Sorry for this being so long, just want to make sure I have recorded all the details...
Just encountered my first real "panic" moment today while bringing my Solo in for a landing. I had been flying for about 10 minutes or so, at which point I had gotten the video I was shooting for, and decided it was time to bring Solo in... I usually do not rely on the auto landing feature, as I am a "control freak" and would rather land manually by bringing Solo down, touching down, then holding throttle down until Solo disarms. I was bringing Solo to the ground, and was approximately 2 feet from the ground when Solo decided to shoot up like a rocket. As soon as I realized Solo was doing the exact opposite of what I was telling it to, I attempted to hit "PAUSE" on the controller to stop Solo immediately, and Solo did not respond at all. I then realized that the lights on Solo had changed from the standard blue/red to all red and flashing as though the controller had disconnected, or was powered off. I looked down at the controller to realize that the controller appeared to be going thru it's standard "shutdown" process, of showing the Solo logo with the spinning icon, and shortly thereafter the Solo controller did in fact power off.
So from what I have been able to gather, the Solo was coming in for landing, and, at 2 feet from the ground, the Solo controller went into power off/shutdown mode, even though I did not have my finger on or anywhere near the controller power button. When the Solo detected it had lost connection with the controller due to the controller shutting down, the Solo initiated failsafe/RTH and shot up to approximately 40 feet or so, hovered there for a few seconds and finally decided to auto land, all while all 4 LED's on the Solo were blinking red...
Something to note is that I have the RTH altitude set within SOLEX to 200 feet, and this parameter should have been already set on the Solo, as any time I purposefully initiate RTH, the Solo acts as expected and rises to the 200 feet RTH altitude then return's to home.
I did notice after I powered back up the controller, to make sure it would power on and boot up as would be expected, the battery indicator showed that the Solo controller had roughly 15-20% battery remaining.
I have previously replaced the stock WiFi card in the Solo controller with the Mikrotik R11e-2HnD 800mw upgrade card, and have had no problems with this upgrade, and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 or so takeoff/landing flights since the WiFi card upgrade.
I am thinking that the battery may not have had enough charge remaining to effectively provide power to the controller and the controller automatically shutdown as a result. Does anyone know if the controller would go thru an "auto shutdown" process, if low charge/low voltage is detected from the controller battery, or would one expect that the controller would simply power off/lose power without any kind of warning?
This issue is strange in the sense that the controller was displaying the Solo Logo/Spinning Cursor shutdown process, as though I held down the Power Button like I normally do when powering off the controller.
Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this? or does anyone else have any idea what might have caused this? I have also read in a few other threads on here, and some people have had issues with the power button on the controller sticking and causing the controller to shut down ... this does not appear to be what happened with mine, as I have verified the button is not "sticky" or sticking in any way.
Just encountered my first real "panic" moment today while bringing my Solo in for a landing. I had been flying for about 10 minutes or so, at which point I had gotten the video I was shooting for, and decided it was time to bring Solo in... I usually do not rely on the auto landing feature, as I am a "control freak" and would rather land manually by bringing Solo down, touching down, then holding throttle down until Solo disarms. I was bringing Solo to the ground, and was approximately 2 feet from the ground when Solo decided to shoot up like a rocket. As soon as I realized Solo was doing the exact opposite of what I was telling it to, I attempted to hit "PAUSE" on the controller to stop Solo immediately, and Solo did not respond at all. I then realized that the lights on Solo had changed from the standard blue/red to all red and flashing as though the controller had disconnected, or was powered off. I looked down at the controller to realize that the controller appeared to be going thru it's standard "shutdown" process, of showing the Solo logo with the spinning icon, and shortly thereafter the Solo controller did in fact power off.
So from what I have been able to gather, the Solo was coming in for landing, and, at 2 feet from the ground, the Solo controller went into power off/shutdown mode, even though I did not have my finger on or anywhere near the controller power button. When the Solo detected it had lost connection with the controller due to the controller shutting down, the Solo initiated failsafe/RTH and shot up to approximately 40 feet or so, hovered there for a few seconds and finally decided to auto land, all while all 4 LED's on the Solo were blinking red...
Something to note is that I have the RTH altitude set within SOLEX to 200 feet, and this parameter should have been already set on the Solo, as any time I purposefully initiate RTH, the Solo acts as expected and rises to the 200 feet RTH altitude then return's to home.
I did notice after I powered back up the controller, to make sure it would power on and boot up as would be expected, the battery indicator showed that the Solo controller had roughly 15-20% battery remaining.
I have previously replaced the stock WiFi card in the Solo controller with the Mikrotik R11e-2HnD 800mw upgrade card, and have had no problems with this upgrade, and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 or so takeoff/landing flights since the WiFi card upgrade.
I am thinking that the battery may not have had enough charge remaining to effectively provide power to the controller and the controller automatically shutdown as a result. Does anyone know if the controller would go thru an "auto shutdown" process, if low charge/low voltage is detected from the controller battery, or would one expect that the controller would simply power off/lose power without any kind of warning?
This issue is strange in the sense that the controller was displaying the Solo Logo/Spinning Cursor shutdown process, as though I held down the Power Button like I normally do when powering off the controller.
Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this? or does anyone else have any idea what might have caused this? I have also read in a few other threads on here, and some people have had issues with the power button on the controller sticking and causing the controller to shut down ... this does not appear to be what happened with mine, as I have verified the button is not "sticky" or sticking in any way.