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RTH & Spark went up like a rocket

DurhamPro

Active Member
Join
Dec 20, 2017
Messages
30
Age
60
Maybe someone has had this happen and can explain what went wrong. Just flying my Spark off my deck in the field behind my house. Took the drone out approx 200 feet away and 30-40 feet up. The drone is set to RTH at 20 meters, as I have never used RTH I thought I would give it a try. Initiated RTH and the drone went balistic, straight up I’m guessing 500 feet (it was just a little dot) before I could cancelled the RTH and bring the drone back to land safely on my deck.

When I checked the flight logs, they start at 0’ when I take off and then gain altitude as I would expect them to. When I took control of the drone to bring it back manually the altimeter was reading in negative numbers over -100 but it was 20 feet in the air. Somehow IMHO the Spark thought it was below its 20 meter rth height and went verticle like a rocket.

Could this be a calibration issue? I calibrated the imu and the compass the other day but have never experienced something like this.
 
Maybe someone has had this happen and can explain what went wrong. Just flying my Spark off my deck in the field behind my house. Took the drone out approx 200 feet away and 30-40 feet up. The drone is set to RTH at 20 meters, as I have never used RTH I thought I would give it a try. Initiated RTH and the drone went balistic, straight up I’m guessing 500 feet (it was just a little dot) before I could cancelled the RTH and bring the drone back to land safely on my deck.

When I checked the flight logs, they start at 0’ when I take off and then gain altitude as I would expect them to. When I took control of the drone to bring it back manually the altimeter was reading in negative numbers over -100 but it was 20 feet in the air. Somehow IMHO the Spark thought it was below its 20 meter rth height and went verticle like a rocket.

Could this be a calibration issue? I calibrated the imu and the compass the other day but have never experienced something like this.

When you calibrated "the other day" did you do so after being prompted by the GO4 app? Or, do you calibrate every few days/flights?
 
I try to calibrate it every few weeks, when I did it a couple of days ago it was because I hadn't for a couple of weeks. In between calibrating it and today I flew it for about a half hour yesterday and everything seemed fine.
 
Looking at todays log the IMU altitude and the VPS altitude both start a 0' when taking off but at landing the VPS reads -112' and IMU reads 0'
 
I try to calibrate it every few weeks, when I did it a couple of days ago it was because I hadn't for a couple of weeks. In between calibrating it and today I flew it for about a half hour yesterday and everything seemed fine.

Only calibrate if you are prompted to do so. That may be the issue. Try flying it around for a while (15 minutes, different flights) without letting it get too high or too far. Try the RTH again and see what happens.

Just remember...if RTH is pressed and the Spark is more than 100 meters from Home, it will NOT avoid obstacles.

If the Spark is less than 100m from home when RTH is pressed, obstacle avoidance will work.
 
Good info to know, I just assumed that when I travel around with the drone it needs to be calibrated at each different location. I will take her out for another try tomorrow and see how it goes.

I know it is not telling me to but should I attempt to recalibrate it before I try flying again?

I will be taking the spark to Iceland and then Scotland in a few weeks, do I need to calibrate for each country or each location I fly?

Thanks for your help.
 
Only calibrate if you are prompted to do so. That may be the issue. Try flying it around for a while (15 minutes, different flights) without letting it get too high or too far. Try the RTH again and see what happens.

Just remember...if RTH is pressed and the Spark is more than 100 meters from Home, it will NOT avoid obstacles.

If the Spark is less than 100m from home when RTH is pressed, obstacle avoidance will work.
I had not heard the RTH would not avoid obstaclesif you were over 100M out?
 
Looking at todays log the IMU altitude and the VPS altitude both start a 0' when taking off but at landing the VPS reads -112' and IMU reads 0'
Might it be due to a sudden increase of air pressure? Don't know whether these meteorological changes in air pressure can occur within the time span of 10 minutes though...
 

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