Uncontrolled crash during curved cable cam

[stevemitchell]

I did not know DJI had a cable cam feature. How does it work? It will work 5 feet off the gown and hold that altitude while moving waypoint to waypoint?

They don't have a cable cam feature, but they have waypoint missions of varying types which allow for points to be stored and then flown back and forth, so essentially similar except for the curved portion. My experience with this feature on DJI and also similar ones on 3DR is that they hold the altitude very well. GPS being what it is for consumer products, they don't hit the point exactly, but close enough for what I want. I have flown them at low altitudes as well without any problems.

 

[stevemitchell]

I should also mention - while the H was flying to the first point, I attempted to override the altitude as I saw it was heading to disaster but it would not climb. I've got to go back and re-read the info on CCC and see if I was doing something wrong, had a switch set wrong, or if it simply was not responding correctly - hopefully Yuneec or others might be able to compare the Remote data with the Telemetry and see if there is an issue.

 

[Rayray]

it has been mention in several posts to not get to close too the ground. 10 meters to be safe..,.unfortunately, that was probably your mistake...sorry to say. but setting a CCC waypoint that close to the ground is asking for trouble. These are hobby grade gps components not military. Just look at the Alt reading on any ST 16 ...they are never right. Not sure what Yuneec or B&H will do for. I wish you luck. I would suggest you check out the multitude of youtube videos on the CCC and other advanced GPS functions of the H in your downtime. Im sure you'll pick up a lot of good tips that may prevent this type of situation happening again...

Very true, Art, and 10 meters sounds good, unless in hills and valleys. While the Pro with RealSense does have IPS, it faces straight down, and with forward speed cannot know about a sudden increase coming in elevation.

There is abundant info out there on this situation, but Yuneec is remiss in not providing more guidance and a real owners manual.

If realsense is off do the downward facing sensors even work?

Yep. If you accidentally try to land with the legs up, the IPS will stop it some 5' to 8' above ground. Mine does, anyhow, lol. Whereas the std H will come on down. DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for crashes!

 

[dinglehead]

Bad luck. As others have said, you need to allow space as unlike other products that just fly in straight lines, the Typhoon flies a smooth curved path (the 'curved' in curved cable cam), That can include dropping down below the initial height if you have waypoints that vary by a large altitude.

The downward facing ultrasonics and camera are part of the IPS *Indoor* Positioning System. They help maintain a stable position when you hover below 20'. However, they don't stop you from flying downwards if you want to, and don't form part of the obstacle avoidance system (the front facing sonar).

I should also mention - while the H was flying to the first point, I attempted to override the altitude as I saw it was heading to disaster but it would not climb. I've got to go back and re-read the info on CCC and see if I was doing something wrong, had a switch set wrong, or if it simply was not responding correctly - hopefully Yuneec or others might be able to compare the Remote data with the Telemetry and see if there is an issue.

The throttle is not going to respond how you expect in CCC mode. The throttle actually controls the motion along the "cable" - so pushing it forward moves from point 1 to 2, pulling it back would move it from point 2 to 1

 

[wedbster]

I'm missing your ccc-File from your tour

 

[stevemitchell]

I'm missing your ccc-File from your tour

Where would that be? I snagged all of the directories from the ST16 - is it on the H itself?

 

[Mickeyboo]

I've used CCC several times before without any issues.

So if that's the case what made this different than the others? Had you previously flown so close to the ground? Were the conditions different?
So every other time you noted no variability with regard to your position and height VIS a VIS cable cam? I ask these questions for educational reasons not as a prosecutor. Regarding repair times I've had them from 2 days to 3 weeks. Longest was for a camera I had to solder in the field which was done in a very primitive way so that required lots of work to repair it.

 

[wedbster]

Where would that be? I snagged all of the directories from the ST16 - is it on the H itself?

Internal storage\flightmode\mission_data


I also can not see you have crashed ... no motor stop, no errors, only compass calibration error

 

[stevemitchell]

So if that's the case what made this different than the others? Had you previously flown so close to the ground? Were the conditions different?
So every other time you noted no variability with regard to your position and height VIS a VIS cable cam? I ask these questions for educational reasons not as a prosecutor. Regarding repair times I've had them from 2 days to 3 weeks. Longest was for a camera I had to solder in the field which was done in a very primitive way so that required lots of work to repair it.

I did not fly close to the ground before. The conditions were fairly similar otherwise - no wind, clear day, mid-day, in a very unpopulated area with a lot of visibility and clear sky for GPS and otherwise.

In terms of the waypoints, they were similar in terms of distance apart and overall flight time. I'm still just experimenting with it, not trying to film anything in particular - yet.

I think the big difference is what's been discussed - the height from the ground, or lack thereof.

 

[stevemitchell]

Internal storage\flightmode\mission_data


I also can not see you have crashed ... no motor stop, no errors, only compass calibration error

Very interesting. I don't have that folder. Under /flightmode I only have media_data, and that contains the usual video and images from the flights beforehand.

What's also interesting, and I probably should have mentioned it earlier. Right before I started the CCC, I started recording video, and it's nowhere to be found. Not even a corrupted file. I've seen this on other platforms and just assumed that because of the crash, the files were never written.

I tried connecting to the H via the USB port too, but can't see any way in the Typhoon windows app to download these. Are they stored somewhere else?

