 3DR is purporting? I don't know. If it doesn't meet my expectations, it will be posted here at DIYDrones.
Finally, the bark is peeled from the tree. Don't get a Solo, get a Yuneec or P3. Here's a review by a guy who I like to watch on occasion. If I may say, it doesn't look all that great, and doesn't have a smidgen of the capabilities of the Solo. Plenty of crash videos for the Yuneec. It flies, Follow Me kinda sorta works sometimes, but has some serious shortcomings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LA_Gsnme6E
It's easy to play the "watch the video" game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LTezib_LEg
As for the Phantom 3, it's very easy to find countless videos of P3 crashes/flyaways and multiple hardware/fw problems that have been there since P1. Can someone look at these pictures and say with a straight face the P3 is a better built product? Oh, and now there are reports of the gimbal mount weakening and not holding horizontal level.
http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/phantom-3-crack-repairs.47568/
Arms held together with zip ties to keep the frame from falling apart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TQQcBWV6Vs
If you like your drone, great, no matter what brand it is. We all know these machines are going to have problems, but I for one think the Solo will in the end turn out fine, but that's my opinion. Everybody has one, but please dispense with the BS games.Do I think Solo was released too early? Probably. Do I think they jumped in too soon before having the logistics to handle the problems? Probably yes on that too. Should complete noobs be flying a Solo? Doubtful. I'll wait another 3-6 months before giving my final opinion on the product as a whole. For now I'm counting on the devs to come through and continually improve on the product.
So you defend the Solo by saying it's no worse than a Phantom?!?! Great work fan boy..."Always read the comments,and look for the motive of the person posting"
There are about 1/2 dozens guys who feel it's their job to make sure every forum, comment section and facebook page on the internet repeats the same - unsubstantiated - stuff. Some would call those fan bois because most of them do it only because they want everyone else in their club and the best way to do so is to prod people to buy the same thing they have. They seem to feel they are somehow upholding honor.
They throw DJI into every conversation - and excel at digging up older models where someone had a problem - not understanding that 500,000+ have been sold. Even then it's all besides the point.
From a technical and/or engineering perspective Solo is not even starting to fulfill it's hype and promises. That's a very simple statement and it doesn't matter if a couple guys flew it around a field successfully. Many people have had problems.
From what some say 3DR is aware of many of these problems - heck, many of the developers here have commented negatively on the Solo! Are the fan bois going to jump on them also. Well, I shouldn't speak so soon since at least one long term member quit here when he got flustered with how poor the Solo implementation was.
They may fix it...sometime. But making it into a 2015/2016 advanced smart quadcopter that lives up to it's billing (the hype continues - they have not pulled back their claims and marketing) is a much bigger job than making it default to manual when it loses GPS (quite often).
To the fan bois - please stop making fools of yourselfs and stay in the forums where you can welcome new owners and brag about how many trouble-free flights you have had...if you don't know enough to make a technical point or argument, you shouldn't clog up a conversation with your whitewash.
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