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My first crash

Joined
Sep 8, 2018
Messages
36
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Location
Northwest Oregon
I guess it was bound to happen and one of my worst fears came true today. While I was out doing a CCC making an orbit of my house, after the 2nd waypoint was reached, the bird just kept going straight and plowed into a fir tree and got hung up. It took me a step ladder and a rake to get the branch low enough to untangle the drone. Seems to be in one piece and nothing broken. I have no idea what happened as I had made this same CCC mission 4 times earlier today. The only thing I was trying to do is slow the speed with the left stick after the first waypoint. Don't know whether this had anything to do with it, but, the scare shut down flight operations for today. Anybody have this experience or have any idea what might've gone wrong?
 
. . . . after the 2nd waypoint was reached, the bird just kept going straight and plowed into a fir tree and got hung up.

My experience with CCC waypoints is that the accuracy of the waypoints (GPS) is not as good as we would hope. I have seen differences of up to 50 feet or more depending on how the waypoints are laid out. It also matters how the waypoints are spaced, from one to the next. In a typical route, we as the pilot know where the waypoint is (approximately) and, in normal operation we can almost sense when the drone is approaching a given point.

For instance if we do a simple 3 waypoint flight with a turn at the second waypoint to head to the final waypoint, when we run the route we would have a sense of where the drone should turn. However, when running that route, what if the the drone (as it approaches the 2nd waypoint) has not calculated that it has in fact reached that point due to slight in accuracies of the GPS? It would simply continue on.

As a rule of thumb when running a CCC mission, if at any point the drone/waypoint is going to be within 100 feet of anything, including the ground - one should have the ST-16S in hand, and be ready to stop or cancel the route immediately whenever you suspect a deviation or missed waypoint.

Not saying this is what happened in your case but perhaps it is possible. How close to the Fir tree was that second waypoint?
 
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My experience with CCC waypoints is that the accuracy of the waypoints (GPS) is not as good as we would hope. I have seen differences of up to 50 feet or more depending on how the waypoints are laid out. It also matters how the waypoints are spaced, from one to the next. In a typical route, we as the pilot know where the waypoint is (approximately) and, in normal operation we can almost sense when the drone is approaching a given point.

For instance if we do a simple 3 waypoint flight with a turn at the second waypoint to head to the final waypoint, when we run the route we would have a sense of where the drone should turn. However, when running that route, what if the the drone (as it approaches the 2nd waypoint) has not calculated that it has in fact reached that point due to slight in accuracies of the GPS? It would simply continue on.

As a rule of thumb when running a CCC mission, if at any point the drone/waypoint is going to be within 100 feet of anything, including the ground - one should have the ST-16S in hand, and be ready to stop or cancel the route immediately whenever you suspect a deviation or missed waypoint.

Not saying this is what happened in your case but perhaps it is possible. How close to the Fir tree was that second waypoint?
The closest waypoint to the trees was approx 20ft but that was on the 3 or possibly the 4th waypoint. 2nd waypoint was about 50ft from the trees. I reviewed the video and the camera went wonky right about the 2nd waypoint and went straight instead of turning toward the 3rd waypoint. I had the ST-16s in my hand but everything happened so fast, I couldn't hit the abort button fast enough. I will probably look at the data log and see if I can tell what went wrong, although I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for. Thing is, I made the same flight 4 times successfully an hour or two before the wrong way one.
 
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Yeah, tough to say what actually happened. I can analyze much of the flight data but I am not sure to see how it correlates with the waypoints or if there is even a way to see that data. If the camera started acting funny then that could indicate something going wrong as you say. One thing that may help is to delete any old missions that you no longer need. But for sure, I have seen CCC on both the Typhoon and H Plus work great one minute and the next there is a glitch. Just gotta always be Johnny-on-the-spot and ready to cancel just in case.
 
Uploading flight logs from earlier successful runs and the failed one would be the most useful. We need the Telemetry, Remote, and RemoteGPS files in pristine condition (not opened by programs like Excel that tag the files when opened in those programs).
 
Uploading flight logs from earlier successful runs and the failed one would be the most useful. We need the Telemetry, Remote, and RemoteGPS files in pristine condition (not opened by programs like Excel that tag the files when opened in those programs).
What program should I use to plot/view the telemetry files? Or, should I just upload them here for anyone to look at. I'm all kinda new to analyzing flight logs. I'm barely good enough to fly the drone.
 
Use this thread to access the Flight2Log folder on the ST16S How To Get H Plus Telemetry Files and copy the Flight2Log folder to your PC. Right click on the copied folder and select Send To, then select Compressed file, name it something like MyLogFiles.zip. Then upload the zip file here. Most of us use the Q500log2kml program by @h-elsner which can be downloaded from his website Private Homepage h-elsner on the downloads page.
 
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Here are the files of all the flights I made including the crash. Anyone that has more knowledge than me on how to analyze these would be greatly appreciated.
 

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  • MyLogFiles5-18-21.zip
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First flight 00071 seems to be the successful orbit five times. Second flight 00072 seems to be the wrong one.
GPS coordinates start with a position somewhere in Colorado. Very strange. I wonder from where those coordinates came. Have ever been there?
colorado.jpg
Then it suddenly moves to your home. My guess ist that it took the homepoint from the first coordinates which is far away. Then it tries to go there. Can you please check you CCC file if there are waypoints in that belongs to the Colorado area?

br HE
 
First flight 00071 seems to be the successful orbit five times. Second flight 00072 seems to be the wrong one.
GPS coordinates start with a position somewhere in Colorado. Very strange. I wonder from where those coordinates came. Have ever been there?
View attachment 25758
Then it suddenly moves to your home. My guess ist that it took the homepoint from the first coordinates which is far away. Then it tries to go there. Can you please check you CCC file if there are waypoints in that belongs to the Colorado area?

br HE
Flight 72 was the same CCC file I used for the others. I did not alter anything. Just selected the CCC file and hit go. Never been to CO with my drone.
 

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