Q500 4k Altitude Drops

[Thomas111]

What is your battery status as if battery low it might be a safety feature the same as the H has

 

[ATLienQ500]

What is your battery status as if battery low it might be a safety feature the same as the H has

Thomas,

Battery status has been good whenever this happened. It's never happened when getting low voltage warnings. It's happened with different battery packs and also usually within the first 5 minutes of a fully charged battery.

Andre

 

[Thomas111]

O right new GPS module have you called yuneec tech support to ask their advice

 

[ATLienQ500]

O right new GPS module have you called yuneec tech support to ask their advice

I have spent more time on the phone with Yuneec that I care to remember. They looked at my logs for a month then offered to fix the quad at my expense. They suspected that either the compass or GPS module needed to be replaced so I bought those on my own and plan to try the repair myself through a process of elimination. This will save me the labor cost at the least and hopefully allow me to gain some knowledge about fixing drones. The reality is that if we have to return to the manufacturer for every single repair, our pockets will forever be thin, especially with this particular drone.

I have attached some pics to this post, Steve ... please comment if you see this and have an opinion...

When I opened up the Quad I noticed that there were a couple wires close to the compass module. I believe these are one of the antennas as well as the cable that leads to the CGO3 camera connector. I'm not fully educated on interference, signal noise and how to maximise the isolation between them, but I decided to move these to the other side of the nose of the Quad. I am going to test in this orientation after a compass calibration once I screw everything back together. If the problem occurs again, then I will switch out the compass.

If that still doesn't work, next I will switch out the GPS module. If that still doesn't work, the Quad is going to be demoted to low altitude flights over land only.

Andre

 

[Steve Carr]

Good eye for spotting the antenna in the wrong position. You moved it to the correct location. It's conceivable that it could interfere with the compass where it was laying.

 

[ATLienQ500]

Good eye for spotting the antenna in the wrong position. You moved it to the correct location. It's conceivable that it could interfere with the compass where it was laying.

Steve and Thomas,


I did some testing this morning by flying through 4 batteries. I have uploaded a zip file of my flight logs. Telemetry files 91 - 97 are from today's flights. I looked through these and only saw one error in the error_flags1 field. In Telemetry file 92, there is a 12/100 second span in which this flag is populated with a 1. I read somewhere that error 1 is the first battery warning and error 2 is the second battery warning. If either of you know of a contrary explanation of an error value of "1" please share.

This is a drastic improvement from what was happening before. In earlier logs, The error value of 32 would often pop up which I believe indicates a compass error. I didn't get one instance of error 32 today!

So gents ... I would call this progress on my end but I would still like to do additional testing in a new location before calling this conclusive.

I plan to find a new location and fly through all 6 batteries. Most likely I will fly through 3, break to let the machines cool off and fly through another 3. Even though the quad didn't dip today, it appears to be a bit dance-ish in light wind, even after two compass and accelerometer calibrations this morning. It just doesn't sit perfectly in the pocket like I believe it should.

The ST-10 was struggling to pick up 9 or more satellites for a part of the time so I also plan to do some research to see if this could have affected flight (the quad had 14-16 satellites).

On the good side, the gimbal worked flawlessly so you would never know from the footage (buttery smooth).

I will be in touch when I have more but thanks for your camaraderie.

**Note: I cannot prove this but I currently suspect that there are a number of Yuneec Birds out there with the same bad wire placement I discovered. It wouldn't surprise me that this is the case and the company is fully aware. IF it is the case, they would never admit to it due to the liability that would be associated with that large a recall. Such a simple error and the average consumer is going to pay out of pocket for shipping and "parts replacement" SMH ... Of course as I said ... I suspect but I cannot prove .. #SipsTea

 

[Thomas111]

Ok when I use to fly my Q it would be ok flying when my st10+ had 9 sats and another tip is throttle up to about 25/30 feet let it sit on hover bearing in mind the wind factor see how stable and when u say it was still a bit danceish do u mean it was drifting and it's a good tip when coming in to land slide to turtle mode

 

[ATLienQ500]

Ok when I use to fly my Q it would be ok flying when my st10+ had 9 sats and another tip is throttle up to about 25/30 feet let it sit on hover bearing in mind the wind factor see how stable and when u say it was still a bit danceish do u mean it was drifting and it's a good tip when coming in to land slide to turtle mode

Thomas,

Thanks for the tips. I usually land in turtle mode because it is most stable. I did have to land in rabbit mode once when some storm like winds swept in out of nowhere when I was flying. On approaching, the Quad was about 45 degrees to the ground. I had to get creative, needed power, landed flawlessly, wish I had it on tape.

