H just flew away ?

[wrench567]

Sad day.
Charged up the 3 flight batteries and ST16. Found a nice little inlet to fly over. First battery and flying great. Voltage read 14.8 so I decided to bring it back. All of a sudden got the GPS warning fly in manual mode. It was already in angle mode. Then got a loss of RF warning and the H took off towards the residential area until I lost sight of it. No control input from me did anything. Right before I lost sight of it the low battery land immediately came on the screen in red. I still had no control.
The loss of GPS happened several times before but not in the past dozen or so flights. I've always been able to control it.
I drove around the neighborhood and walked around a bit. Then went to the police station and reported it lost. I'm heart broken. Hobby dollars are in short supply to replace it. Telemetry shows nothing after GPS loss.
That's it for me for awhile. Thanks for your help and advice I have received these past few months. I have some thinking to do.
Pete.

 

[DoomMeister]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your TH.

Just so you know, manual mode means flying without GPS assistance. You have to compensate for the wind using the controls. Get the Way to Fix Drones document from the General Discussions forum and upload your telemetry. It may give us a clue as to where it went down.

 

[WTFDproject]

Sad day.
Telemetry shows nothing after GPS loss.

Sorry to hear about the loss of your TH.
.... and upload your telemetry. It may give us a clue as to where it went down.

Sad day indeed. If there is no telemetry, it's a long shot. But as @DoomMeister suggested, it is still worth the effort to at least review the flight data.

 

[wrench567]

Thanks guys.
I've been reviewing the data but what is strange is no location and even with the loss of RF signal I still had battery voltage, GPS ready, and even got the low battery land immediately. I took a walk through the neighborhood and talked with some residents but no luck. It's probably in a tree hopefully. I don't need it to come crashing down on the hood of someone's Rolls Royce or Bentley. That would be icing on the cake. I kind of wish it would have landed in the ocean. Instead it flew to the worse possible location. Trying to get control of it, I didn't think to turn on the camera. That way I could have possibly got a visual of where it was going.
Had it in angle mode with OBA switch off. No need to avoid obstacles over water.

I need a faster way to discharge the other two batteries. The four button charger is taking forever.
Pete.

 

[DoomMeister]

Thanks guys.
I've been reviewing the data but what is strange is no location and even with the loss of RF signal I still had battery voltage, GPS ready, and even got the low battery land immediately. I took a walk through the neighborhood and talked with some residents but no luck. It's probably in a tree hopefully. I don't need it to come crashing down on the hood of someone's Rolls Royce or Bentley. That would be icing on the cake. I kind of wish it would have landed in the ocean. Instead it flew to the worse possible location. Trying to get control of it, I didn't think to turn on the camera. That way I could have possibly got a visual of where it was going.
Had it in angle mode with OBA switch off. No need to avoid obstacles over water.

I need a faster way to discharge the other two batteries. The four button charger is taking forever.
Pete.

Most chargers max out at 10 Watts discharge. For a battery that is at 16.8V at full charge that equates to about 0.6A. On average the battery charges at 5.4A and takes about an hour to charge, so discharging will take about 8 to 9 hours.

 

[Steve Carr]

@wrench567 can you upload the telemetry here?

 

[wrench567]

Here it is Steve. According to the longitude/latitude it was still over the water. I watched it fly over the houses. There is little change from gps true to false. I copied long/lat to Google maps all the same area. Hopefully you can see something I'm missing.
Thank you.
Pete.

 

[James (Randy) Smith]

Was it flying in a straight line? if so go to google earth and pull up a map of the area and save to print. use this to pinpoint where you were standing and the houses it was flying over and draw yourself a straight line then drive around the streets looking at the houses that match your line and keep looking and knocking on doors asking them if they have seen one in their yard/trees and if they mind if you look. worst case put a reward up for it. dont just give up. remember that the map is to show you the houses it may of went over. since streets never are in straight lines you will need it when going around blocks.

 

[wrench567]

Ya. I spent hours walking and talking. It wasn't in a straight line. Very erratic movements and changing altitude. It was coming straight to me then all of a sudden stopped about 200 feet from me and in a split second shot right. ST 16 vibrating the messages and zero control to my inputs. The altitude differences were dramatic and zig zag was violent. One thing I noticed was the landing gear lowered without me hitting the toggle switch and behind the warning messages there were props coming and going.
My daughter posted a lost drone message on Facebook. And I'm going to follow up with the PD.
Thunder storms this morning may have dislodged it. Maybe today I will hear something.
Pete.

