ANAFI 1.7.3, ANAFI THERMAL 1.7.3, ANAFI USA 1.7.4, FREEFLIGHT 6.7.0 (IOS & ANDROID), SKYCONTROLLER3 1.7.0

Moiuk · May 7, 2020

Just updated to 1.6.8 yesterday, first flight was fine, 2nd flight started ok and then went crazy out of control did a couple of loops and buried itself in a hedge. Fortunately was close by and retrieved it fine. Did a follow-up flight and took it up 3 meters to hover and observe it. After doing a few circular wobbles like it was trying to maintain its position, decided by itself to fly off at full speed. Manual control managed to bring it down, but lost a bit of confidence in it today...

Sent an email over to support. No idea if related to the new firmware or not.

Jagerbomb52 · May 7, 2020

Moiuk said:
Just updated to 1.6.8 yesterday, first flight was fine, 2nd flight started ok and then went crazy out of control did a couple of loops and buried itself in a hedge. Fortunately was close by and retrieved it fine. Did a follow-up flight and took it up 3 meters to hover and observe it. After doing a few circular wobbles like it was trying to maintain its position, decided by itself to fly off at full speed. Manual control managed to bring it down, but lost a bit of confidence in it today...

Sent an email over to support. No idea if related to the new firmware or not.

Did you calibrate after you did the update?

Moiuk · May 7, 2020

Agustine said:
Did you calibrate after you did the update?

No I didn't. The first flight was fine though.
Just charging it up to do another low level test in a different area in case there was heavy interference where I was.

Gipsz Jakab · May 7, 2020

Moiuk said:
Just updated to 1.6.8 yesterday, first flight was fine, 2nd flight started ok and then went crazy out of control did a couple of loops and buried itself in a hedge. Fortunately was close by and retrieved it fine. Did a follow-up flight and took it up 3 meters to hover and observe it. After doing a few circular wobbles like it was trying to maintain its position, decided by itself to fly off at full speed. Manual control managed to bring it down, but lost a bit of confidence in it today...

Sent an email over to support. No idea if related to the new firmware or not.

I feel like I'll stay with 1.6.3 for a long time.

d95gas · May 7, 2020

Moiuk said:
Just updated to 1.6.8 yesterday, first flight was fine, 2nd flight started ok and then went crazy out of control did a couple of loops and buried itself in a hedge. Fortunately was close by and retrieved it fine. Did a follow-up flight and took it up 3 meters to hover and observe it. After doing a few circular wobbles like it was trying to maintain its position, decided by itself to fly off at full speed. Manual control managed to bring it down, but lost a bit of confidence in it today...

Sent an email over to support. No idea if related to the new firmware or not.

Did you update your batteries on the last firmware prior to 1.6.8 ?

Would be good to have a look at your .json file if you dont mind uploading.

whenever I do an update, I automatically re-calibrate everything, I know it may be overkill, but I just do it for my own peace of mind,

Moiuk · May 8, 2020

d95gas said:
Did you update your batteries on the last firmware prior to 1.6.8 ?

Would be good to have a look at your .json file if you dont mind uploading.

whenever I do an update, I automatically re-calibrate everything, I know it may be overkill, but I just do it for my own peace of mind,

Attached is the json file for the follow-up second flight where it flew off at speed but i managed to fight it back manually to crash safely. Just a short flight so might be easier to examine the log than the first longer flight.

I updated the battery after the update to 1.6.8.

d95gas · May 8, 2020

That one is showing your battery level at 17% And dropped down to 12% when you started having issues. I'm no expert on reading these .json files, and perhaps someone with more experience will come along and comment. But personally I would not have attempted any sort of flight on 17% battery.

I dont know what the cut-out is on the Anafi Battery, but I would think 12% is getting to the "No Go" point.

Moiuk · May 8, 2020

d95gas said:
That one is showing your battery level at 17% And dropped down to 12% when you started having issues. I'm no expert on reading these .json files, and perhaps someone with more experience will come along and comment. But personally I would not have attempted any sort of flight on 17% battery.

I dont know what the cut-out is on the Anafi Battery, but I would think 12% is getting to the "No Go" point.

Yes - This was a short test flight after the main issue I had. The first flight the battery was at near 80%, but took me a while to locate and retrieve it so battery depleted somewhat.

