[darkdave]

Today was a hot day and I noticed the barometer was acting a bit crazy causing the drone to over compensate (this is with PIDs already adjusted down to 20 ,20, 70 for 3 parameters that ar normally 100, 70, 80 to compensate for eratic barometers that we get from Revolutions made in China.). I also put some sticky tape over the left side the the flight controller to shield it from the sun. No holes were taped over so that the barometer will still work fine.

Later my GPS stopped working possibly because one of the wires got snagged by the props so I switched to Basic Complimentary Mode in System tab and uploaded the new setting to the drone and also made sure the Stability settings matched.

I set all my 3 flight modes to stability 2 which was set to axis locked for yaw and attitude for everything else and set it to altitude variation without GPS assist.

This last part I think was my mistake because I believe I should have set mode 1 to Throttle control in stead of altitude variation. I'll explain why later.

I flew the drone and for some reason while it started climbing I could not reduce the throttle(keep in mind we are in barometer altitude variation mode). I got the throttle as low as 3% and it still kept climbing up aggressively.

I throttled down to 0% and it started dropping then I throttled up again but the drone wouldnt power up again! It striked the ground Ironman1 style (when Tony escaped from the Cave and took off before crashing down like a meteor) and the battery exploded causing a plume of white smoke infront of the entire university while they watched from a distance (they were having a sports parade but they allowed me to fly my drone in the center of the round running 800m track). There was white smoke and the chemicals were eating away at the base of the drone.

I realize now that I should always have a normal Throttle setting indepedant of barometers because the barometers in libre/revo SUCK! I did a full sensor calibration lastnight. Put the drone in the fridge and did that thermal calibration too which btw in my opinion only made it more unstable barometer wise.

I have listed all my actions above. Did I miss anything? Was it just baromter error? Or did I do something else to inadvertedly cause the drone to try and climb to heaven?

Should I give up on Librepilot REVOLUTION STANDARD and move on to Librepilot NANO/MINI? Perhaps the barometer is better in the later?

David

[darkdave]

Photos attached

David

[f5soh]

Post your config file: File > Export UAV Settings

Edit:

I set all my 3 flight modes to stability 2 which was set to axis locked for yaw and attitude for everything else and set it to altitude variation without GPS assist.

Can you tell me how do you arm if all flightmodes are the same, and using AltitudeHold/Vario ?

Like explained here: https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/Altitude+Hold#AltitudeHold-Howtouse
You need to hover first using a normal flight mode and next switch to the flight mode using AltitudeHold/Vario.

If we add a safety feature that prevent arming while the flightmode uses AltitudeVario/Hold, there is a good reason.
Your crash is not related to a wrong baro but you simply ignored all warnings.
 

[darkdave]

I click on "Always Armed" to force arm. But Ive never had problems taking off with "altitude variation" until today. Ive done it plenty of times.

I cant take off on altitude hold thats impossible ofcourse.

This doesnt explain why I was able to take off normally and then the drone full throttles up and the throttle stays jammed in that position unless i apply zero throttle setting and it also doesnt explain why the drone would not engine on again after it dropped a few seconds. Its like a flame out in Top Gun.

[f5soh]

This doesnt explain why I was able to take off normally

You don't take off normally, you set the "Always Armed", ignoring the warning that prevent from arming while a Altitude/hold/Vario flight mode is engaged.

You can continue like that but please avoid flying close to people.
You are not in a virtual game, there is real props, battery fire and possible injuries to others around you.

[darkdave]

It's ok their just Chinese people, their used to injuries by accidents.

But you didnt explain why the drone decided to full throttle and when i cut the power and then applied throttle again it refused to power on.

[darkdave]

Another question:

Can Revolution be mounted upside down? In one of my QAV 250 that come with a cc3d the cc3d is mounted upside down. Will this also work with the revolution?

David

[f5soh]

Can Revolution be mounted upside down?

Why not ?

https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/Revo+Attitude+Configuration#RevoAttitudeConfiguration-VirtualAttituderotation

[darkdave]

Thanks for answering me even though Im posting new questions in an old thread.

So Ill reward you by asking another question in the same old thread 

How do I initialize my drone position on the GCS map in INS13 indoor mode?

