H tipping in air and on landing

[SeekInShadows]

Hello all. I'm new here and new to the Typhoon H. I've had her all of 3 days.

I updated the firmware tonight because I noticed all versions were older. I updated because the H was acting kind of wonky last night, slow to respond, etc.

I take it out after the update, and fly it about 6 feet because I'm super paranoid. It was acting okay so I took it up about 50 feet. It was jerking around a bit then it really tipped to the right side and was drifting on its own more than it should. I immediately go to land, it came down slower than it should, landing gear touched down and then it flipped over to the right. I still had my hand on the down throttle.

Any thoughts?

I've read on here about it tipping at landing but this did it in flight as well.

Disclaimer I am new to drones in general but have flown the little toy models. However I've had 3 days of good flying (minus last night when it got wonky) so I don't believe it's something I did but of course, there's always a chance.

Also forgot to add the I keep getting warnings that the GPS connection has been lost and OSB is unavailable.

 

[PatR]

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to read you are having problems, and unfortunately a lot more information is needed before anyone can make good guesses for resolution. I'd like to ask some questions that might help a little. Some of the questions will be directing you towards things to check before your next flight.

Where OBS is concerned I can't be of much help. I've only messed with it twice and both times were over a year ago. Some things I remember; the H has to be in a specific flight mode, it has to be above a certain height. If the OBS switch is in the "On" position and those conditions have not been met you will get an "Unavailable" message. The ST-16 also needs to be placed in "Advanced Mode" in System Settings. I think the landing gear has to be raised for OBS to function as well.

When you updated the firmware, do you recall if the ST-16 recognized the Flightmode software when you re-bound the systems?

Did you only see one firmware version displayed for the ST-16 or did you see two Firmware versions displayed in System Settings?

Did you re-bind?

Did you correctly perform all the system calibrations after re-binding? Accelerometers, compass, gimbal?

What flight mode were you using?

Was the landing area level or sloped?

How much wind was present?

Was the H landed vertically or was is brought to the ground at a moving angle?

D you recall what position the slider on the right side of the ST-16 was in? Up is fast, down is slow. If the slider was down the H would have responded sluggishly.

Might you have been applying just a little side pressure to the left stick upon landing?

Might you have been applying a little side or fore/aft pressure on the right stick upon landing?

If you failed to perform the accelerometer and compass calibrations, or performed them incorrectly, you may experience a lot of drift. If you moved the H after power on before the system had completed self checks you can expect a lot of drift. After power up never move the H until all the system self checks have been completed. Essentially, wait for the system to advise you it is ready with the "Welcome Pilot" message at the top of the ST-16 screen. Then you can move it if needed. Better to have everything done and ready to go at the desired launch location before power up though.

This about the questions and get back to us and we should be able to move forward more.

 

[lemontea]

Hello all. I'm new here and new to the Typhoon H. I've had her all of 3 days.

I updated the firmware tonight because I noticed all versions were older. I updated because the H was acting kind of wonky last night, slow to respond, etc.

I take it out after the update, and fly it about 6 feet because I'm super paranoid. It was acting okay so I took it up about 50 feet. It was jerking around a bit then it really tipped to the right side and was drifting on its own more than it should. I immediately go to land, it came down slower than it should, landing gear touched down and then it flipped over to the right. I still had my hand on the down throttle.

Any thoughts?

I've read on here about it tipping at landing but this did it in flight as well.

Disclaimer I am new to drones in general but have flown the little toy models. However I've had 3 days of good flying (minus last night when it got wonky) so I don't believe it's something I did but of course, there's always a chance.

Also forgot to add the I keep getting warnings that the GPS connection has been lost and OSB is unavailable.

With regards to the GPS warnings: I had the same during the first flights.
On this forum it was mentioned that the H needs about 15 minutes to download the GPS almanac, this applies when you travel more than 50 miles between flights or if you have not flown for several days.

I have never had any gps warnings since.

Cheers,
Rob

 

[SeekInShadows]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for responding.

