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Typhoon H - Newbie

Joined
Dec 27, 2016
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53
Location
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Good morning all. Hope everyone had a great Xmas!!

Mine has turned out to be a little bitter sweet. Started off great. Opened up my new Typhoon H drone on Christmas eve. Super excited. I am new to the drone world. Read through all the documentation that night. Made sure batteries were all fully charged and took it out the next day to test it out.

Took it up to the park with nobody around. Was a clear cool day. Few degrees above freezing. Started everything up. Followed directions in the instruction manual. Booted up the ground station first. Once it was up and running, powered on the drone. Everything seemed to connect as expected. Powered up the rotors. Again, wasn't planning on doing anything too exciting for first flight. Just wanted to see it up in the air and do a few manoeuvers.

As mentioned earlier, I new to the drone world. According to the user manual, Yuneec indicates new pilots may find it easier to start in 'smart' mode, but should switch and learn to fly in 'angle' mode as soon as possible. As such I started off in 'smart' mode.

I lifted off to maybe 8 feet in the air and hovered for a few seconds. I wanted to then try some basic manoeuverability (ie: left and right). The drone responded correctly to moving right, but did not respond correctly when trying to bring it back to the left. Instead it seemed to continue moving to the right. The drone was starting to drift. Which is when I seemed to make my fatal mistake.

Again, according to the manual, Yuneec says that the drone can be put into 'Home' mode and it will fly back to the pilot and land. Well that is what I tried. I flicked the switch to 'Home' mode. Did not touch any of the other controls. The drone promptly flew off to the left and crashed about 60 yards away in an open field. My inaugural flight lasted less than a minute. I didn't see the actual impact as there were some bushes that obscured my view.

Unfortunately, the drone came down pretty hard in the field. When it decided to fly away after being put in 'Home' mode, it took off pretty quick. Broke 5 of the 6 propellers, 3 of the six rotor arms and the right side landing gear. The camera was knocked off in the impact as well. Not sure if it has sustained damage?? It is off center stabilized (ie: it's not level). Not sure if it just needs to be recalibrated or not?? But it took a pretty good hit.

So I now have a very expensive broken drone. Now that I've finished crying : ) I have a couple questions I'm hoping people can weigh in on.

1) Although I am very much a newbie to the drone world, I am fairly tech-savvie. I don't believe I did anything wrong here. According to the Yuneec instruction guide, putting the drone in 'Home' mode should have made the drone fly back and land. Is it possible this was some kind of software or mechanical defect?? Do I have any options pursuing this with Yuneec?? I'm anticipating a fairly expensive and lengthy repair process. Which takes me to question #2.

2) What are my options for repair?? I believe I can send the drone in for repair directly to Yuneec. Suspect that may take awhile though as I would have to ship it back to them. Think they are in California. I am in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I suspect I could also order the parts and try to make the repairs myself. But I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable making the repairs?? If there is something actually defective mechanically with the drone, I wouldn't want to make the repairs only to have it fly away and crash on me again. Can send photos of the damage.

Can I get the repairs done by a third party (ie: does Yuneec have authorized repair shops anywhere else in the country, or better yet Canada)??

Thanks in advance for any feedback anyone can provide!!
 
Sorry to learn this but your were able to retrieve it, regardless of condition, which is a good thing.

Distance from the operator in Smart mode can be your enemy or your friend. That may will be applicable to RTH as well, but I'm not sure. If within about 30' of the H when activating RTH you might possibly encounter some issues since that's about as close as it is supposed to get and will do things to avoid coming closer. Same applies to Smart mode.

Yuneec is extremely good with customer service although your location presents issues with postal rates and time line. The Canadian Postal Service charges up the yang for anything that crosses the border. There may also be import restrictions regarding import of a drone for repair even though the purchase originated in the U.S. Not sure about this but it's something to think about.

Yuneec CS is out until the new year so the best you can do for the moment is step back a little and prepare. After the first give them a call and describe what happened. They will work out the best course of action with you. Between now and then register your H through Yuneec's website. You can also use the Yuneec site to send an e-mail to the customer support address. That might help establish a trouble ticket a little faster. Do that after registering the H. Yuneec does have other repair facilities. I know of one in Nevada that performs non warranty work but have not heard about a Canadian location. Warranty work typically gets handled at the Ontario, CA facility though.

