My First Flight... Not Good. Not Good at All.

[Apollo11capcom]

I took my new (to me) Typhoon H Pro out today, just for an engine start and hover type of test flight, since I haven't had a chance to even spin the props yet.

Let me start by saying that I have decent drone experience, this Typhoon is my 3rd drone, I've logged considerable hours on my Autel Evo and Parrot BB2 before that. Im a moderately experienced hobby pilot, not a newbie, but not an expert either.

To start, I've recently done firmware updates on the drone and camera, I fixed a sticky J2 using methods suggested on this forum as well as youtube. I calibrated the remote, compass, and altimeter yesterday. My batteries were 100% on both the drone and remote. All toggles on the remote were in the center position (obstacle avoidance off, angle mode), and the right hand slider was on the turtle.

I took it to my driveway, turned on the remote, then drone, pressed the start button, let it spin for a few seconds, and then throttled up. It lifted off the ground, up to about 5 feet, which is right where I wanted it. I went side to side, turned the nose 90 degrees left, then back again. So far so good... sorta. It seemed to be drifting a lot- it was requiring constant corrections to keep it over the lift off point. It was a little breezy, but not enough to account for this. It felt like it was in ATTI mode, even though it had 10 sats connected.

I took it back down twice, touched down, brought it down to idle speed by holding the stick down after it landed, then lifted off again with the same results- constant small corrections to keep it in place. It wasn't always drifting the same way, sometimes it drifted left, sometimes backwards, sometimes right.

Then it got ugly.

The final time as I brought it down to land it started really flipping out, just all over the place with very little control. I got it to touch down but as soon as it did it immediately tried to lift off again. I held the stick down trying to get it to land, everytime it touched the ground it went back up until it was actually bouncing. I noticed at that point the light under the battery on the drone started flashing red. I couldn't get it to just touch down and stay down, it was almost like I was fighting against some automated feature trying to get it to do the opposite of what I was trying to do.

I didn't panic, I knew what the end result would be, and sure enough after it bounced around for a while it tipped over and hit a prop on the driveway. After that it stayed down.

I don't know what to make of this. Did the guy sell me a bad unit? Did I miss something in the manual really important? I've spent the last 3 days reading through it and don't know what it would be. Ive flown my other drones right here in the same spot countless times with nothing like this ever happening. I don't know im at a loss.

I could sure use some input on this. I don't even know where to start troubleshooting this issue.


Edit- according to the chart, flashing red indicates home mode activated. If that's the case it could have been trying to take off to reach rth altitude, but I don't know why it would have gone into home mode, I know i didn't touch the switch... Also, idk about this drone, but on my Evo, rth is always overridden by manual commands, it seems like I still should have been able to land.

 

[AH-1G]

Did you have it in Smart Mode?

 

[AH-1G]

Also if you're near any metal structures, this thing hates it. Radio waves are bouncing all over causing confusion.

 

[Apollo11capcom]

Also if you're near any metal structures, this thing hates it. Radio waves are bouncing all over causing confusion.

No metal structures, and it was in angle mode. I do have a small field next to my house, I'm considering another attempt, after a fresh compass, remote, and altimeter calibration filming this one from my point of view.

 

[Phaedrus]

How long did you wait after turning everything on and how many satellites did the drone have locked? Sounds like a bad GPS lock, at least at first.

 

[AH-1G]

Me think GPS issue too?

 

[Apollo11capcom]

How long did you wait after turning everything on and how many satellites did the drone have locked? Sounds like a bad GPS lock, at least at first.

I waited close to 5 minutes, I seem to get around 10 sats.

I just did a retest andthe results were a little better- I recalibrated everything mentioned.

I noticed i had to continuously bump my altitude back up, it won't keep steady, I'm thinking (hoping) to find a way to trim that.

 

[Apollo11capcom]

I have another question regarding batteries-

Ive been reading old posts on this...

First, is there something wrong or inferior with the charger that comes with the drone?

Second- when talking batteries what's IR?

I noticed my batteries drained really fast today, and I know the former owner stored them at full charge.

 

[AH-1G]

All those questions are answered for you if you use the Search Forum

 

[Phaedrus]

Can't say about the charger. I use one of my own for charging.
IR stands for Internal Resistance

Here's a good read on it:

Does Internal Resistance Affect Performance?

Learn about battery technology, battery maintenance and battery life at Battery University

batteryuniversity.com

 

[DoomMeister]

The OEM charger for the TH is fine for a full balance charge, but that is about all. The batteries need to be put in a storage charge when not being used (15.2V). The time they can be left at full or depleted charge levels varies from 24 hours to 5 days depending on how serious you are about getting the most out of your batteries (there are many threads on the subject and a library’s worth of literature on the web on that subject).

I think it would be a good idea to take it to the field, power up and let it sit with props off for 13 minutes to get a chance to get all the info from the GPS satellites. Then arm the motors and takeoff and hover at 15 to 20 feet so the aircraft is well out of ground effect. At that point evaluate how well the aircraft holds position and don’t micro-manage it. If it drifts by several feet correct it, but don’t chase the stick.

