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Drone Went Rogue. Crashed Twice. Don't know what to do.

After an hour long phone call, They are going to try and work with me. I have to send them the video of the first flight to show that I actually did take off and land in the same location. Because according to their logs, it looks like I flew it around and landed it some 100 feet away from me, then took off a 2nd time with the drone rotated 180 degrees and flew it into the tree.
But I never rotated the drone. It was facing the same direction the entire time.
So, hopefully I can get the video to him and the proof of purchase and they will warranty it for me so I'm not out of pocket on the repair.

Also, the technician told me that none of you guys can be trusted because you don't now how to read the logs like they do and that you probably just entered the numbers into a spreadsheet and didn't know how to read them properly so you gave me incorrect information. And whatever software you used to analyze the info I gave you, and the gps info and trajectory info, that you don't know what you are doing.
Also the manual that you provided isn't as good as theirs and I should ignore it and use theirs instead. lol. So there's that :D

If you think Support sucks for the Typhoon series, try the Breeze. It doesn’t even record telemetry in Breeze Cam with every flight the way it is supposed to.

I can vouch for the US Support group thinking we are a bunch of goof balls that can’t interpret their telemetry data. I’ve had my own tête-à-tête sessions with them and being from a 35+ year career in high tech repair on a variety of equipment few ever see, I can tell you they are very holier than thou in their attitudes.

As for the manual used by this forum and the Yuneec-forum.com, it is Yuneec’s Manual appended with a much more in-depth coverage of all topics.

As for reading the telemetry data, we could be even better at it if they would release more information in the binary data for the IMU and error flags. The things we can’t read are the encrypted logs and any data stored in the flight controller.

Good luck with them AndyP!
 
The encrypted flight logs are exactly the same as the open ones. It's only for Yuneec to make sure that the open text logs are not manipulated.
In the ST16 code it is clearly to see, that they take the same files and encryped it. No additional information in.

br HE
 
Hello, I don't know what to do.

I got a Typhoon-H for my 37th birthday this past Sunday. I'm not new to flying drones. Have piloted several over the years without any issues. But my problems with the Typhoon-H started with the first day of flight.

First thing I did was spend the entire first night reading the enclosed user manual cover to cover and all included literature, to ensure I was familiar with the controls, startup, take-off/landing, etc.. I wasn't even worried about dealing with taking photo or video yet. Didn't even insert the sd card. Spent time examining the controller. Powered it on to familiarize myself with the interface. But never tried flying the drone. Too dark in the evening.

The next day (yesterday), I took it out into my cul-de-sac, where I've flown several drones. Plenty of clearance above and around the street to do basic navigation tests. No breeze. Clear conditions.
First thing I always do when taking off is let it hover and settle. Then press up on the right thumbstick to ensure that up is forward and there isn't some weird orientation issue. Then I check backwards for the same. Just a couple feet to make sure I'm oriented correctly before trying to pilot it. Always do that.

I kept the flight control on simple mode, speed down on turtle, all settings on default. Only wanted to take off, hover a little off the ground and get a feel for it. No problems. Flew to about 10', standard box pattern around the street, controls were perfect and fluid, had total control of the drone. Even a perfectly soft landing, right where it took off. Total flight was about 3 minutes. Landed, powered down the propellers. My son was out with me. I also got the recommended SkyView FPV Goggles along side it, so I connected it to the controller and let me son look through it as I took off and flew to a little above the tree line. Straight up and hovered so he could see and be amazed. Came straight back down and landed again no problems. Maybe 5 minutes flight time. Turned off props. Disconnected headset.
Took off and flew straight up again to about 10'. Let it hover. Press up on the thumbstick to check orientation. Drone moved towards me, instead of away from me, so I let go of the thumbstick to let it settle. Tried press down to see if it was just backwards, but it came towards me again. Let off the thumbstick and tried to descend to land. As soon as I hit down on the left thumbstick, the drone dipped towards me and started flying directly towards me and climbed to about 20' and started veering left. I tried to adjust altitude up and down, but it would not respond to any controls. right thumbstick had no bearing on the direction at all. So I let go of both to let it settle itself. But it never even tried. It was at a constant 45 degree angle and going too fast to stop and landed in the top of a bush across the cul-de-sac. No damage done. But I had no control. It was like it went rogue.

Freaked me out because I had zero control over it. Felt I needed a larger area to try again. So, I got the controller and the drone battery fully charged and the next day (tonight) we went up to the school. Huge open field, not a tree for 300 yards in any direction. No breeze. Perfect evening. Ready for a beautiful flight. Again, not worrying about taking video/photo. Just wanted to fly and get used to it.

