H520 my views so Far. Even though I still love it.

[RGilmore]

OK, so. The 520. Lets start off by me repeating myself one more time for anyone who doesn't know. I bought the 520 MYSELF. with my own money I worked hard to bloody earn. So for anyone thinking I'm here on Yuneec's behalf trying to play up the H520, your sorely mistaken. Ok. Now thats settled.
The 520. Ok.

You all know I'm a Yuneec fan and want to see them do good. Like. REALLY REALLY want to see them do good. So. Hopefully over the weekend now that I'm home. Hopefully I will get a chance to play with it some more and come back with a more substantial report. However. Heres my views on it for now.

It's a good machine, Great infact..... BUT. missing loads, It's very stable and I can fly it with ease. However

1= Camera Firmware sucks. The lens distortion has not been corrected in the software enough to match say that of a Phantom 4 pro but can be sorted in post should you wish to add distortion removal and key stone correction. The camera is also missing 1/50th & 1/100th shutter speeds for us who want to record in 25/50 fps and get the motion blur we want.

2= (and this relates to some other features) the camera (E90)'is not low enough or far enough forward to prevent prop shots when the camera is facing forward, I mean. When you give full forward command the props come into shot, same when stopping etc etc. The props become visible, if a better camera firmware for lens distortion removal was there it might help prevent this somewhat. But its related to below.

3 = the flight controller in GPS mode is limited to 30 mph. Similar to the H and my guess is this is to prevent prop shots, but you might then also say. Sure it will go faster in Atti mode. True. But not so much. The Angle of pitch and roll in the Flight controller is set to a max tilt range of 33° and is not adjustable, I mean I've tried to adjust it. And the new Settings will nit write to the FC. We have been locked out and cannot adjust ANY of the flight controller Parameters. Which really REALLY REALLY SUCKS. One of the main reasons I bought this was due to the fact that it had a PiX4 flight controller and I was advised that we could make adjustments as to how we "The operator" would like this Machine to fly and make certain adjustments. This is not the case.

4 = All Channel settings in the ST16S are gone, we cannot adjust Rates or Expo on ANY channel for precise setup and flight control over the 520 and Camera Tilt and Pan etc etc. This is a major drawback.

5= NO team mode, as of right now. There is no way to bind another ST16 or ST16S to take control over the camera for 2 man op. This sucks. BIG TIME.

6 = The BIG ONE. BATTERY LEVEL WARNING AND CONTROL. Ok. This has me sweating. Its the same as the 480 and one of my BIGGEST PET HATES ON BOTH MACHINES. at 27% Battery level the 520 will self Land wherever it is. If its above a crowd, buildings, roads etc etc. It doesn't matter. If it hits 27% its coming down. This Again relates to control over adjustments and fine tuning of the flight controller that WE DO NOT HAVE!!!! We NEED TO BE ABLE TO ADJUST THE FLIGHT CONTROL CHARACTERISTICS. You might say. Well. Just be be back and land when it hits say 30% which sounds fair enough in Theory. In practice. This is not the case, say for instance. Your flying and your 500 mtrs away above some large trees or buildings or whatever or worse. OVER the sea... Your at 50% you turn around and come back. You hit a 20mph Head wind. The 520 starts to work putting Load on the battery, the voltage drops. You 200 mtrs away from home. You Hit 27% (due to load) the 520 is coming down. And YOU CANNOT CANCEL IT!!!!! Really. This is not A JOKE And we need more control or a means to adjust the battery level for warnings and critical alarms and what actually happens and the means to be able to cancel and take over manual flight control of the 520.

7 = I forgot to mention. The ST16S or E90 still has no Histogram for exposure control.

Look. The Above mentioned are just some of the flaws I have found with the 520 that me and a few others are really annoyed about. I still really like this Machine and as it is Purely as a mapping machine. Its perfect. It flies Surveys and missions with ease, it takes very sharp highly detailed images and is very good for this.

OH one more thing. Popped into my head. The ST16S is in MODE 2 and not yet changeable. This is a big NO NO for Mode 1, 3 & 4 fliers. We cannot expect these users to have to get the soldering Iron out to a new ST16S to modify the controls, I think. And some will agree that most of the above mentioned points are NOT acceptable.

This is my Take so far, maybe things will change over time with firmware updates etc etc. Only time will tell, Hopefully I will get a chance to fly more over the weekend and come back with some more info.

However. Me being me, and all the above. I still love this Machine, Its great, full of potential and I don't regret buying it. I just hope Yuneec gives its "Professional Commercial user" a more professional user choice and control over the system.

Right, the wife has made French Toast. Im away. Catch you later.

 

[PatR]

Nice to see someone being candid.