I'm uncertain about the ST-16 recognizing flightmode when I bound it with the drone. I don't recall anything specific coming up.

I installed my firmware via micro SD so there was only one firmware version. I chose update and it all automatically updated.

I did re-bind and calibrate.

I was in smart mode just to make sure all was well after the update.

The Rate Slider was on "rabbit".

Landing was flat, it was on the street in front of my house. And the H landed vertically with no tilt (until it flipped that is)

There was almost no wind.

I don't believe I was pushing any other button except the down throttle.

I've tried to upload my telemetry file but for some reason, it won't let me select the file. Here is a link to a video of it. The tip happens at about 1:15. The video uploading badly to YouTube, keeps saying it doesn't recognize the file format, but you can see the tip.

Thanks!

 

[PatR]

Seek,

I'd like to cover just a couple things at a time if you're good with that.

I'm going to reference the following from the perspective of uploads via SD card. I don't do the OTA stuff. Personally, I don't trust firmware that is auto loaded. There are two firmware files in every system. One is uploaded through the camera and handles what they call Flightmode, which is in fact the auto pilot firmware. It also covers the camera code. The second firmware file is uploaded through the ST-16. Pardon me for mentioning calibrations again. I'm doing so just in case only one part of the system was done instead of both. Whenever a firmware update is performed both systems need to be re-calibrated. If you updated firmware and did not re-calibrate everything some level of instability is highly possible. Good to learn your update loaded as it should. Those that follow directions usually don't have upload issues so kudos to you.

Can you turn on both the aircraft and the ST-16, let them completely link, and obtain both firmware version numbers? Remove the lock from the gimbal while doing this, of course. If you updated but one file it's possible you may now have two different firmware versions trying to communicate between the -16 and the aircraft. That probably would not be a good thing, so we want to check the file versions. If you have problems obtaining the autopilot version let me know. It will be the one on the left side in the System Settings menu.

You'll find, if you haven't already, the ST-16 is pretty sensitive around center stick. It requires very little pressure to cause stick displacement which in turn causes a reaction at the H. If you aren't used to the -16 yet it's very easy to be applying an active control input and not realize it. When landing the H will try to react to any control input, even after the gear has made contact with the ground. So if your are unwittingly applying any amount of roll, pitch, or yaw the H will try to respond as it is being told to do. Many roll overs happen that way. With practice comes precision.

Looking forward to your reply.

 

[MM1992]

With regards to the GPS warnings: I had the same during the first flights.
On this forum it was mentioned that the H needs about 15 minutes to download the GPS almanac, this applies when you travel more than 50 miles between flights or if you have not flown for several days.

I have never had any gps warnings since.

Cheers,
Rob

Does this mean if I'm traveling more than 50 miles between flights I have to sit with the H on for 15 minutes for it to get the GPS squared away, or the ST-16 or both? I've had GPS issues when traveling, but letting it sit for 2 minutes to connect to ~18 sats, and then power cycling the H seems to clear it for me.

 

[Photo]

Does this mean if I'm traveling more than 50 miles between flights I have to sit with the H on for 15 minutes for it to get the GPS squared away, or the ST-16 or both? I've had GPS issues when traveling, but letting it sit for 2 minutes to connect to ~18 sats, and then power cycling the H seems to clear it for me.

YES! If you wanna have a stable, safe flight you have to wait approx 13-15minutes if you are more than 50miles away or haven't been flying for a week - just to update the GPS alamanack.
Read about TTFF cold-warm and hot GPS start. Both ST16 and H should be switched on. Usually I use a "start up battery" for that purpose. Time to first fix - Wikipedia

 

[MM1992]

YES! If you wanna have a stable, safe flight you have to wait approx 13-15minutes if you are more than 50miles away or haven't been flying for a week - just to update the GPS alamanack.
Read about TTFF cold-warm and hot GPS start. Both ST16 and H should be switched on. Usually I use a "start up battery" for that purpose. Time to first fix - Wikipedia

Perfect, this is good to know. And then on subsequent flights that same day, whether swapping batteries or power cycling the H, I can assume it'd be in the warm mode and after ~30 seconds (usually the time I spend waiting for the camera to connect and setting the manual exposure) its good to go?

