Humbled...

SchrodingersCar

SchrodingersCar

Member
Yeah I've been eyeing the Alta heavily now. It's a LITTLE light, but if it can really take a Red or Alexa mini well, than that should be good enough for now. I feel like the main reason DIY dominates heavy lifting market is because there haven't been any legit offerings until now. A system built and supported by a trustworthy company with warranties and customer service, a company that has the budget for proper testing and R&D rather than one guy tinkering is probably the better way to go for projects of this scale. The Alta seems pretty reasonably priced too... I just wish the Movi wasn't so damn pricy. Would it be sacrilege to slap a Gremsy on an Alta?

And word on the street the Synapse FC is revolutionary... but I have yet to see any real info on how it's better. Right now it sounds like it's probably another A2 style FC except with "smoother flight" or something else subjective. Hope it's more than that.
 

Pumpkinguy

Pumpkinguy

Member
The Alta looks awesome. The top mounting gimbal would be great for industrial inspection of things like bridges.
Price is not unreasonable either.
I gotta think if you put a million of these in the field, there will still be crashes.
As for crushing the competition, I doubt it. There will always be market for user serviceable rigs.
 

fltundra

fltundra

Member
stevemaller said:
Quite frankly this thread is a good illustration of why I've decided to invest in the ALTA from Freefly Systems. They're the only one who's building their own frame, motors, props, ESCs and flight control. About the only thing they're not building are the LiPos.

The buzz from those who have tested it is that their system is going to create a new standard in flight stability and reliability.

I have faith in Freefly, and the copter's fairly priced. It isn't a panacea, but it'll be perfect for me. If you're trying to lift 10-15lb camera packages, you're S.O.L. but for those of us who are flying DSLRs and REDs and the like on MōVIs, it's gonna crush the competition. And any DIY, too.
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I agree that looks like it will be a very nice platform.
 

fltundra

fltundra

Member
SchrodingersCar said:
And word on the street the Synapse FC is revolutionary... but I have yet to see any real info on how it's better. Right now it sounds like it's probably another A2 style FC except with "smoother flight" or something else subjective. Hope it's more than that.
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It's hard to beat the smoothness of the SuperX.
 

Motopreserve

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
I agree that "**** happens" is not the mentality we should be accepting - and I certainly didn't mean to imply that. But what I do believe is that so far, no one has built a rig that can guarantee that it will work without flaw. And therefore we need to accept that this possibility is real, and one we need to be willing, or unwilling to make - based on our own personal choices.

To your point, but to swing the analogy a bit. Passenger Airplanes crash. Not often, but it happens. It's a risk that we need to assess for ourselves, and determine whether it's acceptable. I personally still fly on commercial aircraft, but that's a decision I've made for myself.

With MRs, in order to fly in the current state of the industry, I just feel that at some point we need to give in to a trust in the technology. I am not going to be able to code my own FC. So despite buying the best motors, ESCs, frame etc that money has to offer - at the end of the day the damn thing is airborne based on a piece of gear I have no control over (other than proper calibration/setup).

So unfortunately, I feel that if our level of risk is set at 0%, the industry is not there yet (at least affordable). This tech is still in its infancy on the hobby, or even pro (non-military) level.
 

maxwelltub

maxwelltub

Member
Wow, stories like this is why I am always checking everything 3-4 times. This certainly blows a big one and seems like it was out of your control. I recently had a Naza 2 give me a weird compass calibration issue as well. I got a steady RED/ YELLOW on my LED indicator and I was flying near a lot of massive metal objects but I never use the compass anyway so I figured no big deal, always fly in ATTI or manual. Well it was flying along pretty well and then had two short freak outs about 45 seconds apart where I had no control and the aircraft made very hard banks. The second time the MR went inverted. It was a small gopro Y6 and I was able to recover both times and land. But really got me thinking about if this had happened on my big gryphon rig.
Are you under an exemption? were you able to file a claim with the insurance company?
 

T

tombrown1

Member
Wow - really sorry to hear this. I just had a crash that cost me a couple thousand dollars. The time and care put into the build are almost more frustrating than the $.

I've never trusted A2. Soooo many features on that thing that can go wrong. And most of them unnecessary. I've been flying WKM 5.16 for a few years now and don't think I'll be upgrading any time soon.

DJI has made some amazing products, but I don't really trust any of their offerings until they've been on the market scot-free for at least a year.