 

[djkelly57]

This may be the best review I have ever seen on any sUAS. It lets you know what to expect. If you are trying to make a decision on one of these, you now have the real scoop. Congrats to RGilmore, I wish more people were that straight forward.

 

[arruntus]

I agree with everything. I seem to remember that some option has disappeared in the Failsafes that before, in the previous version, it was and in the current version is not.

The control of the parameters, despite having reviewed almost all of them, is the key to really give power to the aircraft. It's clear that if you don't know what you're doing, it's better not to touch and it's also true that the default values that have these parameters are the safest but allowing advanced users to modify them, under their responsibility, gives the system a huge power.

As has already been said on other occasions, showing and saying what we don't like makes Yuneec grow, constructive criticism is what makes the whole system evolve. I have something still pending but the fact that I can't prove it is killing me.

Good Appreciations Richard

 

[Edward Randolph]

I agree with everything. I seem to remember that some option has disappeared in the Failsafes that before, in the previous version, it was and in the current version is not.

The control of the parameters, despite having reviewed almost all of them, is the key to really give power to the aircraft. It's clear that if you don't know what you're doing, it's better not to touch and it's also true that the default values that have these parameters are the safest but allowing advanced users to modify them, under their responsibility, gives the system a huge power.

As has already been said on other occasions, showing and saying what we don't like makes Yuneec grow, constructive criticism is what makes the whole system evolve. I have something still pending but the fact that I can't prove it is killing me.

Good Appreciations Richard

Only having taken the 520 up twice to practice with it, I haven't discovered these problems yet. Now I get to be disappointed even before I find these flaws. Thanks guys. :-(
Like a pessimist, I have been landing at 40%.
My cons:
Loooonnng controller battery charge time over USB. I read that the battery comes out so (l'll check tomorrow) maybe hooking it direct to a charger will solve that.
I have had a couple of glitches of camera image not showing on the controller and the controller not finding the micro SD card. Rebooting the 520 has solved that so far and other wise I don't know what is causing it.
My biggest gripe so far is that the SD card does not go in the slot easy. It frequently misses where it is supposed to go and tries to go down beside the actual connection slot. Why there is any slop there at all is beyond me. Any other micro or full SD card using gear I have has a very positive, no questions
feed slot.

I have been practicing manual orbiting a point of interest. Am I the only videographer that uses that ALL of the time?
If DataPilot is an app on Android, give us another app with the old Typhoon H functions. I use those...or I would if I had them.
Randolph

 

[claudius62]

Hello RGilmore
I fully agree with point 6. But Yuneec should give us exact battery values.
I just re-test this morning and the value given in the ST16s is wrong.
First parameter (test on 3 LiHv testers)
Battery 86% and 16.28v given by the testers and ST16s gives 67% battery and 16.09v
ST16s gives 19% less
Second parameter
Battery 79% and 16.07v given by the testers and ST16s gives 60% and 15.88v
ST16s still gives 19% less

Take the test yourself.

Balance: 19% less battery display so when 30% force landing is done, the battery is actually 49% load. This is a good margin of safety that Yuneec takes but it greatly reduces flight time and greatly misleads us on the capacity of the battery.

When 40%, we say, it's time to go back, we still have 59% battery and we could still fly.

There is no way to correct these values in the ST16s then
Yunnec must absolutely readjust these values to give us reliable indications.

 

[arruntus]

Only having taken the 520 up twice to practice with it, I haven't discovered these problems yet. Now I get to be disappointed even before I find these flaws. Thanks guys. :-(
Like a pessimist, I have been landing at 40%.
My cons:
Loooonnng controller battery charge time over USB. I read that the battery comes out so (l'll check tomorrow) maybe hooking it direct to a charger will solve that.
I have had a couple of glitches of camera image not showing on the controller and the controller not finding the micro SD card. Rebooting the 520 has solved that so far and other wise I don't know what is causing it.
My biggest gripe so far is that the SD card does not go in the slot easy. It frequently misses where it is supposed to go and tries to go down beside the actual connection slot. Why there is any slop there at all is beyond me. Any other micro or full SD card using gear I have has a very positive, no questions
feed slot.

I have been practicing manual orbiting a point of interest. Am I the only videographer that uses that ALL of the time?
If DataPilot is an app on Android, give us another app with the old Typhoon H functions. I use those...or I would if I had them.
Randolph

Don't be disappointed, mate. As in everything, it is a process of training and improvement. Getting these things to Yuneec is how the system is improved.

I load the ST16S with a 2A mobile charger and the charging time is reduced.

The POI feature has been commented that it will be available in a fat update they are preparing. I think we all think it's necessary to shoot videos. Then circular missions to make 3D surveys of structures is also very necessary. We hope to have both functions soon.

