Buyers remorse? Frustrated.

[CrashMan]

It should be capable of operating inside the cockpit, I drove almost the entire length of Valley of the Gods using the beacon from inside my Tacoma, worked like a charm. If this were me, I'd connect the beacon to the drone, then connect the phone to the beacon (my usual method in that order) allow the gps to sync, as soon as it become ready tell it to take off, I watch to ensure it's tracking me, if not I check to see it's on a tracking mode (beacon screen) and wand it some with the blue button if it isn't. I clear the screen on my phone and stick it in my pocket at that time, not touching it for the rest of the flight. At this point I've not used the phone at all except to speed up the gps sync.

This has worked solid for me for a couple years but on the most recent flight I've see some weird behavior just after launching, it's like the drone was tracking something about 50 yards away, moving along with me but offset 50 yards. Landed, powered everything down (Drone/Beacon) restarted and all was good.

When flying the first few min makes all the difference, if it starts out bad like wierd behavior you saw pull it back and start over, cut your losses rather then wasting battery trying to get it working properly. I don't think at that point you can w/o power cycling the drone. That's what happened to me, I couldn't fix the issue using the phone or beacon but restarting it did correct the problem. Shouldn't have to do that and I never have had to do that before but the most recent updates and I suspect the software in the 2+ likely similar, this seems to be a newly created problem with the beacon and phone being used.

One test I'd make is connect the beacon to the drone, then connect the tablet to the beacon, (in that order) allow the gps to sync, when it's ready to launch, disconnect the phone from the beacon taking the phone/tablet out of the equation all together. Wand it around a little to make sure it's locked on and give it a try at tracking you.

It's good to get out in an open area, bring all your batteries and try some different things, much less likely to have an issue with nothing around to interfere. My current drone is new and not allot of flying on it but I'm convinced these get better at tracking you the more you use that function. I know, weird. I won't go as far as to call it learning but my theory is there's a table it's using that gets populated with data it uses on future flights. My last SD2 didn't do so well right at first but got progressively better the more I flew it, after having it for a year it became super rare for it to misbehave at all, almost never. Then the big update and it was like starting over, after a few problematic flights it got much better at tracking me and not loosing it's signal. It fell out of the sky for an unknown reason and skydio gave me another. The new one had some issues like I described above but it's doing allot better, unfortunately it's cold here and I've not flown much with the new drone. It's not the plus version though.

I actually did try that on my last test. Once in the rig the drone went into headless chicken mode and off and about,lol....

 

[Ridefreak]

Does that have a high energy ignition, like a MSD? Was any of the testing just you out in an open are wo the vehicle. Just asking because it might be a way to eliminate possible causes.

 

[CrashMan]

Does that have a high energy ignition, like a MSD? Was any of the testing just you out in an open are wo the vehicle. Just asking because it might be a way to eliminate possible causes.

Except for the tune its a bone stock 4.3 Vortec..... I had MSD and a bunch of other stuff on my old rig--built this with simplification in mind...

 

[Ridefreak]

I've watched the behavior of the SD2 for a pretty long time and lately with some of what I've read here and seen myself it seems like sometimes the GPS data get's skewed, when that happens it seems to be right from the start and doesn't get better that flight. Based on your earlier vid it looked like it worked pretty well that time. I've had the same situation lately. Works or it doesn't and when it didn't the drone obviously was off on where it thought it was In the case of the headless chicken that could be the result of the similar situation. I've gotten the headless chicken a couple times over the last couple years and didn't remember it until thinking of your situation. In those occurrences it was in the middle of a flight. It just flew along with the camera kinda weaving up and down slowly and it obviously wasn't tracking me or looking at me. Those didn't last long and all except for one it relocked on to me on it's own. The one time I was able to fix it myself was to tell it (with the blue button) to move, the wanding caused it to relock on to me. Actually I correct more then a couple anomalies that way. Locked on to another subject and lost connection at times I can see the drone.

 

[VEGASROBBI]

I had several hundred flights on my S2 with no problem until a few software updates ago. I fly from in the cab of a vehicle using an iPad, never had a problem.

Today I tried to fly with the beacon and iPad and couldn't get very far with constant GPS tracking, disconnects and wandering the landscape like a vagrant. Disconnected the iPad and went beacon only and everything worked as it should.