Powered up the controller and then the drone. It synced connection, no issue, could see the camera just fine. I took off, went to about 10', checked orientation. Up went forward, down went backwards. So I spent about 5 minutes flying in a typical box pattern, fly up to around 30', let it hover and admire the view from the camera screen on the controller. Flew it back, landed it perfectly flat. Zero problems at all.
Powered up the props and lifted off to about 10'. Press up on the thumbstick and again it tilted towards me, so I let off the controls, but this time it didn't settle at all. It kept coming towards me. I tried descending with the left thumbstick and it again tilted to about a 45 degree angle and flew out of control. I didn't press anything on either stick or the screen, or any other buttons/switches this time since there was a ton of space for it to self correct. It sped up and was flying incredibly fast, about 15 feet off the ground. After about 50 feet, it wasn't changing directions or slowing down. I tried anything on the sticks to get it to respond. Wouldn't do anything at all. All I could do was watch in horror as it flew out of control. My wife and my son were by my side watching the whole thing unfold.
Crashed into a tree at max velocity. Broke the camera off completely. broke one of the prop arms and 3 of the propeller blades. Shards of plastic all over the ground. Again, I had zero control.

I don't know what happened. As I said, I've piloted several drones. wasn't doing anything fancy at all. Still getting used to it. With it in simple mode and the speed on turtle, it shouldn't have been even able to get going that fast, but with it tilting at that angle and not correcting, there was nothing I could do. The farthest I ever had it from me was maybe 75' in a straight line. Flat ground, no obstructions. Take off was about 30 feet from where I was standing.

I believe the person that got me this as a gift got the warranty when she bought it, but of course they are going to blame pilot error. Is there any way to view flight logs from the controller that I could use to show them what it did? This is the most advanced drone I've ever piloted so I don't even know if that type of feature is available or not.

But I'm at a loss and don't know what to do. I've had the drone for less than 48 hours and it is destroyed. Not from pilot error, but from something that has to be a malfunction or something. I don't know.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

had a lot to read there just refresh me did you say this drone was purchased brand new ?
 
I just read through this entire thread and I must say, I hate to see this happen and it has, all too often. I agree Smart Mode is fine and works as designed and I have used it when doing follow me and watch me flights with zero issues so I do agree that it has its uses.

The Problem with Smart Mode is two-fold in my estimation, maybe three. The GPS accuracy of the aircraft and controller are not good enough, or reliable enough to make directional decisions when in close proximity to one another. When I am within 15 feet from my H, the green arrow almost never points to my (controller) position accurately - not until I am more like 40 feet away. So if it were inside a 54 foot circle - less than 26 feet from a pilot - should we trust that it knows exactly where we are in order not to hit us?

Second is 'Headless Mode' They still haven't explained it in a way that properly WARNS unsuspecting or new pilots of it's limitations and how it restricts normal stick/flight operations. It is more like a band-aid for those who CAN'T operate a drone albeit; one that makes operations more difficult if this little tidbit is unknown which; kind of defeats the purpose in the first place, since it is not well explained and established in the manual or other literature or videos.

This brings up the real problem that I think is symbolic of any Yuneec Product - very poor documentation and explanation of the product and it's proper operation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would go so far as to say; >Using Dr. Evil Voice<

If I wanted to design a mechanism into a flying platform such as the Typhoon H by which; upon selecting a certain flight mode, it simultaneously - takes away partial directional control and adds in a type of random autonomous flight mode activated solely at the discretion of inaccurate GPS to fly at high speed in an as-yet untold direction, completely out of control of the pilot - this would be it. To further implement this mechanism, I would also conceal the actual facts or; not disclose them in a uniform way (that an operator could understand) and then - I would go one step farther by giving this mode a name that further disguises its potential for destruction.

SmartModeEvil.jpg



But on a serious note, I find it interesting that with the H Plus they have seemingly tamed Smart Mode but none the less I will continue to treat it as though I was flying my 480.
 
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My impression is that the Smart mode problems are caused by bad GPS accuracy of the RC controller. Reason are:
- The pilot is covering the GPS antenna in direction to the sky by body/head. And why not? He wants to see something on the screen.
- The pilot is standing on a place with bad GPS, near his home, near his car, whatever.
- The pilot wants to stay in the shadow, under trees or so...
- The GPS fix, also in good conditions on the RC controller is later than the fix at copter. It can be armed and started if RC controller is not ready yet. No problem at all in Angle mode, but in Smart mode?

Example from today in open area. Controller GPS fix comes 20sec later (Q500 4K/ST10+). Maybe my head was in the way :)
ScreenshotSchnellanalyse_1.png

I think, the save circle in combination with bad controller GPS is often the cause of crashes.

br HE
 
I know that the GPS module in the ST16 is the same as what’s in the H. It’s not the world’s greatest GPS.