Liger 1956 · May 8, 2020

I have also had a look at the .json file. It is difficult to ascertain when the Anafi was flying by itself and when you had control. The file indicates that it took off, then stayed at 2.5m, 7.5m and 10m before descending. Were the increases in altitude under your control?

Is the structure that appears to go over the roadway a metallic bridge?
If so was that your launching point?

Taking off, or landing, on metallic structures can confuse the compass in the Anafi and I would agree with @d95gas that it is always advisable to recalibrate the compass after each update and when moving to a new location that is a distance from the location where the last compass calibration was carried out.

Ana789 · May 8, 2020

d95gas said:
That one is showing your battery level at 17% And dropped down to 12% when you started having issues. I'm no expert on reading these .json files, and perhaps someone with more experience will come along and comment. But personally I would not have attempted any sort of flight on 17% battery.

I dont know what the cut-out is on the Anafi Battery, but I would think 12% is getting to the "No Go" point.

I think that it is really a question of how old/used the battery is.
I had yesterday a little incident, where the bird, almost home, told me "1 minute till auto RTH" and just 10 second later "autolanded".
For the "RTH" it would be in need to rise to the RTH height, 30m up, fly a bit, 50m down, which would have been a lot longer, as this 10 secs, till it made an "battery" emergency landing.
The powermanagement is loosing track of the "real thing", methinks!

I have reset all of 'em and will test fly 'em till autoland, in the next days.
What I have done not so long ago, already.
And that time it was good, down to 1 digit numbers.
Right now, I am planning just down to 20%

julientaming · May 8, 2020

Not much better range in 1.6.8 even with FCC, I can fly like 30 meters high, then the wifi cut, I am in a garden with houses, I know, but I seriously regret not getting a DJI for the Ocusync technology now, and doesn't seem to idle well even without wind.
I'm french, I loved supporting a smaller company but now it's really annoying, can't do anything with it.

d95gas · May 8, 2020

julientaming said:
Not much better range in 1.6.8 even with FCC, I can fly like 30 meters high, then the wifi cut, I am in a garden with houses, I know, but I seriously regret not getting a DJI for the Ocusync technology now, and doesn't seem to idle well even without wind.
I'm french, I loved supporting a smaller company but now it's really annoying, can't do anything with it.

What channel are you using when flying? you going with Auto, or manually selecting.

I have both the DJI Mavic Pro and the Anafi. Since getting the Anafi I have not touched the MP, although very nearly reverted back to it when we had the major issues with previous firmware, but thought I would hold off and wait for Parrot.

Anafi has some excellent features and I love the fact its so quiet and doesn't attract the attention the Mavic does.

The Mavic has had all restrictions removed and you can fly some stupid distances, BUT, with the changes that are happening, I am more than happy sticking to VLOS, thats what the law of the land says, and I am more than happy to oblige, which means no issues with either the MP or the Anafi.

Dont get me wrong, I am NOT "Drone Police".... I am just nervous when I cannot see my devices anymore, and not matter what precautions, I am always concerned about it dropping and hitting someone..... That applies to both the Anafi and MP.

Have a play around with the channels in Manual Mode, get a WiFi scanner for your phone/tablet, and scan the area and see what channels are busy, you can then aim to stay away from those channels.

charleslee · May 8, 2020

Did a test flight today , all is good with FCC mod , range is back and even better , really happy now with the Anafi , Glad a didnt play baseball with it

jspg · May 8, 2020

I like the massage on the WIFI scan at the end of d95gas's post, I always make a scan before launching when flying in the urban area, then I select the channel which are not crowded or nobody applied ( it is mostly channel 44 or 48 of 5Ghz for my case) , I use "Airport" app in my iphone 8 and I believe there is a similar one "WIFI analyzer" for the Android system, it then has better connection between controller and the anafi even flying over an extended range, I suggest taking this measure before every flying.

julientaming · May 9, 2020

So I use manual, channel 165 or 34. I choose th ones with less waves.
30 meters is still very low

d95gas said:
What channel are you using when flying? you going with Auto, or manually selecting.

I have both the DJI Mavic Pro and the Anafi. Since getting the Anafi I have not touched the MP, although very nearly reverted back to it when we had the major issues with previous firmware, but thought I would hold off and wait for Parrot.

Anafi has some excellent features and I love the fact its so quiet and doesn't attract the attention the Mavic does.

