First flight after switching to NAZA mode didn't go well

[Werz]

Interesting. I have never flown in Phantom mode. I read these forums before I bought my Phantom, and I was convinced that I needed to start out in NAZA mode, so I did.

That said, I almost always fly in GPS mode, with an occasional use of Course Lock.

 

[lsteigerwalt]

Did you do the compass dance after you recalibrated your imu that you talked about doing?

Phantom Mode - Only GPS
Naza Mode S1 up - GPS
s1 mid - Atti
S1 low - failsafe/manual
There is physically no difference between phantom mode and naza mode if s1 is up...so it cant be naza mode causing the issue.

 

[Sasquatch]

Did you do the compass dance after you recalibrated your imu that you talked about doing?

No, I didn't do this. I didn't think I had to, could that be why? I've flown at this location before and it's only about 6 miles from my house. The app didn't say that I needed to recalibrate either.

 

[lsteigerwalt]

Im just thinking...outside the box...since you redid the imu calibration I would have recalibrated the compass just to be on the safe side by doing the compass dance....try that and see if it makes a difference. And dont be scared of Naza mode...like I said GPS and Phantom are identical and this way you can trigger rth without shutiting off your controler...yikes!!!...and once you get the hang of ATTI you wont wanna use anything else unless your flying tight spaces and needing gps...makes for some really smooth videos.

 

[Sasquatch]

I think I may have found something. At the very bottom of the main Phantom assist software it says Mode: GPS atti. What does that mean? HOWEVER, the S1 switch is still in the top position.

 

[lsteigerwalt]

And just another suggestion...go to tmart.com or similar and pick up a cheap quadcopter like the airbus for $20 something dollars that you can fly in manual around the living room to get your confidence up quicker. Can even fly on rainy days inside My 12 year old and I both have them and they take alot of focus to keep up and flying decent at first. Now we have the flipping and rolling...pretty nice little machines and make flying the big bird that much nicer and smoother.

 

[lsteigerwalt]

I dont have my bird here to hookup and check..she is in the shop...go to the screen that shows the switch settings and flip the switches to see it change modes from GPS/ATTI/FAILSAFE if that is the way you have it set. But even in ATTI mode it would not be fighting you..would just drift with the wind like a kite with no string holding it back...

 

[bergenfelter]

I think the question about compass cali - was if you did a field cali - flip S1 up down 5 times rapidly and do the two rotations with the bird outdoors where you are going to be flying - not the phantom assistant cali. You definitely need to do a field cali after switching to NAZA.

 

[Sasquatch]

The switches are working Top: GPS, middle: Atti and bottom is failsafe. I just don't know why it says mode: GPS atti in the software at the bottom. I never noticed this before to know if that is what it always said or should say.

 

[Sasquatch]

I think the question about compass cali - was if you did a field cali - flip S1 up down 5 times rapidly and do the two rotations with the bird outdoors where you are going to be flying - not the phantom assistant cali. You definitely need to do a field cali after switching to NAZA.

I didn't do a field calibration since switching over to NAZA mode, only in the assistant software. If this is an explanation, I can deal with that and hopefully it will solve this problem. I just want to make sure there is a consensus that this is likely the reason my bird went wonky tonight.

Thanks

EDIT: I just checked the phantom assistant again and the 'Check IMU status' button is greyed out, it's not allowing me to check it.

 

[JWarren]

FWIW my first question was in regards to a field calibration and I thought you HAD done that. Sounded a lot like the toilet bowl effect to me.

 

[Sasquatch]

FWIW my first question was in regards to a field calibration and I thought you HAD done that. Sounded a lot like the toilet bowl effect to me.

Thanks and sorry if there was any confusion or lack of clarity on my part. No field calibration was done prior to my flight tonight. I have some video from my flight tonight that I'll post. I don't know if it will help or not, but you can see where things started to go wrong and I panicked.

 

[mfp]

I wonder if I should have switched now myself, everything was working great before and I had no issues whatsoever. Do you know if I can switch back to Phantom mode?

Thanks Jwarren for trying to help me, I appreciate it and glad too I got my bird back on the ground. All of this happened in the course of about 12 minutes and I had hoped this would have been a good flight tonight. Weather was perfect, nobody around and brought both my batteries for a good long bit of flying.