The H+ seems to have a better GPS. Any idea if they use that in the ST16s as well?
 
I guess we should be vigilant about how many Sats are shown for the H *and* the controller before launch and during flight.
 
At the risk of wrath from others commenting here, I see nothing wrong with Smart mode so long as you understand how it functions. I've tested takeoffs and landings, flying straight while applying yaw, ascending and descending while moving sideways, trying to force it past the geofence and trying to fly it into the safe circle. It works as advertised. The only time Smart mode gets messed up is when you fly directly overhead because it has no reference to direction from the controller.

The only thing wrong with Smart mode has nothing to do with the mode itself. The problem resides in the people using it. They should not use anything they don’t yet understand, which is a practice consistent with almost everything. It’s simply amazing the number of people that manage to find this forum only after they crash a new drone instead of before they fly one for the first time. It’s so much easier to prevent errors than to try to repair damages after they are made.

Yuneec’s documentation is well know for being incomplete and poorly translated, but a great many people have expended a lot of effort in making instructional videos and posting them on YouTube for anyone so interested to review. They range in scope from the most basic description of the system and user requirements (similar videos were made by Yuneec and placed on the SD card and YouTube) to use of the more advanced features. There’s also the user generated PDF manual found at the top of the Typhoon H page in this, and other Typhoon H forums.

I’m not saying the OP did anything wrong but when using Smart mode it can be easy to get “caught up in the moment”, especially if you don’t understand how it works, and force the system to fly away from you with a perceived lack of control. I’ve done it even after many years of experience by forgetting what mode it was in and walking up on the aircraft in a foliage confined location. The faster I moved towards it the faster it tried to get away. It only requires a few seconds in tight spaces for the aircraft to run into something. To best describe how that incident occurred would be to say Smart mode functioned precisely as designed but the user, me, wasn’t acting smart at the time.

As was mentioned by someone else, the odds of a new user crashing a new aircraft are pretty high and those odds increase exponentially if the new user does not have a fairly good comprehension of system features and pre flight requirements.

One thing is reasonable to assume, if the telemetry fails to note system faults the failure likely wasn’t caused by the system and we have to more fully explore what we did or didn’t do that might have been causal.

Question, what are those two objects sitting on square pads to the left of the tree in the photo from post 72?
 
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New pilots don’t always know enough to search out all the resources available. Consumer drones are sold with the notion of just buy it and fly it. Yuneec isn’t alone in this.

Many have received the H as a gift so they didn’t do research ahead of time on the purchase. Some simply bought because the H was on sale at a low price.

Yuneec is culpable because of their horrible documentation.

Many new H pilots do research before flying and they are to be commended. The H has a large number of things to know and consider and the path to competency is one step at a time.

There are many new pilots who are just interested in how fast and far will it go. Luckily they are becoming fewer and farther apart.

Those who persevere see the H as a camera platform for video and stills.

Those new pilots who make their way through all the challenges are to be commended.
 
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Perhaps rewarded might be more applicable than commended. For those that manage to get through their first of any new drone products without crashing or experiencing other extreme difficulties is quite a feat, especially when they have to deal with poorly written and incomplete system documentation. Just think of the amount of time, money, customer service resources, and aggravation that could be saved and eliminated by taking the time to think through and write a comprehensive user manual before a product release. Yuneec would retain many thousands of $$ from product sales they have been throwing away through lack of documentation.
 
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aggravation that could be saved and eliminated by taking the time to think through and write a comprehensive user manual before a product release. Yuneec would retain many thousands of $$ from product sales they have been throwing away through lack of documentation.

Yes I support this of course, I studied a lot even before deciding to buy an H instead of another camera-drone, but that is also because of my curious nature and verrry small wallet.
Being a retailer for specialized hardware I also know that many people act otherwise, some because of the lack of interest in detail or just being lazy and others because they are used to buying goods that immediately do exactly what they want (does that exist...? Ahyeh, when buying a pencil)...
If they see a voluminous manual they start to look for a quick-start guide to asap go and use (and maybe ruin) their goodie.

I do not at all mean OP with this, he seems to have studied before flying, but he had only the famous Yuneec manual and some video's to work with.
 
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Open a manual for either H as if you were brand new to yuneec.
The problem isn’t the smart mode itself, it isn’t explained as well as it should be seeing the problems it causes if used incorrectly
 
After reading through this thread, it is indeed a bit upsetting to me that the bird crashed so soon after the pilot first flew it. Detail must be paid attention to when flying the H, however Yuneec does not elude to that.

As many have said, Yuneec has poor documentation- I agree.. Myself, someone who's first drone was the H, I did A TON of research on this forum, and all over the net before my H arrived. Once it arrived, I read the "new" manual on here beginning to end, and immersed myself in the "help" forum so I could self troubleshoot. It was q great help!

