Help... Frustrated... IRIS+ :-(

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1

I am pretty frustrated and plan to call 3DR on Monday but I thought if I posted this to the forum maybe someone can help before then and I could be airborne this weekend… So I have flown R/C Helicopters for years and decided to buy an IRIS+ this last week. I took it out of the box and there was a yellow paper saying to update the firmware, so I downloaded the latest Mission Planner software (v. 1.3.19) and updated the firmware per the instructions. The firmware updated successfully to ArduCopter v.3.2.1 (36b405fb). After updating the firmware it said that I should recalibrate the compass so I ran ‘Initial Setup’->’Wizard’ and walked through all the steps successfully. So I took the copter out and spun it up. I slowly came up with the throttle because I did not know how quickly it would lift off (btw I was in AltHold mode, designated on the IRIS+ controller as STD) I let the rotors spin for a few seconds just below half throttle where it looks liked the IRIS was getting light on its feet. I then gently progressed past half stick and the IRIS immediately did a back flip onto the ground. I never even looked like it lifted off the ground it happened so quickly. I was so upset! My brand new IRIS+ now had scratches all over it and the props had scratches and groves but did not break. While it laid on its back the props kept spinning so I immediately disarmed and took it back to the bench. I then performed the Initial Setup Wizard all over again thinking a setting was wrong or it did not take. I took it out and the copter did the EXACT same thing again! I then started going through all the troubleshooting guide on 3DR website and recalibrated the ESC, compass and accelerometer again. I also ran a Radio Calibration and calibrated the radio. At this point I noticed something suspicious about the Transmitter, the pitch appeared reversed, when moving the stick all the way up the pitch value went to 998 and all the way down it went to 1507. It appeared the channel was reversed so I checked the ArduPilot documentation here: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/initia … io_control and it says in bold letters “If the bars go in the opposite direction of the direction you’re moving the sticks, that means that the channel is reversed on your RC transmitter side.”. Well, I know I did not set up the transmitter (The IRIS+ came RTF) so I was not going to mess with the TX config. because I assume 3DR set it up correctly and maybe that statement applied to other copters other than the IRIS+. I also noticed when going through the channels that on the calibration screen that Channel 5 seemed to be attached to boy the mode switch and the RTL switch on the transmitter. For instance, the values for Radio 5 changed as follows: RTL (STD) was 1146, RTL (LTR) was 1326, RTL (AUTO) was 1430, RTL OFF switch on was 1863. Is this correct? shouldn’t those switches on the transmitter be two different channels? Channel 6 was the tilt knob, Channel 7 was the off/on switch, and channel 8 never responded to anything, likewise the switches and knobs on the top of the transmitter had no effect on any of the values in the calibration screen… So I explain all this because it doesn’t seem like the logical and at the least it disagrees with the adrupilot documentation, is it possible that my TX is configured incorrectly?

The other thing that I did was ran a motor test and got some very weird results. According to this graphic: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/connec … s-pixhawk/ at the bottom of the page, The IRIS+ should be configured in a QUAD X configuration. However, in the motor test when I click “Test Motor A” nothing happens, “Test Motor B” my front right motor spins up, “Test Motor C” my right rear motor spins, “Test Motor D” nothing happens, “Test Motor E” my left rear motor spins, and “Test Motor F” my left front motor spins… this disagrees with the diagram, instead of ABCD (going clockwise) my motors are BCEF! I confirmed that all motors do have the correct spin orientation though BE spin CCW and CF spin CW…

So hopefully this is detailed enough for someone to tell me if my IRIS+ came with the wrong configuration, or perhaps it got blown out when I ran the Initial Setup->Wizard after updating the firmware? I was just following the instructions which told me to!

So anyway, I am really bummed, mainly because my nice new looking drone looks all jacked up with scrapes and scratches all over it even though nothing has broken, the speed at which it flips over reminds me of when you put in the wrong direction on the Gyro server of a traditional R/C Heli and the when it starts to Yaw left, the gyro tries to correct by going left which causes a rapid pirouette! So common sense would tell me the same thing is happening with my pitch being reversed and the Pixhawk is trying to compensate for pitch in the same direction it is pitching causing an immediate flip over as soon as it leaves the ground.

Sorry this is so long, I just thought being detailed in my original post would cut down on many of the followup questions and answers to get more information. I also did go into ‘Terminal’ -> select PX4/Pixhawk -> Connect and ‘Log Download’ and selected “Download All Logs” to help in diagnosing this… there are a bunch of files and I do not know how to parse them for anything useful but will attach them to this post if I can.

