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My H's Camera Died, Back to Yuneec For Repairs

Joined
Dec 19, 2016
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Age
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Location
Delaware, USA
Well THIS is a real drag.

I've been waiting for over a week for a break in the wintry weather we've been having here to do some flying, and finally I got it today. Fixed my schedule ahead of time to make the most of the rare free time I could gather, had my batteries all charged and ready to go for a few afternoon flights, but then all of my plans got shot down, crashed and burned.

After flying at one river location I wanted to film, I packed up and went upriver a few miles for different views. But my Typhoon's camera wouldn't engage once I was there. I spent too much time trying everything I knew to do to fix the situation but with no good results, then spent even more time trying to get the camera to bind again and again until it finally did. Everything then checked out fine, so I went up again, filmed what I wanted to, and next went further upriver, still, to capture a particular cove I wanted to get at sunset.

But once I got there the same thing happened. No camera connection, an endlessly spinning progress wheel on my display and no WiFi connection, as well as the inability to have a camera type lock in on the ST16. Evening came and I left, frustrated and puzzled.

Once home, I contacted Yuneec support, went through some diagnostics, and the answer came back as probably a dead camera. I removed the camera mount a few times (which Yuneec said often corrects the problem I was having), removed the battery, powered everything up and down a few times as instructed, but regardless of what we did there was no LED light action on the camera body whatsoever. Everything was still properly bound, but the camera refused to pop up on my ST16.

So, I have to pack up my H and send it off tomorrow to be diagnosed and repaired. Never had a crash with it, never any damage to the aircraft or camera, so I guess it's just dumb luck on my part. As a rule, it's been my experience that when it comes to purchasing electronics, if something is weak or faulty it usually fails shortly after purchase during its burn-in period. A real bummer, too, because I was planning on using my Typhoon this weekend to film the thousands of crazy people who will be jumping into the heartlessly cold Atlantic Ocean at a popular nearby beach resort town for an annual charity "Polar Bear Swim" event. Looks like I'll have to pull out my other drone now instead to capture the moment. There goes the benefit of the H's 360-degree views and panning abilities I was planning on using, right out the window. Oh well, no biggie. This is about the kind of luck I usually have, so I'm kind of used to it!!

Is it best (safest) to send the H to Yuneec in the backpack it came in? They want me to include my ST16, too, just in case, so I was thinking of shipping it the same way I got it. Gonna miss that piece of machinery...
 
When you ship it back, the foam container it was shipped in, placed inside another box, works out well. They don't want all the accessories back so hang on to the props, wizard, charger, and battery. They really don't want the batteries back. Hang on to the -16 neck strap and glare shield as well. You might want to download a copy of all the telemetry files for a record of everything and then reset the ST-16 to remove any e-mails and the e-mail account if you have one set up on it.
 
Thank you very much for the input and the advice. I'll follow it. And I never thought about downloading my telemetry files or wiping my ST16 clean before sending it off. Good stuff to know. I appreciate the foresight.
 
More strange weirdness with my H's camera today. I may not need to send it to Yuneec's repair shop after all.

I was preparing my Typhoon for shipment to Yuneec today for repairs for what was diagnosed by them as a dead camera yesterday, but decided to go through the battery & camera mount removal/reinstallation procedure I was told to go through last night to resolve the problem one more time, just to see what may happen. When I slid the camera mount away from the Typhoon I noticed that the assembly was uneven, tight in the back but noticeably cocked up in front with a considerably larger gap there, so I simply compressed the assembly, heard a click, and the assembly appeared much more level as I remembered it looking and as common sense told me it should be.

I slid the camera back into place, powered everything up, and the system startup procedure flowed just like it should. No more camera binding issues, no WiFi disabled message on my ST16, the camera LED light lit up as it should, just a quick normal connection that I was accustomed to and then it was up and running fast.

Could my solution have been just that simple? One thing I noticed was that on my Typhoon both gimbal dampeners are parallel, in line with one another, in the front of the mount. But I thought they were supposed to be situated diagonally across from each other, one in the front and the other in the rear held in by plastic pins. Am I wrong? Are the dampeners in place where they should be?

I am disinclined to send my Typhoon out for repairs unless I am certain that I need service. By the same token, I don't want this to be an intermittent problem that could pop up and bite me in the pants again two months from now.

Do you think it best to just report this to Yuneec, have them document it on the repair ticket they opened for me yesterday, and give it time to see what happens since I'm still under warranty? I don't know how the camera mount assembly could have become cocked as it was since it has never suffered any damage or stress of any kind, unless it was just always that way and I just failed to notice it.

Any insights or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
If the gimbal was not set squarely on the mounting rails the contact points would not have formed a circuit. The camera will not function unless all the contacts make a complete circuit. Take a moment to remove the gimbal and look at the contact arrangement. Then install, remove, and re-install the gimbal on the mount a few times to get accustomed to how it looks and feels during the process. It's easy to install the gimbal on only one mounting rail and think it's on right. I've done it a few times.

The safety pins should be installed diagonal to each other. You can correct or leave as is. I certainly would not send it back for that. If after a series of on/off tests everything boots up and functions correctly you can decide if you are comfortable or not with it. If everything works every power cycle there's not much reason not to be comfortable.
 
My Typhoon was still out so I removed and re-installed the gimbal a few times as you suggested to do to really get a feel of things and next checked out the contacts. Seeing is believing. I thought the safety pins were supposed to be in diagonally, but I'll leave them as is if that arrangement isn't critical.

It is possible that I didn't have the camera properly mounted on the rail recently as I saw something with a Yuneec tech in it a few weeks ago who stated to get the absolute best compass calibration with the Typhoon to first remove the camera and gimbal assembly to remove that direct source of interference from the wiring and metal during calibration, so I went back out in the middle of a field and recalibrated my compass with the camera removed. Because of inclement weather I haven't flown a great deal since then.That tells me my camera may have been hanging precariously the few times I did take my H up, a scary thought indeed.

Yes, I fully agree that I no longer have a valid reason for shipping my Typhoon in for service. I'll just keep my eyes peeled and see if it happens again. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
You can re-do the pins yourself. Remove the gimbal from the aircraft and then remove the top cover from the gimbal. Take a look at how the pins go together. It's just a plastic pin with a large flat cast at one end with a cut washer that slips onto the other end. Something to do on a rainy day.
 
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