Your point about going up to about 30 feet makes sense. I'll try that when I next run tests. When I say dance-is, I mean the Quad seems to be bouncing around in a bigger pocket than I think it should. I need to watch some videos online to re-calibrate my expectation because the Quad was never before perfectly static in a hover. Mind you, I have seen it do worse than it did today but I was expecting rock solid, in the pocket hover with minimal drift. There was definitely drift today ... I would estimate up to about 10 inches up and down and about the same left and right. While intentionally going in any direction however, I wouldn't say there was any drift. I should also point out that I observed this drift at about 10-15 feet above ground.

I checked some footage from 400 feet up and a 20 second UHD clip is very "static." So I don't think footage will be affected but I just want to regain that confidence in the machine. If drift indicates I still have a problem, I would like to fix it.

Thanks Again for your input.

Cheers,

Andre

 

[Thomas111]

Thomas,

Thanks for the tips. I usually land in turtle mode because it is most stable. I did have to land in rabbit mode once when some storm like winds swept in out of nowhere when I was flying. On approaching, the Quad was about 45 degrees to the ground. I had to get creative, needed power, landed flawlessly, wish I had it on tape.

Your point about going up to about 30 feet makes sense. I'll try that when I next run tests. When I say dance-is, I mean the Quad seems to be bouncing around in a bigger pocket than I think it should. I need to watch some videos online to re-calibrate my expectation because the Quad was never before perfectly static in a hover. Mind you, I have seen it do worse than it did today but I was expecting rock solid, in the pocket hover with minimal drift. There was definitely drift today ... I would estimate up to about 10 inches up and down and about the same left and right. While intentionally going in any direction however, I wouldn't say there was any drift. I should also point out that I observed this drift at about 10-15 feet above ground.

I checked some footage from 400 feet up and a 20 second UHD clip is very "static." So I don't think footage will be affected but I just want to regain that confidence in the machine. If drift indicates I still have a problem, I would like to fix it.

Thanks Again for your input.

Cheers,

Andre

Ok have you spoke to yunecc regarding these issues

 

[ATLienQ500]

Ok have you spoke to yunecc regarding these issues

I have not spoken to them about my discovery of the misplaced wire but prior to that I spoke to them about the dips. Their recommendation was that I mail the drone in so they can fix it at my expense. I decided not to, bought the original Yuneec parts myself and opened the quad to find the misplaced antenna wire. The techs I spoke to didn't know diddly squat and they sound like robots reading a script.

As I said before, I believe they are aware of this and possibly other issues with their quality control but it would never be financially advantageous for them to admit to it, especially on a quad there are no longer producing....

Let's even give Yuneec the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the quad left the factory with the wire in the right place, the sticky tape that was used to hold it there probably failed somewhere along the way and then that's where problems can begin... I doubt this is what happened by the way and even if it did, it would still be a manufacturing flaw

 

[Thomas111]

I see well keep us updated

 

[ATLienQ500]

I see well keep us updated

Sir Thomas,

Do you fly A Q500 or Typhoon and what has your experience been so far?

 

[Thomas111]

I had a Q500 up till may this year sold it to my pal I upgraded to the H and I really enjoyed the Q but it was time to move on and try the H well I can't fault the Q I only had 1 problem with it and that was a engine let go but yuneec fixed it at my cost but if I could have afforded to keep it aswell and buy the H I would have

 

[ATLienQ500]

I had a Q500 up till may this year sold it to my pal I upgraded to the H and I really enjoyed the Q but it was time to move on and try the H well I can't fault the Q I only had 1 problem with it and that was a engine let go but yuneec fixed it at my cost but if I could have afforded to keep it aswell and buy the H I would have