I am a little concerned about calibrating the Remote. It is not usually a thing that needs to be done. Stirring the sticks and cleaning of potentiometers is usually all that is required. Was there a specific problem that led you to believe the ST-16 required a calibration?

 

[Steve Carr]

All good advise above.
I wait for 15 satellites before I launch. It's much more stable. While waiting for sats, go to Hardware Monitor and check the sticks. Are they smooth and do they return to exactly zero? In fact, do it now in the house. You don't need the H to do this.

The flashing red light might have been a low battery warning. I'm not sure you can trust that battery. Remove the camera and do a low hover over soft ground and watch the battery reading. Land when it drops to 14.7 volts.

 

[Dougcjohn]

In a manor, I’ve experienced similar with the H480. The initial erratic drifting compared to other platforms. But as mentioned above, on this model I’ve noticed if you take it up to 20-25 feet it seems to settle down quickly and when returned to low hover behaves more stable.

The EVO and other crafts are extremely quick to prep & launch, although on a initial startup low hover, I do think they’re using their other senors (sonic, etc) with a stronger priority for ground positioning.

When my H480 was new, I noticed an improvement after performing all the RC calibrations, an after a few oddities maybe induced by FW updates, I performed a full RC reset and rebound platform & camera; which seemed to help.

 

[Fred Garvin]

Sorry you had a bad first experience.....lots of great advice given here for you to follow.

You might upload your telemetry files here....the experts can look it over for anything odd....may have some answers in there!

BTW....I’ve only had the “hopping” issue once. It happened trying to takeoff...I had the slider set full turtle, and ever since then, I always take off full rabbit....jump up to 10’ and hover, then set the slider where I want it. I like to have full power at takeoff. Get off the ground!

 

[Apollo11capcom]

Thanks for the input, it's much appreciated. To answer a few questions- I did have an issue with the J2 pot reacting slowly both ways. I cleaned the pot and it seems to work fine now. In hardware monitor everything does work, there's one thing I don't know about- it's the left hand d-pad, it only takes 2 or 3 clicks any direction and it sounds the high pitched beep as if it has maxed out. On the screen it doesn't show the green bar reaching the end of the scale. The right hand d-pad takes maybe 20 clicks to sound the high pitched tone and it does show the green bar reach all the way to the end of the scale.

What was said above regarding going higher to get away from the ground sounds like good advice, I hadn't thought about the fact that the Evo does employ several different sensors to create the solid positioning while low to the ground. That being said, the drifting is from a foot to maybe 3 or 4 feet in any direction. Seems questionable, I don't know if that's reasonable or not for not having the extra stability tech working in its favor.

Something else I just learned is that if the drone isn't perfectly level while calibrating the accelerometer it can actually cause drift as the drone thinks its flying level when it's in fact leaning one way or the other. I used a level on the table I set the drone on for this calibration, but I didn't take in to account the fact that the landing gear may not be perfectly level. I need to check on that. Who knows, maybe that's my problem.

Btw- I've used the heck out of the search feature on this forum, I don't ask this stuff out of laziness, sometimes I just haven't found the answers I'm looking for.

 

[Apollo11capcom]

Sorry you had a bad first experience.....lots of great advice given here for you to follow.

You might upload your telemetry files here....the experts can look it over for anything odd....may have some answers in there!

That sounds like a great idea. I'd love to know what it was thinking when it tipped.

 

[PatR]

The H is a little less stable close to the ground than the average quad, and even less so than quads using optical sensors when close to the ground to maintain position.

Ignoring optical sensor quads for now as those sensors place them in a different class, an H has two more rotors than a quad which create considerably more disturbed air beneath the aircraft. When close to the ground the rotor downwash impacts the ground and is reflected back to the aircraft, where the uninitiated expect the flight controller to be able to react instantly to extremely chaotic, unpredictable disturbed airflow.

The flight controller is pretty smart but we can assist the FC in avoiding situations where it is asked to do more than it is capable of doing. Getting the aircraft high enough to be clear of ground effect is one such situation.

Another condition that helps immensely is by not artificially restricting the FC’s reaction speed during critical portions of the flight. During T/O and landing the system must be able to react as rapidly as possible to changing conditions. Control response must be crisp. Take offs should be performed briskly, commanding the aircraft to leave the ground and achieve a safe altitude quickly. The use of Turtle speed mode severely limits both the aircraft and the operator during those periods.

 

[Phaedrus]

A good point. I never thought about it in those terms, but as a matter of practice I always climb to about 15 feet. An instinct to get out of ground effect. But definitely a potential contributor to the OP's issue.

 

[Air Intel]

Sounds like the bird was infact in return home mode, judging by how bad you said the batteries are and the home mode light was on, that would explain it to me. Your trying to oppose that may have caused erratic behaviour but its more likely the turbulence as was mentioned above was causing the bouncing and finally caused it to tip. I'm no expert either but this would be my logic on the matter. Definitely get new batteries, a good aftermarket charger and also, did you calibrate accelerometers and compass first? Wait for 15+ sats to be real safe too.

 

[biltno]

Just a thought upload your telemetry data to the forum and there are some wicked smart guys on here I’ve seen from experience
That may give you an idea on where to go next.