It costs a little to insert and remove the microSD card. But with something so small I think it's normal, the most important thing is that we don't get lost in flight. What I don't like is the rubber cap that's a little........ with a small piece of tape keep it in place.

 

[arruntus]

Hello RGilmore
I fully agree with point 6. But Yuneec should give us exact battery values.
I just re-test this morning and the value given in the ST16s is wrong.
First parameter (test on 3 LiHv testers)
Battery 86% and 16.28v given by the testers and ST16s gives 67% battery and 16.09v
ST16s gives 19% less
Second parameter
Battery 79% and 16.07v given by the testers and ST16s gives 60% and 15.88v
ST16s still gives 19% less

Take the test yourself.

Balance: 19% less battery display so when 30% force landing is done, the battery is actually 49% load. This is a good margin of safety that Yuneec takes but it greatly reduces flight time and greatly misleads us on the capacity of the battery.

When 40%, we say, it's time to go back, we still have 59% battery and we could still fly.

There is no way to correct these values in the ST16s then
Yunnec must absolutely readjust these values to give us reliable indications.

claudius62 this can be corrected but I don't know if the system allows us to do it. I've done it several times with a Pixhawk. I don't have the E90 yet, I hope it arrives on Tuesday or Wednesday and I check it out. I need the telemetry on the station so I can look at the parameters. When I do some research, I'll talk about it. It is only necessary to have a voltmeter to know the actual voltage.

Speaking of this I would like to be able to choose to see the voltage or the percentage on screen. Now you can touch and you get another frame with the voltage, but without touching anything you can see one or another value.

 

[claudius62]

No we can not, I tried to change values in settings / battery calibraration, but they are not taken into account and put in the H520.
By the way in settings / battery calibraration / bat_capacity, we should have the good value of the battery is 5250ma but there is: -1ma ???? Bug or not?

 

[RGilmore]

Guys. I'll join in later at some stage. But this Battery level and actions is critical. Its preventing a few of us in the UK from using the 520 commercially. The battery monitor needs serious calibration for voltage and load conditions. Its a mile out and needs Addressing NOW. FURTHER ACTIONS CAN BE TAKEN AT A LATER STAGE. but the battery voltage, alarms and actions need sorting. I'll catch up in a bit and hopefully these other guys will join this thread.

 

[SeeHigher]

It's unfortunate but as a commercial operator I have decided that I could not risk using the H520 on a live job in its current form, Yuneec need to tell us what going on with the development and when an update is likely, currently the Typhoon H520 is not fit for purpose

 

[SeeHigher]

This is what happen me yesterday, started the flight with a fully charged battery, about 3 minutes in to the flight I get a low battery warning and the H%20 goes into an automatic landing (not RTH) battery showing 28% as the H520 starts to descend the battery jumps to 69% I try switching between manual and angle but there is no way of getting control back, it was descending uncontrollable into the field next to me so at about 10m in desperation I flick the switch to RTH, the H520 then retracted the undercarriage started climbing and headed back to the take off point (RTH), before it was back over the take off point it then descended and landed narrowly missing a tree, during the RTH phase I tried to get control switching between manual and angle but to no avail,
Note, had this been a genuine low battery then the climb on switching to RTH would probably have killed it but the battery was showing 69% on the ST16s at this stage and when check (separate checker) after landing was showing over 78% so I got away with it this time but there is no way I would add this machine to my commercial operations at this time

 

[PatR]

Some of the reasons I went with a 920 instead of a 520 are noted above. I'll never have some of the features the 520 owners may eventually have but I know what I've got and established what I needed and wanted to have in a new platform before making a purchase, establishing the 920 would perform all of my requirements in its current state, and did not buy based on hope that it would do what I needed eventually. It's also all about the camera, and with only one photo from the CGO-4, in just the one photo it established itself as superior to the 50 and 90 in everything except resolution, being not a 12 or 20 mpxl, but a16mpxl zoom camera.

 

[Kev Waite]

I agree 100% with all the issues mentioned by Richard. I nearly lost my H520 over the sea a few weeks ago. I was around 500m away when the battery level was showing around 55%. I turned around to fly back, virtually no wind, the battery dropped like a stone to 35%. I was quite high so bottomed the throttle and pushed full forward and nursed it back it dropped to 30% and then slowly climbed back to around 40%. I would prefer to over ride the auto land and auto return to home and save the H520 damaging the battery in the process than lose the H520 in the sea!
When I preordered my h520 I was promised it had way more features as standard than my Typhoon H. When it arrived to find out it had no smart features, such as POI, cruise control, lack of expos and camera controls that I had before. I was extremely disappointed and have been patiently waiting for the large update that was promised at the end of last month that never arrived. I am feeling very frustrated as the answers from Yuneec seem to change every time you talk to them. From they are coming to the Germans are happy the way it is so it's not going to happen anymore. I certainly don't get that he German users are happy from a few groups I'm a member of, they are just as annoyed as the rest of us.
The H520 has the potential to be a great machine, please get your act together, Yuneec. Let us know what's happening and the kind of time scale we are looking at. Non of us want to go to the dark side and I have too much money tied up in both the H480 and H520 to want to change.

