ST16 Seemed to Freeze

[Streetdoc77]

I am a fairly experienced Typhoon H pilot as my school has one and I have spent hours flying it at the school. I just purchased one 4 days ago and yesterday I was flying it over my farm and had a catastrophic failure. I had sent it over one of my fields at about 200ft high and was bringing it back. My granddaughter was watching the craft and I was concentrating on the controller when the green arrow quit moving and it was like it froze up. It was just about 5 to 10 seconds later my granddaughter said "I think it just fell out of the sky". It was about that time that the screen lost signal and started trying to reconnect. My question is this has anyone ever had an issue with the ST16 having a glitch that causes it to freeze? The screen was froze on the same image during the entire episode up until it crashed and lost signal. I wish i had been recording the event but I was just test flying because I bought it to help keep up with my cattle on the farm. I sent the flight log to Yuneec last night and waiting to hear something from them. I don't understand what could have went wrong with this flight.

 

[Ty Pilot]

Sorry for your loss, sounds like you had a complete power failure in flight unfortunately. The screen will hold the last image from the Typhoon for several seconds after power down. There have been cases where this was caused by not seating the battery fully into position and other cases where it was a fault of the Typhoon. Hopefully Yuneec will find the answer for you.

 

[Streetdoc77]

I had double checked the battery seating in a preflight check. I guess the thing that makes me wander about the ST16 is because when watching the flight log data and other stuff on the device it freezes and has to restart. I guess that makes me believe it could be the controller. I guess the other thing is that my granddaughter still had visual on the drone in the air while the screen was frozen. It is just strange.

 

[Steve Carr]

I had double checked the battery seating in a preflight check. I guess the thing that makes me wander about the ST16 is because when watching the flight log data and other stuff on the device it freezes and has to restart. I guess that makes me believe it could be the controller. I guess the other thing is that my granddaughter still had visual on the drone in the air while the screen was frozen. It is just strange.

The video and control signals are completely different Control and telemetry are a much stronger signal than video. Since video is wifi there is more lag as the distance increases and the screen image will freeze when the signal gets weak. When that happens you still have complete control over the H.

If you sent Yuneec a zip file, you can upload that same file here and we can take a look and may be able to shed some light on the cause. If it's a csv file, then add a .txt to the end of the file and then it can be uploaded.

 

[Streetdoc77]

The video and control signals are completely different Control and telemetry are a much stronger signal than video. Since video is wifi there is more lag as the distance increases and the screen image will freeze when the signal gets weak. When that happens you still have complete control over the H.

If you sent Yuneec a zip file, you can upload that same file here and we can take a look and may be able to shed some light on the cause. If it's a csv file, then add a .txt to the end of the file and then it can be uploaded.

I will post the zip file soon as I get home from school today. I am very interested in what could have gone wrong. I can see how the video would lag or freeze at a further distance. I was bringing the craft back home and it was getting closer to me and at the furtherest point away from me the video acted fine. It also froze up on me when I was trying to watch the flight log data on it and made me reboot the flight log every time I tried to watch it. I had never watched a flight like that on the controller so that maybe perfectly normal I am not sure. I will get file up as soon as I can so some of you more experienced folks can take a look and see what you think. Also, how expensive are repairs to make on these machines?

Thanks so much Steve for your insight and willingness to help!!!!

 

[Streetdoc77]

Steve is this the file that you need.

 

[Ty Pilot]

Streetdoc, I had a chance to look at them and what I saw for most of the flight was normal. Others may want to take a look and confirm but here is what I see;

At 17:22 hours first lift off, battery at 16.4 volts no error flags, flight looks normal
At 17:24 hours, it looks like you RTH and landed possibly, as the volts go from 15.8 back to 16.0 , flight mode was switched from RTH to Angle and then lifted off again
At 17:30 hours the battery reached 15.4 volts at an altitude of 12 feet
At 17:32 hours the battery was at 15.2 volts and still hovering at 12 feet
At 17:33 hours the battery was still at 15.2 volts but you were beginning a climb and were at 20 feet
From there it looks like you pushed the altitude on up climbing as you were returning perhaps?
At 17:33:30 the battery was at 15.0 volts and you were at 35 feet and climbing
The last line of telemetry was at 17:34:38 hours 15.0 volts at 69 feet at an airspeed of 7.27 mph

Edit: Battery did not get to low battery warning

 

[Ty Pilot]

I just went back and looked at the telemetry again and most of the flight was between 8 and 17 feet or so until the climb; which at that point the altitude numbers were highlighted yellow as the maximum for the flight at 69 feet. The max speed for the flight was 8.56 MPH.

I looked up location for take-off, climb point and final telemetry location in Google Earth and I can post a picture if you like, it looks like the craft was 675 feet from launch point when the climb was initiated. It looks like the Typhoon loitered around this point for a moment then flew over a row of trees to a second field - some 572 feet away from the climb point - and approximately 1200 feet from take off point. Maybe someone here can put all of the Lat/Long data into a file and see what the total flight course looked like. While a quarter mile out is not too terribly far out in terms of video reception drop outs and freeze frames, I think this could explain the video transmission getting a week signal however.

 

[Steve Carr]

Steve is this the file that you need.

Could you also upload the remote_00010.csv file?
Thanks

 

[Streetdoc77]

Steve: i will upload that file as soon as possible.

TY: thank you for looking at the data for me. What is strange about that is that the st16 was showing the drone at a height of around 200 ft After i flew it over the tree line to look at my other field. I took it up prettt high to make sure i was over all the trees on that side. Please post the picture from google earth.

Also, i still haven’t heard anything back from Yuneec since i Sent them the telemetry files is that typical I’d love to get my drone repaired even if i have to pay for it.

 

[Steve Carr]

of around 200 ft

The telemetry altitude is in meters so yes, that is what it shows. You will need to call Yuneec. They aren't good about answering emails. It's best to call just as they open in the morning. If you get the option to leave a call back number, use it.

 

[Streetdoc77]

Thanks!! I will give them a call and see what they have figured out.

Is there a way to buy just the aircraft and use my controller batteries and everything else?

 

[Steve Carr]

Yes, I'll give you a link later today. Gotta go for now. Please upload the remote file.

 

[Ty Pilot]

The telemetry altitude is in meters so yes, that is what it shows. You will need to call Yuneec. They aren't good about answering emails. It's best to call just as they open in the morning. If you get the option to leave a call back number, use it.

I completely forgot that those figures are meters, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Ty Pilot]

StreetDoc,

Here is the image showing the locations referenced.

 

[Streetdoc77]

Here is the remote file you asked for Steve.

TY: If you look at the text you put in Last Telemetry Location and find the L in location I had the drone back to about the bottom of the L and the video image i was seeing was the green field where telemetry. Well actually I was seeing the trees because thats a creek between the trees and see part of the green field from the height I was at. Thats strange that the last telemetry was that far from where I had negotiated the craft back and where it crashed.

 

[Streetdoc77]

Oh and thank you both so much for helping me try to understand this.

 

[Streetdoc77]

Here is the remote GPS file as well I don't know which one you really needed.

 

[Steve Carr]

Here is the remote GPS file as well I don't know which one you really needed.

I have gone through the flight logs and I find no reason why the H shut down in mid-flight. The battery was at 15 v, the aircraft at 226 ft and traveling about 15 mph. There were no errors and everything looked normal to me. In particular I see no indication of any pilot error.

Call Yuneec and make sure they received your flight logs. I would guess they will want the whole system sent to a repair center.

 

[Streetdoc77]

Steve can you send me the link to where to buy just the aircraft.