Thanks for any help,
Matt Johnson

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Here is the zip with the log files…

Matt

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Not knowing precisely what all sorts of updates you applied, and not being an Iris+ expert, it’s hard for me to be of much assistance. I will assume you are flying without a gimbal and camera? I will assume you have not made any edits to any sort of config file. I will assume the bird config file has not been modified to assume gimbal weight exists (by default, the quad should NOT be expecting a gimbal/camera)

I would go through all of the youtube vids from 3DR. Some have some pretty good info that may be helpful. But some of the calibration instruction video is out of date with newer software unless they updated the video. The droidplanner2 calibration routine works BTW, just follow the instructions.

Do always plug in the Quad battery AFTER turning on the controller

Do re-run the Iris+ calibration as discussed above

Do make sure your controller sticks are not out of calibration (sending incorrect data when they are centered) If an axis appears not centered while at center. Get back to me and I’ll see if I can point you in the direction to get into the calibration menu (I forget off-hand how exactly)

Do make sure to put good fresh batteries in the controller. Don’t trust the batteries it shipped with. Weak batteries in the controller can cause all sorts of unwanted behavior.

Do NOT worry about trying to utilize a secondary control device (smart pad or smartphone used for autonomous flight) in the beginning while flying. Just use the controller and forget about autonomous.

Do fly in Loiter mode in the beginning and make sure all other switches are “down/away” position, otherwise.

In the beginning, after all other things were confirmed, plug in the battery on the Quad, let it come to a green light (GPS lock), then unplug the battery, wait 10 seconds, and plug in again then try (don’t ask me why)

If you still have issues, then go ahead and incorporate a pad or smartphone with droidplanner2 if you have the means, and the app will audibly report certain issues before arming or when trying to arm. And perhaps this can lead you to what’s going on.

Hope some of this helps, but mainly I hope you get her flying. The Iris+ is a great quad assuming all things are in order. Seems like something is not quite “factory” and/or maybe the firmware update was wrong or did not apply successfully. Regardless, I feel you can get it corrected.

Robert

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I’ll give this some thought too and think of anything I can…sorry about the crashing. I thought I remember reading a thread about this flipping. Are you taking off in loiter?

Tex did you mean “up and away” on the switches ?

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Robert, thanks for your reply. You are correct that I am flying without the gimbal/camera, it is just stock out of the box. I did watch all the YouTube videos on setup and configuration and they were helpful but did not fix the problems, even though they were for older versions anyone with common sense could pretty much figure out how to do the same steps in the newer software since it was primarily small differences. As for the preflight list, I always did it as they specified and I ran the calibration on the accelerometer, compass, controller and transmitter many times and before each test.

I still think the problem must be in a configuration somewhere but I do not know what the default configuration values SHOULD BE to compare them to what they are. Anything that is wrong would either have come to me wrong or would have been changed without me explicitly changing it (like as a result of the firmware update or running the initial setup wizard).

Again thanks for reiterating many of the common issues, unfortunately I do not think they are the problem because I was already aware and/or tried those things.

Matt

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I found a thread related to flipping as well on the diydrones group. However, that issue was on landing so its not the same. If you do find a thread on flipping at takeoff than let me know as I have not seen it.

Matt

[quote=“Moreflying”]I’ll give this some thought too and think of anything I can…sorry about the crashing. I thought I remember reading a thread about this flipping. Are you taking off in loiter?

Tex did you mean “up and away” on the switches ?[/quote]

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First off I think if you don’t own an IRIS you shouldn’t be commenting on it. There are thousands of IRIS people out there.

The thing should have been ready to fly out of the box. It may have been we don’t know. You could have flown the way it was out of the box just don’t get crazy with it.

Now lets see what makes sense here.

First of IRIS is a V stile quad not X or +.

The pitch is correct, It should go down as when you push up on the pitch the copter leans down to go forward the same as helicopters.

Channel 5 is mixed at the transmitter to give you a 6 position switch. It mixes the two switches on the right together and does not just control one thing.
Here are the numbers:
Both Up - 1146
Center Up - 1325
Down UP - 1428
UP Down - 1582
Center Down - 1683
Down Down - 1862
On the configuration Flight Modes screen check that each switch position sets the correct mode. It will flash in green when selected as these are based on channel 5.

Now for the big thing. Your flight controller builds a log every time the motors are enabled. This log tells us everything that happened and what it was thing about. Get use to getting them off the copter. This is one of the best thing I like about the Pixhawk flight controller.

Now lets get this thing off the ground.

Mike

PS this thing is easier to fly then a Helicopter.

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Here is the flow chart for radio setup on the iris+. It also shows how to reset, but you can also look at the parameters of each channel too. I still don’t understand opentx. I’ve been programming spectrum and futaba for years on helis this one is still a bit mysterious to me. Take a look.

http://3drobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Controller-Reset-Procedure.pdf

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Mike, thanks for your response. It appears from the diagram here: copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/connec … s-pixhawk/ that the IRIS and the Quad X are the same configuration, regardless does the order that my motors test fired using the motors diagnostic make sense to you? B, C, E, F?

