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
Having come from another brand who's customer service and backing of their products was complete utter crap I have to say I've been pretty happy with the Solo after flying a friends teaching him how to fly and now finally getting mine. I had tried to help him fly with several different models and the Solo sent his confidence and flight skills through the roof. It's been a blast to watch and be a part of!
I would not mind being the lead tester on the solo.
POV from my face camera has made it very easy to prove machine malfunctions that are not caught in the log. I am on Iris #3 all due to machine failures.
There is something going on that is not being logged where the machine does not maintain altitude. Its not HDOP, Interferance, or anything else as the logs show that the machine is at an altitude much higher than it is in reality.
If I did not have a face camera and 2 cameras on the machine it would have been deemed human error.
To make these machines smart you will need to give them spacial awareness.
Until they get a "memory of space" they will not be smart.
I am not talking about current sensors, I am talking about machine vision; Structure from Motion from a nvidia jetson tk1 would be worth thinking about.
Or you could use Lidar...
Or you could just use a Project Tango, but you will need to find a wiki of how to do what you need it to do.
But What do I know
I am a novice
Have a ludakris day.Kris, i agree, the future is this one, but with the current technology i think it's a little early.
I know some things and stuff.
I have a friend who's did this and ate it big time, i will also add, my last flight my solo did a complete 360 roll in regular fly mode and righted itself. I have no explanation why. it also failed on its landing and tipped backwards then breaking props. all in a location that ive flown countless times.
One question though are you taking off the stickers that are above the motors that tell prop direction. I did notice one of his motors still had a tiny bit of glue and paper attached to it.
After watching a friend fly another brand quadcopter and struggling for weeks we both ordered Solo's (he made the better choice in vendors and has had his for nearly two weeks, mine will be here tomorrow). I took his copter up on it's maiden flight and found that it handled very well if not a little bit on the tame side which was perfect for him. Over the past two weeks he's been having a blast with his only complaint being he wishes he had more batteries. We did some testing of several tablet's and found that slow tablets will stutter and when the hero takes a picture will cause artifacts on the screen for a few seconds. Faster tablets don't have this issue. The HDMI out worked great while the tablet was connected via Wi-Fi (we tried connecting two tablets but only one will get video). It's very difficult looking at the monitor while he's flying so I plan on using the HDMI to a black pearl monitor for a better view.
So far no issues and he's been through over 20 cycles on his battery.
I received mine Tuesday evening and had a successful first flight yesterday. I had issues with the required first update where it would download to the controller and Solo over and over and over. I found it was an issue with my LG G-Pad. I connected my I-Pad and it updated like a charm the first time. I played around with the orbit and cable cam, fun stuff. After about three minutes I kicked the speed and rotation up to max and found the rotation to be fair but the forward speed was a blast. I also have a F550 all decked out and unfortunately I don't think it's going to be getting much flight time after the 3DR Gimbal comes out.
I did have issues with the WiFi connection dropping, scared the hell out of me when the solo shot up in the air without me touching the controls, saw it went into automatic RTH. I was at home flying it it could have been the tablet connecting to the home network over the Solo. I'll disconnect the tablet from the home network and try again however did experience being right next to the Solo & controller and the Wifi signal was so weak I couldn't connect.
Overall, fun!!!!!
This sounds more like what most every experience should be. It would be interesting at some point to compare serial #'s and see if any later ones are more reliable out-of-the-box.
I also think 3DR has carefully checked many of the returns - but, then again, it wouldn't be legal to sell them as new so those are probably used as replacement/exchange models.
With that many flights and no troubles it won't be as scary putting the gimbal on there and starting to get real footage. Most of us tend to get nervous when we have a cam and gimbal at stake - those are more fragile than the body itself.
I've just returned to the world of 3DR after a much needed break from it,,
I just don't get it??? you guys still have Randy bangin away at full speed trying to re-invent the wheel and some new EKF thing??? and then,,, you release the solo...
So?? what??? it's all done??? problems solved??? over and above the APM/Pixhawk controller??
why is the dev team bangin away,, when you have another team that's all done??
it's kinda like FORD selling a Mustang, and the horse-cart, with square wheels,, but hopefully in V3.5.3.2 they'll be round... but then the horse won't eat..
why are we not developing the SOLO controller????
Art, I hope you're third time lucky.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 6 Next