Of great importance is not to change or mess with anything in the ST-16. It contains telemetry of the event Yuneec must review to service your warranty. Don't worry about accessing that now, wait until you are on a call or e-mail exchange with them and let them walk you through retrieving it.

One thing you can be assured, Yuneec WILL take care of you. Yuneec is actually great with handling problems quickly but I suspect the Christmas season and its associated sales volume will have some impact on that.
 
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Sorry to hear that your first experience was a crash. I'm sure it will get rectified.

Just curious, you said you followed the manual. Did you perform all of the calibrations? Compass, Accelerometer, and less importantly, gimbal? How many GPS satellites were locked before you took off?

Did you happen to check to see what version of Firmware you were on?

Once you get everything repaired and are ready to try again, I recommend that you lift off in Angle mode, not Smart mode because, frankly, Smart mode isn't safe if the drone is within the safety circle when you take off. It will want to flee to the outside of that circle. That's been the cause of some crashes. If you moved to the right and you were on the edge of the safety circle, that may explain why it wouldn't move to the left. In Smart mode, it will not cross the safety circle barrier.

Angle mode is actually very simple. As soon as you lift off, and then stop pushing up on the throttle, it will just sit there and hover. It is a very stable drone, even in winds. Then you can take your time practicing moving the drone around. Oh, and if you lift the landing gear, don't worry about accidentally landing without the landing gear down. It won't land, even in Angle mode. I just tried that a few days ago. I think it stops at about 3 feet above the ground, or there about. Once you put the landing gear back down, you will then be able to land.

Anyway, as PatR mentioned, your telemetry data will tell the story of what happened.

In the meantime, read through some of the posts in the forum and learn as much as you can during your down time.
 
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Hello everyone,
I am a drone newbie as well. The typhoon H is my first drone and it is awesome.
On Christmas Day I experienced the same issue as the O. P. Fortunately though, I didn't trust my own senses or the drones software so the drone crashed into a bush at only about 6 feet in my back yard. No damage done.
It did the same thing as the O.P. Described. It would not fly left. It barreled right in safe mode.

Since then, all of my flights until today were done in angle mode due to this. Then I tried the safe mode today and it worked like a charm. I wonder why this is? Anyways, here is a link to my second flight. I have refrained from sharp maneuvers and kept speed on tortoise until I get the hang of things. Will go to the local park tomorrow next to the *** to get some great Nor-Cal footage....
 
Hello everyone,
I am a drone newbie as well. The typhoon H is my first drone and it is awesome.
On Christmas Day I experienced the same issue as the O. P. Fortunately though, I didn't trust my own senses or the drones software so the drone crashed into a bush at only about 6 feet in my back yard. No damage done.
It did the same thing as the O.P. Described. It would not fly left. It barreled right in safe mode.

Since then, all of my flights until today were done in angle mode due to this. Then I tried the safe mode today and it worked like a charm. I wonder why this is? Anyways, here is a link to my second flight. I have refrained from sharp maneuvers and kept speed on tortoise until I get the hang of things. Will go to the local park tomorrow next to the *** to get some great Nor-Cal footage....

How close were you to the "H" when you tried it in your back yard?
 
I'll hazard a guess that RTH was activated within <30' of the ST-16. If so, the H will do what it can to position itself outside of that distance, with the direction unpredictable other than "away". My limited experience using RTH, from long distance, has the H landing inside of 30' by a considerable amount, making me guess the distance at RTH activation quite a bit less than 30'. I use 30' for round numbers. I think the Safe Circle distance is actually 28'. Safe Circle becomes active during RTH.

That's not well described in the manual referencing flight modes.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
That may only happen with OA is on. Two days ago, I was flying in Angle mode, the "H" was about 200' out and about 30' high. I switched it to RTH (OA off). The "H" turned towards me, then raised up to 75'...flew over to me, turned away from me and then descended. I switched back to Angle mode about 4' above the ground but had I let it land, it would have been only been about 6' from me.
 