 

[SeeHigher]

Frankly it's unbelievable that you can't change mode (mode 2 only) on the ST16s also you can't setup exponential or rates on the controls, these are basic TX functions a very poor implementation for a so called commercial machine

 

[PatR]

What I'm reading about in here about battery voltage drop is consistent in performance with a very low C rated battery pack. Once the voltage reaches near mid point a strong increase in demand, like going from a hover to full throttle, causes the battery to dump all it has to meet the new demand. Reduce the demand and voltage claws back up fairly quickly. Low C batteries have capacity but fall short in delivery at high demand. They don't have any demand reserves to work with. For example, if you have a 6,000ma battery rated at 5C it has the ability to dump up to 30 amps to meet demand in a very short burst. A 25C battery of the same 6000ma capacity can pump out 150 amps in a very short burst. If you're flying a multirotor using a 6000ma battery rated at 5C and the system suddenly demands 50 amps, guess what happens. The voltage is deep dived in very short order. They are lighter than high C packs though.

 

[RaeThrills]

Yes I agree the control needs to be loosened to allow adjustments. I don’t care about frying a battery. I care about my investment landing in a place it shouldn’t. I experienced the auto land once on the h. It landed where it decided and I had no control. That was the las time I flew out that Far and looked around too long. This was due to me not being aware the h landed when it seemed it should. I’m glad they came out with the 520. Dji has the consumer market here. Yuneec did a smart move. Went for our government. I see a lot of troopers and cops with yuneec drones. So that’s a good thing, it will bring attention to the things they need to fix. Our government doesn’t like when things don’t work as smoothly as them. Lol. We all know they government don’t do anything smoothly. Still waiting on my hard copy of my part 107. Lol

 

[SeeHigher]

What I'm reading about in here about battery voltage drop is consistent in performance with a very low C rated battery pack. Once the voltage reaches near mid point a strong increase in demand, like going from a hover to full throttle, causes the battery to dump all it has to meet the new demand. Reduce the demand and voltage claws back up fairly quickly. Low C batteries have capacity but fall short in delivery at high demand. They don't have any demand reserves to work with. For example, if you have a 6,000ma battery rated at 5C it has the ability to dump up to 30 amps to meet demand in a very short burst. A 25C battery of the same 6000ma capacity can pump out 150 amps in a very short burst. If you're flying a multirotor using a 6000ma battery rated at 5C and the system suddenly demands 50 amps, guess what happens. The voltage is deep dived in very short order. They are lighter than high C packs though.

Not helped by the fact that Yuneec have set the BATY_V_LOAD_DROP parameter at 0.18 guaranteed to give premature triggering of the failsafe

 

[PatR]

There are times when I get the impression some Yuneec developers simply don't have a clue...

 

[bluelight.support]

Great thread guys - but also quite concerning, we went from DJI Phantom 4, to Inspire 1 Pro (loved it) to Inspire 2 (great images but unreliable for mapping with flyaways), and was just going to move to the Phantom 4 Pro which is meant to be the best flying sensor for mapping (other than custom, etc) with the 1" mechanical shutter / sensor, when I saw the H520. While it is unfortunate that it is only a single battery from contingency, I did love the fact of the 6 rotors for safety. Changeable payloads was also a tick. I map a lot with Pix4d, MapsPilot (best package ever due to terrain management) and UGCS. I downloaded the DataPilot app and see its just a re-brand of QControl for the PX4/Mavlink, and while its ok for standard 2d grid surveys, it was no use at all for antenna surveys, etc by allowing multiple orbits and varying flight levels, such as DJI GS Pro for iPad which again is excellent (apart from no offline usage which is crazy for non cellular areas). Im now hearing these battery problems, which for the UK market make the unit unsafe for commercial use. No flight manual would be approved by the CAA with this level of battery management and ability to land when it wants to, its too unsafe. I do a lot work in the industry with various mapping systems, and Im wondering do I have to go back to Phantom 4 Pro again, or is the H520 fit for purpose, like others here - this will be my hard earned cash - with all three lenses - some investment. I welcome comments from people above who have done all this - best wishes