That sounds like a good move. The Q is a good beginner drone. I had to upgrade because I needed something else for real estate. I went with something more portable with more modern features ... yet I still love to fly the Q500 more because

1 I can always see it when I fly high
2 it's easy to adjust needed dynamics via the hair / turtle slider as well as the pro camera settings
3 it just looks so cool
4 it has a very good wide angle camera (if you shoot in 4k and expose properly with ND filters)


But I can't use it for real estate because
1 The GPS lock is not reliable
2 it doesn't have obstacle avoidance
3 Wide angle shots don't work for every real estate shot because they can make a home look more distant. This wouldn't necessarily be wrong, it's just not always desired
4 Because the Q is big and GPS lock is not as tight as some more modern drones ...and then when you add the lack of obstacle avoidance, it's a liability if not flown in wide open spaces
All the above are fine, the Q was made to be what it is. Avery good entry level drone with a great camera

Hopefully I can get it to work consistently. I plan to use it for landscapes and wide shots

 

[Steve Carr]

**Note: I cannot prove this but I currently suspect that there are a number of Yuneec Birds out there with the same bad wire placement I discovered. It wouldn't surprise me that this is the case and the company is fully aware. IF it is the case, they would never admit to it due to the liability that would be associated with that large a recall.

You are correct on the error codes. 1 is 1st low batt, 2 is 2nd low batt and 32 is compass error. 33 would be compass error plus low batt.
However, if you are flying until you get a low battery warning, you are pushing the envelope. Land when the voltage is 10.6 and no lower.

Regarding the GPS.......the H and the Q500 both use Glonass and GPS satellites. The ST10 and the ST16 only use GPS so you will always have a much lower sat count on the controller.

"Drift" of 10" is not really drift. That is quite stable. In breezy conditions anything under 3' is considered good. Remember you have a machine that was designed in 2014 and the components have changed considerably since that time. The Q remains one of the most stable and reliable quads ever built and the price is 1/3 of the original cost.

I have to disagree with the antenna misplacement as being anything other than rare. In fact, I have never seen or heard of that happening before. I would speculate that at some point that bird was opened up by someone who messed up the placement. The manner in which it appeared to be tucked into place suggests that is the case. Many of the refurbished machines are simply checked with diagnostics and given a quick test.

You have done an extraordinary job in finding and fixing the problem. Your persistence has produced results. Great Job.

 

[ATLienQ500]

You are correct on the error codes. 1 is 1st low batt, 2 is 2nd low batt and 32 is compass error. 33 would be compass error plus low batt.
However, if you are flying until you get a low battery warning, you are pushing the envelope. Land when the voltage is 10.6 and no lower.

Regarding the GPS.......the H and the Q500 both use Glonass and GPS satellites. The ST10 and the ST16 only use GPS so you will always have a much lower sat count on the controller.

"Drift" of 10" is not really drift. That is quite stable. In breezy conditions anything under 3' is considered good. Remember you have a machine that was designed in 2014 and the components have changed considerably since that time. The Q remains one of the most stable and reliable quads ever built and the price is 1/3 of the original cost.

I have to disagree with the antenna misplacement as being anything other than rare. In fact, I have never seen or heard of that happening before. I would speculate that at some point that bird was opened up by someone who messed up the placement. The manner in which it appeared to be tucked into place suggests that is the case. Many of the refurbished machines are simply checked with diagnostics and given a quick test.

You have done an extraordinary job in finding and fixing the problem. Your persistence has produced results. Great Job.

Steve,

This is all great info. I will never know how that antenna wire got there but I do know of the other cases where Q's plummet without warning. I doubt that folks are out there opening the quads with all those screws and misplacing this wire in these other cases. I can tell you factually that I never did.

sounds like there may be a victory around the corner but I will wait for my next test results to confirm.

Thanks again for your input and guidance,

Andre

 

[Steve Carr]

I do know of the other cases where Q's plummet without warning.

I agree. Most people would be reluctant to open up the Q. In your case I think it was opened before you received it. Many of these are store returns by novice pilots some of whom get curious about what it looks like on the inside.
While the Q is very reliable and has a good history, the single common issue has been ESC failures. Perhaps 1 in 10,000 will have a ESC fail in the first few hours of airtime. When you read or hear about a Q falling it's always been caused by an ESC, loose prop, broken prop, or a loose battery.