 

[Photo]

Perfect, this is good to know. And then on subsequent flights that same day, whether swapping batteries or power cycling the H, I can assume it'd be in the warm mode and after ~30 seconds (usually the time I spend waiting for the camera to connect and setting the manual exposure) its good to go?

Well.. wait 2-3 minutes to be on the safe side!

 

[lemontea]

Correct.

Side note:
The 15 or so minutes with both the H and transmitter require very little power from the batteries.

Rob

 

[PatR]

Does this mean if I'm traveling more than 50 miles between flights I have to sit with the H on for 15 minutes for it to get the GPS squared away, or the ST-16 or both? I

Not a bad idea to give things a little more time when traveling to new places, unless that next flight is worth throwing away your H being in a hurry.

 

[Photo]

Not a bad idea to give thongs a little more time when traveling to new places, unless that next flight is worth throwing away your H being in a hurry.

As said before I use a spare battery for "GPS almanack time" when its about 12-13 minutes wait and I also switch off the prop LED's to save a few mA in this battery.

 

[PatR]

I really stepped in it when I let "thongs" get by without catching it before posting

 

[liqrome]

I used to get those gps lost and obs messages sporadically too.. but I realized, I only get them in the city, not out in a nature park or wide open areas. My guess, is something that I don't see or aware of is causing interference.

I had a minor drifting issue once and it was fixed by re-calibrating acceleromter, on a level table in my house.

 

[PatR]

Cities and communities are thick with WiFi signals, and WiFi can interfere with WiFi. I suspect WiFi saturation is a source of a lot of problems for people flying in high population density areas. Interestingly, some of the latest internet routers make use of frequencies normally used for military radar, on a temporary basis, to minimize WiFi interference issues. They terminate use of those frequencies if they "sense" a nearby military product using it.

 

[SeekInShadows]

Come to find out my ST16 was on the fritz. Started acting crazy and then wouldn't even come on. I returned the whole thing and exchanged it for a new one. Only had it less than a week.

 

[PatR]

But you could exchange it without a big argument, yes?

 

[SeekInShadows]

I was able to, yes. I bought it from Best Buy and they are pretty good with such things. However, I'm frustrating because after the update and 2 rounds of calibrations. I'm starting to have similar problems. I'm really not understanding. Prior to update, it flew fine. Tomorrow I am literally going out in the middle of nowhere so there is zero interference with anything to do my calibrations. We'll see then.

 

[PatR]

Not calling you out in any way but I see this often, with people buying an H and immediately changing firmware only to experience problems afterwards. I sincerely wish people would fly them as they received them to develop an understanding of the systems before attempting to change things.

Moving from all that, I can think of few that had issues with a firmware update that didn't cause those issues by missing important steps or doing things out of sequence. I've done it myself early in H ownership by not knowing some firmware updates required the 16 be placed in Team mode to recognize the autopilot firmware. I chased my tail with that for a couple days. Yuneec does not hold their customers hostage with mandatory firmware upgrades. They are suggestions and the customer has the option of installing them., or not.

Honestly, I have not experienced bad firmware but I have encountered really bad process instructions which made upload errors almost a sure thing. Doing the firmware again, with help if needed, will likely cure whatever ails your H. There are some very helpful videos linked in the sticky pages.

If one of the problems is instability, three things come to mind; accelerometer calibration, which is super easy, compass calibration, which many don't complete but think they did, and moving the H after power up before system self checks are complete. The last one is a biggie, don't move it after power up until the link between the H and 16 is complete.

 

[Rubik]

I was able to, yes. I bought it from Best Buy and they are pretty good with such things. However, I'm frustrating because after the update and 2 rounds of calibrations. I'm starting to have similar problems. I'm really not understanding. Prior to update, it flew fine. Tomorrow I am literally going out in the middle of nowhere so there is zero interference with anything to do my calibrations. We'll see then.

Good plan! You don't know what's buried in your street.