Eagerly awaiting the new software.

 

[CrashMan]

Well it seams my old Galaxy S7 can't run the app....

 

[CrashMan]

Many will recognize this style of beacon mount. Showed up today just in time for testing tommorow..

There was also a new update so will see how that goes,lol....

 

[CrashMan]

Went out today with high hopes. Beacon on the roof and phone linked inside... Had a hard time getting the drone at first to recognize what I wanted. This was the first time I saw the car icon though and tapped that every rime.
Started to follow and slowly lagged off and lost me... Did this a number of times. One downside I found with the beacon on the roof was it was rather difficult to control the drone once it went chicken little compared to the phone...

Another test I just used the phone. Had no issues locating my rig but numerous times it lost my rig--like when it was looking at it roughly 10 feet away..

My Mavic pro 2 that is supposed to be inferior to this drone does better tracking when direct line of sight.....


ugh...

 

[VEGASROBBI]

I've always had the beacon in the cab with no issues. I had high hopes for the new software too.

I have a Mavic Zoom 2 and there is no comparison when the S2 is working properly; unfortunately mine hasn't for two versions of the software. I'll try the new software soon.

 

[ETdronehome]

Went out today with high hopes. Beacon on the roof and phone linked inside... Had a hard time getting the drone at first to recognize what I wanted. This was the first time I saw the car icon though and tapped that every rime.
Started to follow and slowly lagged off and lost me... Did this a number of times. One downside I found with the beacon on the roof was it was rather difficult to control the drone once it went chicken little compared to the phone...

Another test I just used the phone. Had no issues locating my rig but numerous times it lost my rig--like when it was looking at it roughly 10 feet away..

My Mavic pro 2 that is supposed to be inferior to this drone does better tracking when direct line of sight.....


ugh...

I can feel your frustration.

Just a suggestion to try to trouble shoot. Take your beacon and phone in another vehicle to someplace wide open and see if it will track properly.

 

[CrashMan]

I can feel your frustration.

Just a suggestion to try to trouble shoot. Take your beacon and phone in another vehicle to someplace wide open and see if it will track properly.

I was actually thinking of trying that next... The part that really aggravates me is I can walk down the very same path and the drones ability to follow me is just awesome..

 

[ETdronehome]

I was actually thinking of trying that next... The part that really aggravates me is I can walk down the very same path and the drones ability to follow me is just awesome..

Maybe you could strap snowboard bindings on the roof of the crawler you hook in up there and get some else to drive!!!

Sorry about the feeble attempt at humour.

I saw in the video you posted that it tracked you walking so logic would say in that area there isn’t any environment issues ( like big iron deposit or something) and the Skydio gear was working. Puzzling for sure!

If your alternate vehicle test shows that it tracks properly you at least will have reduced the variables.

The only other “testing” thought I had was to drape a really high contrast blanket or tarp over the roof of the crawler so the visual lock might improve.

 

[CrashMan]

Maybe you could strap snowboard bindings on the roof of the crawler you hook in up there and get some else to drive!!!

Sorry about the feeble attempt at humour.

I saw in the video you posted that it tracked you walking so logic would say in that area there isn’t any environment issues ( like big iron deposit or something) and the Skydio gear was working. Puzzling for sure!

If your alternate vehicle test shows that it tracks properly you at least will have reduced the variables.

The only other “testing” thought I had was to drape a really high contrast blanket or tarp over the roof of the crawler so the visual lock might improve.

No worries--I laughed (Despite frustrations my humor is always on,lol)..

So one thing after your prior post I was going to say if I had to paint the roof a different color I would lol... Of course a good test would be to strap a color blanket on the roof and see what happens...... Maybe it doesn't like the blue? Worth another test option...

 

[ETdronehome]

No worries--I laughed (Despite frustrations my humor is always on,lol)..

So one thing after your prior post I was going to say if I had to paint the roof a different color I would lol... Of course a good test would be to strap a color blanket on the roof and see what happens...... Maybe it doesn't like the blue? Worth another test option...

Thanks about the joke. I was kinda hoping you would consider that and ask me to drive!!!

Hang in there you will get it sorted.

Your property is amazing and WHEN you get the drone working it will be fun to incorporate the footage into your videos.