That may only happen with OA is on. Two days ago, I was flying in Angle mode, the "H" was about 200' out and about 30' high. I switched it to RTH (OA off). The "H" turned towards me, then raised up to 75'...flew over to me, turned away from me and then descended. I switched back to Angle mode about 4' above the ground but had I let it land, it would have been only been about 6' from me.

In theory, RTH is using the St 16 as it's home point. My experience has been it comes down closer to you than the safe circle allows and is usually with in 6 to 8 feet of my location and it's typically in front of you. Once I thought I had a fly away post firmware update when I lost VLOS fiddling with ST. It was actually straight over my head and RTH confused me with the new turning to face to fly over and turning to face away to land. I saw all that spinning in the monitor and got panicked. I turned off RTH, tilted camera down to see myself and angle flew back to myself. I reviewed my footage post and realized it was over my head all along (lesson here - look straight up too - have a spotter!!!!) and behaving properly.

The next day I did a bunch of short flights, and performed RTH to observe the new method and set my RTH preferred height.
Next time I have to use it, I'm prepared to let it do its job first before I start hitting switches in panic because I'm not getting it's orientation.

Remember you can use RTH to get it back to you and then switch back to angle to take back piloting once you feel good about your reestablished VLOS.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
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Yes, it was straight over head in my case as well. I expected the behavior. My point was that it's not landing 30' feet away...which is fine by me.
 
Yes, it was straight over head in my case as well. I expected the behavior. My point was that it's not landing 30' feet away...which is fine by me.

Like Pat said, not well documented. It's always good to do an RTH post updates and calibrations to check accelerometer and GPS hold on position. It also makes for pretty smooth video for descending shots.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
Mine did the same when I enabled RTH from quite a distance, rose to my set altitude of 175' and returned to directly overhead. Directly overhead was well beyond the Safe Circle distance but as it descended it moved out in front of me and loaded well inside the Safe Circle distance. Enabling RTH while inside the Safe Circle bubble will create a conflict though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Mine did the same when I enabled RTH from quite a distance, rose to my set altitude of 175' and returned to directly overhead. Directly overhead was well beyond the Safe Circle distance but as it descended it moved out in front of me and loaded well inside the Safe Circle distance. Enabling RTH while inside the Safe Circle bubble will create a conflict though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Smart mode is tricky for sure... hated it with the 350 also. It's best use is in loss of visual direction and orientation. Once I was confused and flying away and not towards and a simple flip to smart mode makes stick direction you want (back now!) back in your control. Once you can see front direction again overhead, a simple flip back to angle and back to what you were going for. It's stated briefly in the manual but that's actually a very useful feature and better then panicking and hitting RTH in some cases.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
I was very close to the drone. Probably 5 feet.

So that's a problem if you take off in Smart Mode because the drone will immediately try to get outside of the safety circle (26') and if a bush is in the way, it's going to hit it. Angle mode is the safest way to take off in my opinion. Once you're up in the air and about 30' feet away then you can safely switch to Smart Mode.
 
Once again I'll suggest people read the documentation and watch the videos included with the H before trying to operate it. There is sooooo much information that is to easy to review if people just take the time to do it.
 
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It happens, some of us get too excited, and think "ahh a kid could fly this" .. in my first night with it.. I was just planning on calibrating, didn't finish reading the whole manual, and just thought I'd take it for a "test flight" too.. learned about the 30 circle fast.. lol Camera Gimbal fell off, however luckily local hobby shop fixed me up for like 8 bucks - for parts and soldering the cam wires.
 
Once again I'll suggest people read the documentation and watch the videos included with the H before trying to operate it. There is sooooo much information that is to easy to review if people just take the time to do it.
The funny thing is, my drone only came with a quick start manual and nothing else. I had to download the full manual.
I think I am getting the hang of it though. I use it in angle mode only.
 
Look on the SD card that came with your H. If you haven't already deleted everything off of it, what you needed to get started was there. All of them come with an SD card and that info.
 

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