 

[DoomMeister]

In order for us to properly evaluate your telemetry we need the telemetry, remote, and remoteGPS files for the flight. If they are opened with any type of spreadsheet or other program for .csv files it renders them unreadable in the program we use. Please follow the instructions provided in the Way to Fix Drones document for retrieving the flightlogs from the Typhoon H and up load here.

I can tell you that the first part of the flight you were using Smart Follow Me mode, then switched to Angle mode later in the flight.

 

[wrench567]

It was the very first time I tried smart mode and follow me but I didn't really like it. I'm more a manual flyer. Hope this works for you.

Pete

 

[WTFDproject]

Voltage bottomed out at 13.8, and then began to recover rapidly. Contrary to other indications in the flight log, this implies the drone landed. I would at least go look in these trees, and maybe ask if anybody saw it. The data is not conclusive that this is where it really stopped. Given the final recorded height of 125 feet, and the continuing GPS movement after the point the battery began to recover, this could best be described as "inconclusive". This is just something that popped up quickly in the review process.

 

[wrench567]

Unbelievable. It's in a tree about 35 feet. My 5 year old grandson spotted it. It looks to be intact. I don't know how to retrieve it. The owner of the property was not home and I didn't want to trudge through fifteen feet of thick brush and brier patch to reach the tree.
Thank God it didn't cause any damage. And thank you for the location. Quite a bit farther than I thought it was.
Pete.

 

[wrench567]

Here's a picture from the road.

 

[DoomMeister]

Glad you located it with the help of @WTFDproject. An arborist may be able to help retrieve it from its perch.

 

[WTFDproject]

My 5 year old grandson spotted it.

That boy got a climbing gear? Drones are expensive to replace. You can make a replacement human being out of stuff you have laying around the house.

Seriously though, glad you found it, and I hope you can retrieve it. (Safely, and still have the Grandson to share it with.)

 

[wrench567]

Thank you for the telemetry picks. I'm going to try again tomorrow to talk with the homeowner. It is a private road. And I don't want to be trespassing. Maybe Elsa will get it down Friday or Saturday when it comes. Tonight's storm might bring it down or at least closer to the ground.
After recovery, what do I do with it? Part it out, rebuild with new electronics? I certainly will not trust the flight controller or GPS unit. I'll have to see how damaged it really is.
Thank you again for the help.
Pete.

 

[WTFDproject]

Thank you for the telemetry picks. I'm going to try again tomorrow to talk with the homeowner. It is a private road. And I don't want to be trespassing. Maybe Elsa will get it down Friday or Saturday when it comes. Tonight's storm might bring it down or at least closer to the ground.
After recovery, what do I do with it? Part it out, rebuild with new electronics? I certainly will not trust the flight controller or GPS unit. I'll have to see how damaged it really is.
Thank you again for the help.
Pete.

Don't be too hasty to judge it. I can't do a thorough review tonight, but a quick look implies the drone is fine. It was receiving signals all through the flight, it was responding to the signals, and the drone GPS was recording. I currently suspect it is a controller issue, but it will take a lot more study and the help of better reviewers to make a solid statement.

 

[Chris Koch]

I am very happy for you, its a blessing that you have found it, with help of this forum all in all great job

 

[wrench567]

Don't be too hasty to judge it. I can't do a thorough review tonight, but a quick look implies the drone is fine. It was receiving signals all through the flight, it was responding to the signals, and the drone GPS was recording. I currently suspect it is a controller issue, but it will take a lot more study and the help of better reviewers to make a solid statement.

I want to thank you again. I'm so relieved that there was no property damage or someone hurt.
When you say controller issue, do you mean ST16? That would be eye opening. Giving the fact it was receiving GPS warning and RF signal loss warning. Hardware monitor shows everything thing working properly but I don't know about output to the receiver.
More believable controller issue as in the person holding the ST16. I honestly did panic and could have made things worse. But I can say that it did stop by itself when the right stick was forward. Then it shot full speed to my right it's left. I tried to give it elevation and it seemed to work for a second but eventually went down behind the houses on the hill and that's where I lost sight of it. Like my helicopters, I try to give it elevation and most times it helps and gives you room to recover. That didn't work this time.
Thank you again. You don't know how much more at ease I am knowing no one got hurt.
Pete.