I have finally wrecked my second and last GPS in my possession and want to fly without GPS but still have the drone show up on my GCS map using EKS to determine location based on inertia.

This way I am hoping to be able to still use:

1. Return to base
2. Return to home
3. Velocity roam
4. Position hold.

I am guessing I must set all above flight modes WITHOUT GPS ASSIST in the controller input settings?

But how do I set the initial coordinates on my GCS map without a GPS? Do I have to click on the map where I know I am(take off location) and do something else right after?

David

[f5soh]

https://librepilot.atlassian.net/wiki/display/LPDOC/Setting+Home+location

[darkdave]

Hi, Check the attached screenshot.

I did what you said except for setting up the altitude and geode because I still don't know how to do that yet so I set altitude/elevation = 0m on my home location.

I have 2 new questions:

1. Why does the drone icon seem to be drifting away from my home location like as if its really flying around in the sky when the flight board is just sitting on my hand above my table? Surely the accelerometers should be able to work out the inertia correctly and know that it's still in roughly the same location as the home location since im not running with it in my hand?

2. Why are there 2 drone icons? Usually I have to enable "diagnostics" to be able to see the drone icon at all and then there are two of them, one on the home location and another one representing the actual drone. This time the one that normally stays above home location has disappeared or drifted away. In my case it has reset to just below Nigeria at coordinates 0N 0E. Look at second screenshot.

3. Can you confirm that the above mentioned flight modes I mentioned in previous posts should be set WITHOUT GPS assist but will still work in this indoor mode?(although less accurately and for shorter flight times)

[f5soh]

You can simply assume you cannot do Poshold or Return to base without GPS

[darkdave]

You mean ignore INS13(Indoor) mode?

[darkdave]

Dave's list of unresolved clone issues:

1. Oplink radio link reception instability issues at range of about 107m
https://forum.librepilot.org/index.php?topic=1332.0

2. The above issue is made worst by the reconnection process which actually interrupts the failsafe of the drone by powering off the engines (stopping failsafe)causing a free fall that lasts 2 seconds (more if you have an arming sequence instead of "always armed"). This means its best to not reconnect if your drone has a return to base and land failsafe.

3. Arming: Sometimes works sometimes doesnt. I have now set my flight mode to stabalize with manual control of the throttle. So it's NOT because I have a GPS mode engaged. And yes I double checked that I was on mode one during the arming sequence.

UPDATE: I think this is just an issue of making sure all the lights are green in the FLIGHT DATA console. So if there is some stability issue need to rotate the flight board/drone to turn it green again.

4. Barometer is unstable and oscilates wildly even with the Altitude PIDs put to a sensible value (20,20,80 for QAV250 Chinese CLone instead of 100,70,90). There is a thread and wiki that explains how to pull out a certain component from the board but the boards I have came from a different supplier with a slightly different design.
https://forum.librepilot.org/index.php?topic=311.0

5a. Counter Intuitive System Settings:
Failsafe Throttle Settings: 1 = 100%. 0.1 = 10%. But in proper western English it should be 1 = 1% and 10 = 10%.

5b. Counter Intuitive System Settings Part 2:
Fail safe channel has a -1 offset. If you want to map your 3rd flight mode as a fail safe you have to set Fail Safe channel = 2. This is bad. We are not all programmers but as a programmer my self I know that the -1 offset is something that only programmers should have to deal with, not the consumer. To the consumer this is counter intuitive. The consumer should not be a programmer but be a software end user that can change settings INTUITIVELY.

5c. Counter Intuitive System Settings Part3:
Barometer Sensor in Systems->Settings->Object Objects->BaroSensor->Pressure = 99540 kPA

This should not have the "k". 99540 Pascals not kPA.


Conclusion:
We need a short list of good hardware suppliers in our wiki and forum(sticky points) so that people will know where to go to get non defective clones as all the original hardware products are discontinued. Version tracking only works if everyone sticks to the open source hardware schematics, unfortunately in China people have what we call in Australia: a "she'll be right attitude" about sticking to a rigid quality control routine.


UPDATE: I just added 5c. Developers please take note. Thanks.

[darkdave]

UPDATE: I just added 5c. Developers please take note. Thanks.