 

[ATLienQ500]

I agree. Most people would be reluctant to open up the Q. In your case I think it was opened before you received it. Many of these are store returns by novice pilots some of whom get curious about what it looks like on the inside.
While the Q is very reliable and has a good history, the single common issue has been ESC failures. Perhaps 1 in 10,000 will have a ESC fail in the first few hours of airtime. When you read or hear about a Q falling it's always been caused by an ESC, loose prop, broken prop, or a loose battery.

Very interesting. Yuneec should hire you. It's the only way I would spend more money over there LOL

 

[ATLienQ500]

Happy Friday good folk! As promised, albeit a tad later than planned. I was able to run a full test today running through all 6 batteries with zero compass errors or erratic flight behavior. During my last test I flew through 4 batteries with clean flight logs.

I am now confident that the placement of the antenna by the compass was the cause of my altitude drops. In case Yuneec hadn't taken a peek here, I passed this info along as a response to the case I had opened with them. They have yet to respond and I doubt they ever will.

I have also asked them for a firmware update that would allow better yaw rates for the Yuneec Breeze ... I know I am not the only person interested in seeing that improvement but I don't have high expectations.

Let's see what they do in the coming year because the Mantis will not be able to compete with the Mavic air or Autel EVO or the Parrot Anafi in my opinion.

I posit that Yuneec will soon have to get out of the consumer market if these customer service and loose quality control shenanigans continue.

In the mean time... Drone to your heart's content

Cheers,


Andre

 

[ATLienQ500]

Greetings,

I hope the site admin doesn't cry foul but I wanted to publicly post an APB for those who may see this that are as passionate as I am when it comes to capturing conent from an aerial platform. Hopefully what I have to say speaks to the hearts of the pilots out there that still consider themselves Yuneec.

Amidst all the tech racing and the mad rush that usually follows, I like to remind folks that the emotion jolting inventions we refer to as drones are certainly fun to use but that we far too often use them as expensive toys instead of what they really are. Drones as we know them are simply cameras .... that can fly. The most important part of any camera is the person controlling it and let's be thankful that we no longer need to carry rolls of film to the local print shop, spend hard earned money each time we want to see what we captured, wait days or hours to get prints back, only to then see undeniable proof that you still don't know how to use your camera because of the 24 pictures you printed, only 5 came out correct enough to be used in your photo album.

With this advancement creators get to practice more and arguably at a lower cost. We could say that a formidable drone costs the same as all the money you would spend developing bad photos in print until you learn how to use your old 35MM Kodak but that's not a point I think is worth debating in this forum. At this stage, I believe that the creators are willing to practice. Willing to develop their craft (**No Pun Intended**) ... but to do this using aerial platforms, we need reliable craft (Air Craft).

The technology in these drones has moved at a fast rate over the past few years with no drone manufacturer being able to claim a flawless run in the market. There have been fly aways, crashes, random losses in altitude, lengthy conversations with customer service techs who have no clue what they are talking about and worst of all ... staff reductions and in the worst of cases... complete withdrawal from the drone market. There have also been numerous improvements in the visualization of telemetry, ground station imaging, battery life, flight range, autonomous flight modes etc. But what I still see is that none of these improvements by themselves can create a million dollar shot. The cameras on most formidable UAVs can now be dialed in to produce competitive results by the most important camera setting ... the camera operator!

Case in point, below are 3 panoramas I created using my Q500 4K and the CGO3 camera, the DJI Mavic Air and the Yuneec Breeze 4k (In that Order). The DJI Mavic air is the only drone of the three that can do this on the fly as an automated quickshot but you would still need to crop the panorama as the foreground looks unnatural. The Q500 takes great 12MP photos and is 3 axis stabilized to stitching photos is a one step process in your chosen photo editor. The Breeze however isn't stabilized in photo mode and it's video mode is somewhat stabilized electronically in 1080p and 720p...If you ask me, it should be called the Breeze (Drop the 4K, it can't be used!!!) Because of the instability of the camera, you will have to straighten all your photos and crop before you can use them ... reducing the breeze from it's advertised 13MP photo size to somewhere usually between 10MP and 12MP ... it all depends on how windy the day is.