 

[wedbster]

Very interesting. I don't have that folder. Under /flightmode I only have media_data, and that contains the usual video and images from the flights beforehand.

What's also interesting, and I probably should have mentioned it earlier. Right before I started the CCC, I started recording video, and it's nowhere to be found. Not even a corrupted file. I've seen this on other platforms and just assumed that because of the crash, the files were never written.

I tried connecting to the H via the USB port too, but can't see any way in the Typhoon windows app to download these. Are they stored somewhere else?

I did a ccc some days before, had created the tour at home and had already the folder on my ST16.
This is the folder where the ST16 save your ccc tour.

The video you start is on the micro sd card in your cgo3+ camera. If you stop and shut down your copter
before you have stopped your video capturing, you have NO video file on your micro sd card.
First and atonce you have power on you copter and ST16, start again a video and stop it, the
the CGO3+ make a automatical repair of your last video file. Only then, not after any other action.

 

[stevemitchell]

I did a ccc some days before, had created the tour at home and had already the folder on my ST16.
This is the folder where the ST16 save your ccc tour.

The video you start is on the micro sd card in your cgo3+ camera. If you stop and shut off your copter
before you have stopped your video capturing, you have NO video file on your micro sd card.
First and atonce you have power on you copter and ST16, start again a video and stop it, the
the CGO3+ make a automatical repair of your last video file. Only then, not after any other action.

Yup I tried that too. After examining the copter and bringing it back to a safe place, I powered it back on with the SD card inserted. No video was magically recreated.

I do have video from when I was building my CCC route, but that doesn't help much.

I went back and compared the timestamps of the videos I do have as well as the Telemetry files. The crash happened right after the video that was recorded at local time 10:45AM. I see logs starting at 10:39 in the Telemetry file, and ending at 10:46, so part of that is the start of the CCC, or when I was stopping video and starting again.

There are two more Telemetry files, but they appear to be from when I powered things back up and was trying to figure out what the damage was. I've attached those in case they were from the CCC...

 

[wedbster]

Each time you power on your copter, you get a new Telemetry file.

If you have stopped a video capturing possible by a crash, dropped batterie ...
while it was capturing, you only have the chance to recover the last runing video
file by starting a new capturing and stopping, all with the same sd card.
Anything else you try will distroy this little chance.

Possible, there are some seconds missing, but it will rescue what possible

 

[stevemitchell]

Each time you power on your copter, you get a new Telemetry file.

If you have stopped a video capturing possible by a crash, dropped batterie ...
while it was capturing, you only have the chance to recover the last runing video
file by starting a new capturing and stopping, all with the same sd card.
Anything else you try will distroy this little chance.

Possible, there are some seconds missing, but it will rescue what possible

That's what I thought. As soon as I got it powered on again, I did start another capture, but no lost video was restored. Only a new video through the broken camera

That confirms that the 18-19 Telemetry files are the two times I tried powering it on to fix things. 17 is the last one, and it looks like the entire CCC flight files are missing - video, telemetry, etc. I find that very concerning.

 

[wedbster]

I only can say, the camera is able to restore and repair the last video file
but it can not make wonders ...

I had a crash in a trie by my self. The capturing stopped excatly at this moment, I get
in contact with the trie, but the fall down was not on the video, do not know why.
The batterie I thing was dropped out on the floor, not in the tree.

 

[Mickeyboo]

The video you start is on the micro sd card in your cgo3+ camera. If you stop and shut down your copter
before you have stopped your video capturing, you have NO video file on your micro sd card.

That has not been my experience, if you forget to turn it off or have a crash you have the file...to retrieve it in a useable way reinsert it into an H camera and it will write what the file needs to be seen...I had to do this when my H took a dive in a glacial spring in Iceland...and other times when I forgot to stop the video prior to landing.

 

[D See Ker]

I have set CCC close to the ground without issues. It's true that CCC won't be 100% accurate to where it flies every time, there is a 1-3 meter variability that I've noticed.
but even without obs avoidance enabled the IPS seems to stop the H coming lower than 1 meter to the ground if the landing skids are up.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1673909289591829

But I agree, any of the smart flight modes should be able to use obs avoid. when I do POI it's really hard to know if there is a tree or building close to it's radius, specially when you start close and go farther

 

[stevemitchell]

I have set CCC close to the ground without issues. It's true that CCC won't be 100% accurate to where it flies every time, there is a 1-3 meter variability that I've noticed.
but even without obs avoidance enabled the IPS seems to stop the H coming lower than 1 meter to the ground if the landing skids are up.

1-3 meters of variability is still quite a bit for a craft with a decent GPS and downward sensors.

My landing skids were up, and IPS did nothing to stop it from moving to the first point, and subsequently dropping down to the ground at a high rate of speed.

I still don't 100% know if IPS helps with any of this, or is truly only for indoors. If so, Yuneec is behind in this rather critical area compared to a few other competitors and should really spend some time on it. Could have helped prevent my crash, and I suspect many others.

 

[Rayray]

I suppose it's up to Yuneec now, Steve. Kindly inform us how it turns out. Good luck.

 

[stevemitchell]

I suppose it's up to Yuneec now, Steve. Kindly inform us how it turns out. Good luck.

Yes for sure. Although they responded initially very quickly, I still have no instructions or details on how to get the hex to them. Hopefully they will respond today...