After a few days, I did all of my calibrations and put it in there air for a flawless couple flights. I then taught myself how to read telemetry so I could become familiar and just learn more in general. Do not mistake this for me tooting my own horn- it's simply a level of detail that is optional, but beneficial with these machines. We could do plenty of damage with our birds, so as our responsibility, we need to know what we're getting into.

Yuneec lacks documentation and awareness, which is incredibly ignorant on their part, but at my core, using all of the automated features on the H, like smart mode and Ob avoidance is adding a bit of risk. Automation often leads to less attention to detail, resulting in error.

With all of my rambling, for new H users, i would caution you to do as much reading ahead of time as possible. It will save time and money in the long run, and it's just safer in general.
 
Update!

I was able to send them 2 videos of the drone flight. 1 showing the perfect control and wide-open field I was flying in, from take-off to landing. And 1 showing the tree at the other end of the field where it went rogue and crashed into.

I also provided them with the picture you guys made of the flight pattern.

They concluded that I was, in fact, correct and not making things up. They originally said I had flown it over 100 feet away from and landed, then took off backwards facing and flew it into a tree. Based on their "DATA". But then I showed them the video of how I never flew it farther than 40 feet away from me, landed in the same spot I took off from and never rotated it at all.

So, they are honoring the warranty. Dropped it off at UPS today.

They are saying it could be a faulty GPS chip on-board causing it to misread it's location and coordinates properly. So they are going to repair the drone and replace the GPS chip.

Thank you all so much for the help in getting this resolved.

And to anyone that assumed I'm just a new pilot, didn't do enough research and was to blame for the crash....you are incorrect. I know how to fly a drone. Have never crashed one before. Maybe a harder than normal landing, but never crashed one. I always read all I can, watch videos and other reviews on and such before even turning a drone on. The included documentation and data cards with the Typhoon-H are not adequate enough info to fly properly. But I was able to successfully pilot the drone, make turns, rotate the camera for a beautiful panorama view of the area, adjust directions, etc.. and land right I where I took off. It was only when the drone malfunctioned, did it crash.
 
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Great to learn Yuneec is taking care of it. For the record, you’re not the first to experience an issue with a GPS or compass module. Not by a long shot. Those are a known issue that require replacement or re-location to correct. Re-location is not something new owners should do on new units still under warranty.
 
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Sounds like mine from three years ago...I think they got a better module in the Plus...like Pat said, this has been ongoing and they adopted a case at a time passive recall strategy. The activity here is the counter weight to their attempts at claim denial. Good news for all. In the end, their own design features backed up your claim. The lesson here is keep those videos and always understand what really happens with all the data.
 
Update!

I was able to send them 2 videos of the drone flight. 1 showing the perfect control and wide-open field I was flying in, from take-off to landing. And 1 showing the tree at the other end of the field where it went rogue and crashed into.

I also provided them with the picture you guys made of the flight pattern.

They concluded that I was, in fact, correct and not making things up. They originally said I had flown it over 100 feet away from and landed, then took off backwards facing and flew it into a tree. Based on their "DATA". But then I showed them the video of how I never flew it farther than 40 feet away from me, landed in the same spot I took off from and never rotated it at all.

So, they are honoring the warranty. Dropped it off at UPS today.

They are saying it could be a faulty GPS chip on-board causing it to misread it's location and coordinates properly. So they are going to repair the drone and replace the GPS chip.

Thank you all so much for the help in getting this resolved.

And to anyone that assumed I'm just a new pilot, didn't do enough research and was to blame for the crash....you are incorrect. I know how to fly a drone. Have never crashed one before. Maybe a harder than normal landing, but never crashed one. I always read all I can, watch videos and other reviews on and such before even turning a drone on. The included documentation and data cards with the Typhoon-H are not adequate enough info to fly properly. But I was able to successfully pilot the drone, make turns, rotate the camera for a beautiful panorama view of the area, adjust directions, etc.. and land right I where I took off. It was only when the drone malfunctioned, did it crash.
Did they change their view about us on this forum? Are we still the 'know nothing' idiots that they claimed we were a few days ago?
 
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That blows me away considering the number of times people in this forum have found solutions for problems the CS techs didn’t have answers for. Better is the fact we have a better grasp of what’s contained in the telemetry than they do. We can even user manuals that cover the H system in extensive detail where they can’t. I’ve often thought many in their CS department are more like parts swappers than diagnostic technicians. A couple of them seem to have a pretty good grasp of the hardware functionality but not the telemetry. If you really want to confuse them just ask diagnostic questions about the 920. When one of those comes in for repairs it’s highly likely the owner will get a replacement sent back instead of the original unit.
 

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