The Mavic has had all restrictions removed and you can fly some stupid distances, BUT, with the changes that are happening, I am more than happy sticking to VLOS, thats what the law of the land says, and I am more than happy to oblige, which means no issues with either the MP or the Anafi.

Dont get me wrong, I am NOT "Drone Police".... I am just nervous when I cannot see my devices anymore, and not matter what precautions, I am always concerned about it dropping and hitting someone..... That applies to both the Anafi and MP.

Have a play around with the channels in Manual Mode, get a WiFi scanner for your phone/tablet, and scan the area and see what channels are busy, you can then aim to stay away from those channels.

S.C.C. · May 11, 2020

Moiuk said:
Attached is the json file for the follow-up second flight where it flew off at speed but i managed to fight it back manually to crash safely. Just a short flight so might be easier to examine the log than the first longer flight.

I updated the battery after the update to 1.6.8.

View attachment 4095

From your picture, it seems that there could be a metalic fence near the point S, and this is a well known cause of interferences. I'd stay a few meters away from any metallic structure, and keep them behind me.

Another point is to record your phone/tablet's screen, this way you can look at the details later, I often miss information while piloting, and when the drone starts doing its own crap, it's easy to overlook some information. For example the GPS icon can become red for a few seconds (bad/no GPS signal) but you don't think to look at that small thing. A warning message could appear while you are trying to control your drone, and they are often not logged in these files from what I understand...

Just my 2 cents of general advice. I had no real issue since the latest update and 1 hour of flight.

Ana789 · May 19, 2020

d95gas said:
Guys (and Girls),

I mentioned last week that I had sent a very lengthy email to Chris Roberts who is the vice president of Parrot. I assumed my email would have been binned, but no he has been communicating with me and has taken the time to respond to every question and statement I made.
[...]

He asked that I communicate with him regularly to try and work out any issues that we might come across. Again, I say, the guy sounds really genuine and interested in what the users say, it was perfectly clear he was very unhappy to hear of the experiences we have had of late.

So fingers crossed for 1.6.8

d95gas, may I lead your, and this way, of course, your communication with Chris Roberts to the inccident of self discharging Anafi batteries?
Starting assumingly with stopping to charge, at a rate that is almost as if the "after 10 days auto discharge" would kick in.
It just don't stop at 65%, mine are now on the 4. day and down do 1 LED.
Will update shortly, what that means in battery level!

Thank you very much for forwarding THIS new problem

Discharging of the batteries, not just while "in" the Anafi? Did it change with latest batt. update?

Parrot states that anafi battery should drop down to 65% after 48 hours IN 48h after a 10 Day period of 'being fully charged' / charged over 65% Not in 48h after the full charge! And that stops at about 65% I start thinking that it is the decharging rate of that process. Just not controlled...

parrotpilots.com

d95gas · May 19, 2020

Ana789 said:
d95gas, may I lead your, and this way, of course, your communication with Chris Roberts to the inccident of self discharging Anafi batteries?
Starting assumingly with stopping to charge, at a rate that is almost as if the "after 10 days auto discharge" would kick in.
It just don't stop at 65%, mine are now on the 4. day and down do 1 LED.
Will update shortly, what that means in battery level!

Thank you very much for forwarding THIS new problem

Discharging of the batteries, not just while "in" the Anafi? Did it change with latest batt. update?

Parrot states that anafi battery should drop down to 65% after 48 hours IN 48h after a 10 Day period of 'being fully charged' / charged over 65% Not in 48h after the full charge! And that stops at about 65% I start thinking that it is the decharging rate of that process. Just not controlled...

parrotpilots.com

Most definitely I will pass this over to Chris to see if his team could have a look. I will be emailing him later this week and have several points to raise, this being one of them as its fairly important to us all.

Ratmir · May 27, 2020

Was waiting for a half year for some stable version as don't wont to risk

And now the time has come, installed on new phone moded version FF6_6.6.9_201_FCC_Selectable.apk, then updated controller, then drone itself to firmware 1.6.8 (from 1.6.3), then he asked to update batteries, do it for all of them.

Today was test flight, all was just fine, I'm still on FCC (to be sure I've used FakeGPS and VPN with USA on the time of all updates and reboots), then disable them and all continue to work good.

So looks like we could go ahead with that, thanks, Parrot