Hi,

GeoLink is saving the logs without any help of unit. So flight log will be saved as long as the module is powered.
Correction Gain will unfortunately not help. The module should stop always at the spot without any overshooting.

Could you try it right from the beginning of the flight? After minutes of flight, could you compare it again?
Isn't some other feature engaged at the same time?

If the model is returning always in the right direction then it mean that the compass is working well, but for some reason unit is not getting a data about where it is, otherwise it would stop.
It should already start with stopping before the point normally.

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Spirit System developer

Hi Tomas,
I tried flying again this evening intending to try what you suggested.

So I powered on the heli, spirit did it's swash plate thing, blue light on geolink starts to flash and within seconds is a solid blue.
I carry the heli to the spot I want to be the home position, wait 30 seconds or so. Select return home point on radio after 2 seconds the position is accepted. I switch to home position and I can see the swash plate stays level, moving very slightly in different directions.

I carry the heli back to my take off point, as soon as I lift off I select home position, the heli starts to go towards the home position slows down over home but then accelerates off and away quite quickly. It is heading for some trees some 70 metres away I panic try to take it out of return to home but unfortunately flick the swith too far into set home position, I have no control and it flys into the trees.

While I repair the heli could you have a look at my settings just to see if there is anything there that I'm missing?

Also please advise if position of geolink/cable okay?

Thanks

Hi,

thank you for all the details. I am very sorry to hear about the troubles and hope all will be fine soon.

From your description you have did everything well. The only thing that we can't be sure is the cable between GeoLink and Spirit unit. We will have to perform testing with longer cables near the motor/servos.

But the behavior is very strange.. Especially because there is protection which is detecting if the model is flying in the right direction. If direction is wrong for whatever reason it should stop the model and try to get all new data to find the right path, but obviously this not happened.
We will be testing with your settings and longer cables to verify what could be wrong.

The cable position could be rather further from servo and ideally further from motor. Unfortunately with the current Spirit mounting there are not too many other ways. I believe that this is not the problem.

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Spirit System developer

Hi Tomas,
I received your longer cable and decided to try my second geolink on my trex 700x. I tried to route the cable as far away from anything electrical as possible and have used tape to hold the cable in place.

I have found the return to home action very simular to my 600. Sometimes it comes home and sometimes it flys off.

When connected to the spirit settings software and the heli is stationary, the readings for X - parallel and Y - perpendicular are very unstable. Both varying all the time jumping from -2.2 up to 5 degrees and anything in between, is this normal?

I thought it might be because the output from the spm4649t was causing interference. I disconnected it but the readings still jumped around. I also lost proper control of the servos, I thought the additional receiver on the RUD channel would have taken over?

All the other features on the geolink work great by the way

Hi,

unfortunately no, it is not normal. The angles should be perfectly stable within 0.1° range. This is really strange.

If you wish I can provide you firmware that has many additional checks and it can tell us where the problem is in the Spirit flight log.
It has also protections to not use invalid data frames - even that they should not happen normally.
But it can make things OK.
My main concern is connection stability with GeoLink. But with this firmware we can find everything.

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Spirit System developer

Hi Tomas,
Thanks for your reply. I'm happy to try anything and it would be good to find out where the issue is.

One thing I did notice which might be interesting is that because the level readings were jumping all over the place I put a small metal spirit level on the geolink and the readings became much more stable?
Many thanks.

Hello,

since there is a possibility to forget to set the new home location when you moved to another field, could the gps-unit not give the option to acquire/set the new home-position on every power-up automatically?

E.g. the spirit-fbl would be ready to fly only after the gps is precise enough and has set the new home?

Best regards
Thomas

Just a quick update. I found that the cooling fan on the hobbywing ESC was causing the unstable level readings. Disconnected it and the readings were rock steady. Had 6, 6 minute flights today with roughly 30 return to home operations. It only went awol once

Thanks for the update!

You are right, in some cases people found out the same thing with HobbyWing ESC fan. After replacement to other or disconnecting it fixed all the problems.

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Spirit System developer