I know the mechanics of the pitch for helis, I was just wondering if you leave everything standard and it is not supposed to be a reversed channel and the Pixhawk deals with it. This was based on that bolded sentence in the docs here that says “If the bars go in the opposite direction of the direction you’re moving the sticks, that means that the channel is reversed on your RC transmitter side.” If it is correct, than that must not be the culprit, I am just grabbing at straws.

Thanks for the clarification on Channel 5, I guess that is not the problem either… the flight modes does in fact switch between AltHold (STD), Loiter, and Auto according to the associated switch position on the transmitter when looking at it in the Flight Modes configuration screen.

I also think being able to get the logs off the Pixhawk is awesome, but how do you do something useful with them? did you look at the zip I attached to my post? I am not sure what I am looking at, and is there a utility are supposed to use to make sense of it all?

Matt Johnson

[quote=“iseries”]First off I think if you don’t own an IRIS you shouldn’t be commenting on it. There are thousands of IRIS people out there.

The thing should have been ready to fly out of the box. It may have been we don’t know. You could have flown the way it was out of the box just don’t get crazy with it.

Now lets see what makes sense here.

First of IRIS is a V stile quad not X or +.

The pitch is correct, It should go down as when you push up on the pitch the copter leans down to go forward the same as helicopters.

Channel 5 is mixed at the transmitter to give you a 6 position switch. It mixes the two switches on the right together and does not just control one thing.
Here are the numbers:
Both Up - 1146
Center Up - 1325
Down UP - 1428
UP Down - 1582
Center Down - 1683
Down Down - 1862
On the configuration Flight Modes screen check that each switch position sets the correct mode. It will flash in green when selected as these are based on channel 5.

Now for the big thing. Your flight controller builds a log every time the motors are enabled. This log tells us everything that happened and what it was thing about. Get use to getting them off the copter. This is one of the best thing I like about the Pixhawk flight controller.

Now lets get this thing off the ground.

Mike

PS this thing is easier to fly then a Helicopter.[/quote]

10

Thanks! I will definitely use this for double checking my TX settings. How did you find it? I looked for a while yesterday to find something that gave the correct TX settings for a stock IRIS+ from the factory…

Matt Johnson

[quote=“Moreflying”]Here is the flow chart for radio setup on the iris+. It also shows how to reset, but you can also look at the parameters of each channel too. I still don’t understand opentx. I’ve been programming spectrum and futaba for years on helis this one is still a bit mysterious to me. Take a look.

http://3drobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Controller-Reset-Procedure.pdf[/quote]

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Today I went through this document to make sure my Transmitter was set up correctly and everything looked okay, all the parameters matched those in the document… so I guess that is not the problem either… I also opened up the top shell to look for any physical signs of a problem like unplugged wires but everything looked good. So the mystery continues, what is flipping my IRIS+ on takeoff???

Matt

[quote=“Moreflying”]Here is the flow chart for radio setup on the iris+. It also shows how to reset, but you can also look at the parameters of each channel too. I still don’t understand opentx. I’ve been programming spectrum and futaba for years on helis this one is still a bit mysterious to me. Take a look.

http://3drobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Controller-Reset-Procedure.pdf[/quote]

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Just looked at one of your logs and the first thing that stands out is it says you’re flying a hexa.

You need to redo the setup as the iris is a V style quadcopter, not a hexcopter. That’s also why you have the odd motor test results, they should be A, B, C and D.

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Mark, where did you see this in the logs? if that is the case I am wondering how it happened since I selected ‘Quad X’ as my frame type (I swore I read in the docs it was an X). Regardless, I will run the setup again and change this to a “Quad V”. But I am interested, how can I tell looking at the logs if it used the right frame type once I make the changes?

Matt

[quote=“MarkM”]Just looked at one of your logs and the first thing that stands out is it says you’re flying a hexa.

You need to redo the setup as the iris is a V style quadcopter, not a hexcopter. That’s also why you have the odd motor test results, they should be A, B, C and D.[/quote]

14

Matt, I was a little confused about this, too. In the top level with the Wizard where they give you the illustrations you select the quad x for the basic configuration. I believe that V is a subtype of X (uses the same motor sequence but the rear pair is spaced closer than the front) and that selection gets made in Initial Configuration>mandatory hardwar>frame type. There you will be able to select the V frame.

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If you open up log - 2015-02-14 15-54-36 2.log in mission planner and look at line number 5 it says Frame Hexa.

It may be that the iris is a X frame I just thought I read somewhere it was a V, I have a discovery that’s a similar shape that I run as a V as well.