Having seen these photos, and ignoring the tiny error I made in stitching the horizon of the Breeze pic (if you didn't see it ...It doesn't exist ).... would you necessarily know that these photos were shot on three different cameras If I had not pointed it out? I would argue that the differences between these are largely due to decisions I made editing as well as differences in light conditions while shooting but you could also argue that a skilled camera operator should be able to negate any differences in lighting. If you agree with me on those points, then you'll agree that have the option to take different roads to get to the same destination. Shall we continue on the Yuneec road? Well to me that depends mostly on Yuneec.

As much as the cameras of most drones north of $400 are formidable, here are some factors that will make the photographer's or cinematographer's job more labor intensive than it needs to be:

1. Binary (0 or 100) yaw rates (Yuneec Breeze). A perfect orbit is almost impossible to do manually even though you can use the app to do what is at best an approximate orbit
2. Unstable landing (typhoon series Q and H). These drones both tend to bounce around when landing is opposed to gently touching down. Many have lost props due to this landing procedure toppling over the drone. If my drone always needs a repair, or I am scared to fly it because it's likely to break, I'm just not going to want to use it
3. Lack of mechanical camera stabilization (Yuneec Breeze). For video, I would argue that you need two axes mechanically stabilized and you can stabilize the third digitally. I believe this is what the DJI spark and Parrot Anafi have employed. The Breeze does all 3 digitally and suffers horribly as a result. I would love to give Yuneec a pass on this but the binary yaw rate above combined with this prevents me from doing so. If we had the correct yaw rates or at least a fully manual mode, I could live with the 1080p stabilized rocky footage ... but again... Yuneec has decided not to address this issue .
4. Quick release and hopefully also balanced props only. This isn't often an issue but the Q500 props are often not balanced. Also, if you fly a lot and remove your props each time, some thread wear is unavoidable and you may soon have to change out a perfectly functional motor because of worn shaft threads. This is already dealt with since the newer machines all have snap on props but I thought I would mention it.

I am sure there are other points that could have been made but I didn't come here to bash Yuneec. I actually came here for the same reason that my first two drones were from Yuneec. I wanted to champion their brand and not simply follow the trend.

For as long as I could I avoided purchasing DJI but now that I have experienced both, I can honestly say that I see why DJI had cornered approximately 80%+ of the consumer UAV market. I have no complaints about my DJI drone or the attached camera and to be fair, that's probably because it's very modern technology when compared to the Q500 and Breeze. On the flip side, the Q500 remains my favorite (except during landings) but it's not as portable by 2018 standards... still my favorite drone though.

My greater point however, is that as I continue with the practice of UAV assisted photography and cinematography... whether it be for professional, personal curatorial or fun vacation content collection, I'm going to choose the company producing the more portable, mechanically stabilized and dependable UAV mounted camera. Currently that company does not appear to be Yuneec.

To some this may seem sad, but I think they have earned this result with enough customers who otherwise would have remained loyal. The Mantis $499 (Breeze 2 will be digitally stabilized ... why Yuneec, why? Put a **** gimbal on it already!) The Breeze 4k is still going for $399 on the yuneec website even though Walmart was selling them for $150 .... and the DJI Spark has better yaw rates and real 1080p and 2 axis mechanical stability for the same price $399.... makes absolutely no sense.

I wish Yuneec all the best as a company but until they wake up and stay awake, I see them withdrawing from the consumer space in the not so distant future. Someone please send them some Blue Mountain Coffee.

Fellow Yuneec pilots, if you believe that my prediction is incorrect, then please chime in and share your opinion. Have I given up on Yuneec too soon? Do you think they have what it takes to snag back some of the market from DJI, Autel, and Parrot? Am I being too hard on them? I am not convinced that they do but my eyes and ears are wide open.

Cheers!

Andre

<<PS.. Final Edit of the Q500 Picture is attached but I couldn't get it inside the body of the post for some reason>>

View attachment yuneec stitched and edited_0831_f.jpg