Yes you can switch back. Just click the NAZA button and it will go back to Phantom.

 

[Sasquatch]

Here's some of the video from my strange flight. At the 15 second mark she starts to fly on her own and fairly fast. You can see me start to worry and I did panic when it happened. I was trying to make sure my orientation was right and that she wasn't going to fly out over the street and possibly hit something. All the actions after are me trying to get control again and prevent her from crashing.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9E5fgGQd6s[/youtube]

Ok, thanks MFP. I would like to get to the bottom of this before I do switch back however.

 

[srandall25]

altitude is your friend.. don't panic.. throttle up with left stick.. give yourself some altitude to get her back home... if you lose orientation, use your telemetry on your FPV to aid in getting it back home... practice flying ATTI on a calm day and don't forget that you can lose altitude in ATTI so be prepared to left stick up...

 

[Sasquatch]

altitude is your friend.. don't panic.. throttle up with left stick.. give yourself some altitude to get her back home... if you lose orientation, use your telemetry on your FPV to aid in getting it back home... practice flying ATTI on a calm day and don't forget that you can lose altitude in ATTI so be prepared to left stick up...

Thank you for your comments, srandall.

The phrase, "altitude is your friend" is something that is etched in my mind from early on and after reading it many times by several members here on this forum. I really do believe however had I been up too high, I would have lost my bird. I'm still learning and not really confident having less than 10 flights under me. Everything happened so quickly and unexpectedly that I didn't have time to use the telemetry, I was focused on the bird itself and trying to regain proper control.

From what I have read so far, I was under the impression that ATTI mode keeps the bird more or less at a fixed height - like GPS mode. This wasn't the case with this flight and she was not holding height (at times) anywhere from what I've come to expect from GPS mode. My video shows how she was all over the place. I wasn't playing around or doing strange maneuvers in that clip, it was the bird behaving very oddly and more or less out of control.

Thanks too Isteigerwalt for your suggestion for me to get a smaller and more expendable quad to practice with. I feel I've done pretty well with my phantom and of course still learning every day, but I don't think I need to buy a smaller copter to practice with. If you've read my posts or seen any of my videos, I'm a very tame and cautious flyer. She's only ever been about 70 feet up and maybe 300 feet distance away from me.

 

[TeeJayN]

Here's some of the video from my strange flight. At the 15 second mark she starts to fly on her own and fairly fast. You can see me start to worry and I did panic when it happened. I was trying to make sure my orientation was right and that she wasn't going to fly out over the street and possibly hit something. All the actions after are me trying to get control again and prevent her from crashing.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9E5fgGQd6s[/youtube]

Ok, thanks MFP. I would like to get to the bottom of this before I do switch back however.

Ignoring your yaw movements, it is flying in a big circle, classic Toilet Bowl Effect indicative of a compass issue. I'd recalibrate the compass with the 2 step dance and then check that the compass readings in the Assistant Software are within the stated limits (Tools > mouse hover over the question mark circle) .

 

[Soulnet]

Just on the compass calibration do people turn themselves around with the bird (think of a spinning ice skater) or do an exotic arm over arm to turn the bird around?

 

[Sasquatch]

Thank you very much for your input, TeeJayN!

I think you are right! I hadn't noticed it at the time, or even in the video itself but, it does seem like the bird is flying in a circle! JWarren also said it sounded like TBE.

Before my next flight I will calibrate the compass manually, then check with the assistant software. Not sure if anyone saw my previous post however about the IMU, but, the button is greyed out now and I'm not able to do a basic calibration. :?

Just on the compass calibration do people turn themselves around with the bird (think of a spinning ice skater) or do an exotic arm over arm to turn the bird around?

From what I've read, you can do either for the manual (in field) compass calibration. When I've done it, I used my hands rather than my whole body.

 

[Double-D]

Looking at your video it is definitely flying in circles. My money is on compass needs calibrating.
Glad you didn't crash and you got your bird down safely.

Re the greyed out cal button. mine does this at times. I find restarting the software, occasionally numerous times, and/or repositioning my bird fixes it.