Hi Everyone,

I'm desperately looking for some help with issues I'm seeing with GeoLink. I've had a lot of problems which has lead to 2 crashes and 1 fly away.

Last weekend, I was flying my ALZRC 380. I engaged altitude limit and it appeared to work fine for most of the flight. Shortly after takeoff I tested RTH and it appeared to work fine as well. I flew around for a while and at one point, I lost orientation and engaged RTH again. Instead of flying back to the home position, it began flying away from me at a relatively high rate of speed. When I realized what was happening, I disengaged all GeoLink features and tried to turn it around, but it continued on flying away from me. I was never able to regain control and it flew off into the wild blue yonder never to be seen again. I searched on foot and from the car and never found it. By the way, I didn't get any RSSI alerts from the radio until the heli was well out of sight so I'm pretty confident that the heli was receiving my commands when I was trying to turn it around.

Today, I was flying my ALZRC 505. This time, I had both GeoFence (trying to avoid another fly away) and altitude limit engaged for most of the flight. For the first 5 minutes, everything worked as expected. Towards the end of the flight, I flew over my landing zone and engaged the auto landing feature. I also had disengaged altitude limit. Instead of landing, the heli began flying away from me as it also gained altitude. I released the auto landing feature to try and regain control. At this point I reengaged the altitude limit feature because the heli continued to gain altitude. It didn't help. I disengaged all GeoLink feature, but the heli continued to climb (I had the collective full down). According to the logs, the heli climbed to an altitude of over 500 feet. The only thing I could think of trying was to engage the throttle hold which I did. That worked and the heli cut power and began plummeting towards the ground. I disengaged the throttle hold and at the last minute the heli regained power and began to climb again. But the same thing happened. With all of the GeoLink features disabled, it began climbing, again with the collective full down. Again, the only thing I could do was engage the throttle hold, but this time, it didn't regain power in time and it hit hard skids down. Luckily, I had relatively minor damage. Again, no RSSI alerts during the entire flight.

I've been flying RC for over 40 years and flying heli's for over 15. While I'm by no means a great pilot, I do know how things work. All of the GeoLinks I own (4 of them... well, after last weekend, only 3 now ) were carefully calibrated while they were unmounted from the heli. I've mounted them as far away as possible from any sources of interference. I've checked and double checked the programing on the radio. Nothing seems to help. Everytime I fly with a GeoLink engaged, strange and sometimes terrifying things happen. At this point, I don't know what else I can try. Unfortunately, I've gotten to the point of giving up on them. I had such high hope for them, but they continue to disappoint.

I've attached the logs from today's flight. Obviously, I don't have the one from last weekend. There is an obvious GeoLink disconnect at 4:20. Unclear why this happened. The cable connecting the Spirit and GeoLink is perfect. I engaged the auto landing feature around the 5:00 mark. You can see the heli climbs rather rapidly to over 500 feet while all GeoLink features are disabled.

A couple of questions for everyone. It seems like the weak link in this setup might be the cable between the GeoLink and the Spirit. Would a more robust cable help? Something with shielding maybe? Also, I'm using the onboard governor. Is it possible that we're asking too much of the Spirit? Has anyone had any success moving the governor to the ESC?

Thanks for reading. Any ideas of what I can try, please let me know.

That´s sad to hear. Viewing the log makes me think, that probably you´ve got hit by electrostatic discharge. Having a Gob 380 myself, I´ve had problems with Geolink until I grounded the heli. Have you tried running the helis without blades looking for bad log entries?

I have had a couple of similar incidents with different heli's both with geolink ( total loss of control ) and still have no idea what caused it ,

Hello,

it is very sad you are having so much troubles.

From your description it look like the moment you have engaged the GeoLink feature the model stopped to be responsive to any command from your radio. Am I right?
If you will turn off a GeoLink feature you must immediately regain full control. If this is not the case then the Spirit unit is not operating anymore and some serious problem ocurred.

During a fast maneuver when servos are changing position quickly it could cause high current spike and there is possibility the unit is lacking enough power/voltage. From this period the outcome could be unexpected. This scenario can for example happen especially during Rescue maneuvers or similar.

Could you please perform BEC test to verify that the BEC is suitable? On both models.
You can do so in the Diagnostic tab with blades on - unfolded - in flight condition.

Please send description of your models, especially ESC and servos. This would be very helpful to at least estimate probability of this scenario.

Does it mean that the Spirit flight Log was downloaded directly after a flight? Without battery being disconnected. This is very important to know, since if battery is disconnected then the log is not from actual flight but from bench testing.

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Spirit System developer

I’ve had the exact same experience twice now.

Both times I followed every available instruction and setup procedure to the letter, and the geolink worked AMAZINGLY WELL for several flights before failing horribly all at once. The last mishap shot my Heli off in a random direction and ended up coming down in the middle of a busy street a quarter mile from my flying field. I recognize how disastrous that could have been and from now on have my finger on throttle hold whenever flying with the geolink just in case it decides to make a run for it. It’s a shame but I now feel like I devote almost as much mental energy to monitoring the geolink as I do flying... which kind of defeats the purpose of the damn thing.

Currently I have only one geolink in service and two sitting in my spare parts bin. I periodically fly the enabled model (a very old x3 that I dont mind crashing) and will continue to test out new versions of the firmware to try and build up my confidence in the unit.


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Hi, maybe this answer might seem silly and out of place, I had problems with my spektrum sat and dx8 gen2 Radio on old trex 250.
I thought of everything, electrostatic charges,servos that required much energy at esc
(changed regulator, done load tests)
(all the equipment was new, servos (ds92) esc HW 40 amp, radio and rx) in practice in the past if you do not also update the bootloader with each version update of the unit, I found myself with the signal lost and with brown out.l heli went crazy.I did 3 crashes all for radio signal loss when I update the boot loader every time i update the unit problems disappeared.

In the manual of the spirit there is written that with the rx 4649t spektrum, we must also update the bootloader otherwise it could go into autobind the rx.this happened also with the sat.(not only with the spm4649)


I hope someone can use this experience of mine

Unfortunately a proper operation is based on a multiple things.
First is correct function of Rescue and Stabilisation modes. Then compass calibration should be performed and also good placement.
If these are not working properly nor GeoLink can work.
So if you have not experience with Spirit units or you are beginner it is better to not try everything from the start but make sure it is all working step by step.

Bootloader reflash is required only once then there is no benefit as this changed long time ago. If the SPM4649T is not flashing during powerup then it is not needed basically.

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Spirit System developer

I have not grounded any of my belted heli's. I read an article that said you can eliminate most of the static buildup by simply applying some grease to the belt. What method did you use? Thanks!

I wanted to buy one, but feeling these things now ... I think about it a little bit


I hope at least in a solution of the case. I really believe in Spirit, it would be a shame not to find a solution