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Lots of Alta Pro issues - unusable :(

Discussion in 'ALTA 8 Pro' started by Jason Toth, Aug 13, 2019.

  1. Jason Toth

    Jason Toth Active Member

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    Hi all

    Anyone using the Alta Pro yet?

    We are having serious issues with 2x of our Alta Pros w/ PixHawk Cube using the latest preset configuration files Freefly gives with the Alta Pro = about to drop kick these things!

    WITHOUT PAYLOAD (dummy weight for testing)
    - Will never connect to a tablet (IOS o or ANDROID) - we have tried for hours reseting the wifi and such per Freefly but no go - have to connect to a computer every time you need to do a compass cal - really awesome when productions breathing over your shoulder and your doing the dance tethered :(
    - The Alta Pros fly in Manual and ATT fine but its absolutely horrible in GPS - pretty much unusable (worse then the Synapse)

    WITH PAYLOAD
    - OH THIS IS A GOOD ONE... we put the Movi Pro on (just Movi Pro, Monstro, Lens w/ Sbus RX) and the Alta Pro will not boot? Gives out errors stating MAG SENSOR INCONSISTENT. So the Movi Pro is throwing our EMI thats messing with the Pix Hawk IMUs - has this thing ever been preflight checked & tested LOL - I have to laugh cuz I'm out of tears :)

    The fix we are told is to turn off the Magnetometer =
    • When doing compass cal, follow the QGroundControl directions, but make sure that for each rotation, you get all the way around before the time expires.
    • If you are fully blocked and need to fly, set CAL_MAG0_EN=enabled, CAL_MAG1,2,3_EN = disabled. This will leave only the main mag in the GPS active, and no others. There will be no redundancy, but it won't throw inconsistency errors.
    • Alternatively, increasing COM_ARM_MAG will allow a larger discrepancy before throwing the error, but will keep redundancy (provided there isn't a systemic problem with a mag)

    1) why are we having to trouble shoot and modify perimeters for a "ready to fly" pre-configured drone from the factory that costs $16K
    2) why does the Alta Pro not want to boot with a Movi Pro (Blackjack) on it LOL - this is just nuts to us!
    3) why are we having to disable features to make it work as a bandaid fix

    Unfortunately we feel like BETA TESTERS after dozens of hours trying to get them to fly w/o out luck :( Not trying to bash, just want a "Ready to Fly" drone thats works as promissed by the manufacturer - we had high hopes for the Alta Pro but looks like we will be returning them for a downgrade to Synapse which is unfortunate :(

    If anyone has info they could share on their Alta Pro, it would be much appreciated.

    Later J
     

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  2. Mark Townsend

    Mark Townsend New Member

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    That doesn’t sound good
     
  3. Jason Toth

    Jason Toth Active Member

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    No it’s not.

    Freefly has been good about trying to address it. Sending them logs to find out what’s up.

    Right now we have it working by turning off 2 out of the 3 mag sensors & bumping up the mags sensitivity settings & trim the right stick + 20 to have it not drift (no matter how many times we calibrate, it’s like it’s unbalanced a ton or some of the motors are over powered a tiny bit?

    Anyway our issues w/ the Altas are ongoing & this is odd behavior on 2x systems, which alarms us & honestly lame since we have to: tweak pixhawk setting, loose the IMU redundancies just to make it work for a “ready to fly drone”. All our other Freefly

    We bought a Herelink since there is no way to connect to WiFi, only a laptop (wifi is supposed to work, but not for us: hit the connect button, resetting the WiFi, rebooting, etc LOL

    Or we are just cursed w/ the Altas (im going for this option), everyone says they are the best flying drones hands down, we’ll we build our own Rapture drones w/ A3 D-RTK and they make the Alta 8 & now these ones fly likes they are drunk, always has and for us I guess always for us? But Manual/ATT is good but GPS is awful when the A3 has amazing GPS in sport mode at 93km/h & add RTK and it’s damn near perfect! All our other Freefly gear is awesome, but our entire crew are not fans of the Altas, hope we just got lemons.

    Sorry for my rant, just building another drone to get us by.... which is making my blood boil since I could be spending time w/ my wife & kids on her b-day, cuz we are slammed & our quick upgrade the Alta Pros backfired on us! :(
     

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    #3 Jason Toth, Aug 15, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2019
  4. Ozkan Erden

    Ozkan Erden Distributor

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    Hey Jason,

    I think you are brave to write here; I think most of the users doesn't post the problems to the forums and thus we don't see what people really think.

    I had some private talk with some Alta operators and I haven't heard from one who says "I'm happy with the GPS performance". I think Alta (not the pro), is flying good when you are on manual mode.

    I hope you sort the problems out asap.
     
  5. Jason Toth

    Jason Toth Active Member

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    Hello Ozkan

    Brave... LOL, I hope I don't come across as bashing, its meant to be constructive criticism & let others know issues so things can improve but I think Freefly hates me for not saying its the best drone we have :)

    And yes, in manual she flies great... but pretty much every drone does LOL.

    We are just used to our other drones over the years on WKM, A2 & A3, they fly all great in ATT & GPS, hope one day our Altas do as well - as stated above, I think ours are just cursed cuz everyone loves their Altas, we have 2 Altas and all our pilots don't like flying them if given the choice - maybe they wouldn't know or mind if we weren't swapping between drones depending on our jobs... maybe the big quad coming out this week will have some special sauce?

    As of now the 2x Pixhawk Altas are flying fine in Manual / ATT (switching between the two does make the drone fall out of the sky for about 6 feet which makes ya pucker), but GPS is still unusable for us with stock settings + neither will connect to a IOS or Android still - have to use a PC which is a step back from Synapse.

    Once things slow down here will be sending them back for some love - hell maybe we are just dumb and missed some obscure step in the PixHawk set up a few times on both drones? Cross our fingers they come back working like everyone else's - we would love a medium lift travel drone that just works.

    Hope all is awesome with ya, J
     
  6. Rune

    Rune New Member

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    Hi:) Did you get the Herelink to work at the at the Alta 8 pro??
    And or would you recommend it?

    Rune
     
  7. Jason Toth

    Jason Toth Active Member

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    Hi Rune, the Herelink doesn't work wth the hardware/firmware Freefly uses.
     
  8. Jason Smoker

    Jason Smoker Active Member

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    Jason did you get your problems fixed? If so was it firmware upgrade or something?
     
  9. Jason Toth

    Jason Toth Active Member

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    Not sure what it was, sent it in and FF addressed it. I did read in a service bulletin that there could be an issue with some sensors, I presume that was the issue since we had errors on a Mag 3 sensor.
     

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