One thing I noticed about your build is that the GPS puck seems awfully low. Seems strange that you had all the successful flights though. Another thing could simply be a cord coming out while in flight. I always try to tape down as many connections as possible to prevent this.

I do think that DJI is now on the right track with their latest FC that uses visual ground cues for stability. GPS and magnets seem pretty inherently untrustworthy at the end of the day.


Again, sorry for your loss.
 

SchrodingersCar

SchrodingersCar

Member
I recently had a Naza 2 give me a weird compass calibration issue as well. I got a steady RED/ YELLOW on my LED indicator and I was flying near a lot of massive metal objects but I never use the compass anyway so I figured no big deal, always fly in ATTI or manual. Well it was flying along pretty well and then had two short freak outs about 45 seconds apart where I had no control and the aircraft made very hard banks. The second time the MR went inverted.
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That sounds similar to what happened to me. Very hard banking, like it was trying to turn itself upside down. In ATTI mode. Unfortunately I was effectively in a death-star trench like area so it found the wall fast. Maybe it could have recovered if I was able to climb out more. I'm baffled why a bad compass would cause this behavior though?
 


maxwelltub

maxwelltub

Member
Ya I posted in the forum earlier this week about the issue and no one seems to have any response. The moral of the story is, if you get the Steady Red Yellow LED, do not fly in that location. Not sure if its RF or magnetic interference or something else. I brought my spectrum analyzer out that day, but it wasn't with me at that LZ. So I can't tell for sure.
 

dazzab

dazzab

Member
SchrodingersCar said:
If you had been learning to fly an actual helicopter for example, and had a huge crash where you barely escaped with your life, where the cause was vague - and there was a chance that it may have happened because "helicopters just do that sometimes" - would you ever willingly get in a chopper again?
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That's a perfect analogy. I think everyone ignores the elephant in the room when it comes to this business. We all brush these incidents off until it happens to us. Then we start asking the hard questions.
Unfortunately we don't have the hard data we need to determine what is going on. We really need proper analysis and forensics of systems that crash like this. For now, and until someone proves me wrong, my belief is that the flight controller code has bugs in it that can under certain circumstances crash. Until DJI opens up their code for peer review I will never consider it safe.
 

F

fengshuidrone

Guest
Maybe there was a geomagnetic storm or a solar flare that day. Did you check? My advice to you is drop those overpriced DJI FC things. Buy yourself some carbon fiber sheets and tubes then figure out a design that will do what you need. Go get yourself a Multiwii FC, learn to set it up in Arduino. They can do up to 8 motors. the basic all in one board goes for $32.00. My Multiwii quad flies all by itself in mission. I still have to make sure that there is no geomagnetic or solar flaring before I use GPS. The more you know about your quad, the better pilot you will be. Building your own.....you should know it inside and out that way.
 


Old Man

Old Man

Active Member
Not to establish a new battlefield, but there's no reason a $1,200 "professional" FC should, from product release to the present, repeatedly generate control loss in the same manner, without it being addressed by the manufacturer.
 

Motopreserve

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
+1. But I would amend that to say that even an FC that costs far less STILL should not lack support and issues being addressed. :)
 


maxwelltub

maxwelltub

Member
I agree with this, but let's also take a step back and look at this objectively. DJI is by far the most used, there primary market is consumer phantoms. Just by the number of users there will be more reported FC failures. It's a sensitive piece of hardware and failures, many of them pilot error are inevitable. Companies should have a way better system of dealing with issues but it's got to be very hard for them to tell the difference between user error and hardware errors. There is a real gap in the market for a real pro FC company to step in. I think standard black box should be in all pro flight controllers. Something that manufactures could actually use to give support.
 

Motopreserve

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
maxwelltub said:
I agree with this, but let's also take a step back and look at this objectively. DJI is by far the most used, there primary market is consumer phantoms. Just by the number of users there will be more reported FC failures. It's a sensitive piece of hardware and failures, many of them pilot error are inevitable. Companies should have a way better system of dealing with issues but it's got to be very hard for them to tell the difference between user error and hardware errors. There is a real gap in the market for a real pro FC company to step in. I think standard black box should be in all pro flight controllers. Something that manufactures could actually use to give support.
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This is of course true - but it does not change the fact that they have some of the wort customer service on the planet. Regardless of the cause, it would be nice to see a company address certain aspects of their products - even if it's to say, "no, that crash was caused by the user..." The fact that they sell more product that any other company in the market could also lend itself to the assumption that they have the ability to pay people to provide better service :)
 



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