I changed my Phantom to Naza mode last night. Read the instructios carefully etc etc.

Went out to my favourite flying spot this morning, calibarted the compas, did a quick fly around and everthing seemed to be working ok. THen I flicked S2 up and down five times which I understand is the command to set the home point. Then I decided to test the RTH (S1 down to position 3).

Flew the Phantom straight out and let it sit for a minute then hit the RTH buttom (S1 down to postion 3). The screen flash up go home and the Phantom did a u-turn, accented to the required hight then flew staright towards me - all good - Until it reached me going extremely fast I realised it was not going to stop. By the time I had turned around, flicked s1 back to middle position and looked up it had flow over the hill, out of sight and heading for the ocean cliff. Not wanting to trust any of the automoated sytems I just pulled down on the left hand stick and  held it down. Ran over the hill and finally found it about 10 metres from the cliff's edge.

Two broken pops and a gimbal which still works but sits crooked.

Questions.
What did I do worng? am I setting the home point correctly.

Is there any way of adjusting the Gimbal so it sits staight. Nothing is bent?

Thanks for your help.

Switching s2 from OFF to HOME LOCK 5 times only resets IOC Orientation, not home point. To reset your Home Point you have to switch S2 from Course Lock to Home Lock 5 times.

So, what might have happened was you started your flight with a bad home point. This could have been caused by a bad GPS position being recorded. Then, when you thought you were resetting home point, you were only resetting IOC orientation. You got the same LED feedback (quick green flashes) to make you think you had successfully reset home point. Then, when you flipped s1, it did exactly what you told it to do, it headed for home. But not the home you thought.

It is my understanding that GPS positioning can be off, as far as many miles in some cases. So I always check my home point position on the ground station app before lift off. Or at least confirm that my distance reads "0" which also tells me my home point is accurate.

As far as the damaged gimble... Sounds like service is needed by DJI or a certified tech. There are YouTube videos (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5iTz3Dd2Ecs) that discuss a possible fix, but this seems dangerous to me. And not sure if this is your problem anyway.

The are several threads in this forum that discuss the NAZA-M functions and specifically the S2 switch. I know because one of these threads was mine, and I learned the exact information I wrote above. It was news to me!

Sorry to hear of your crash. Hope you get it sorted out.

Thanks Tony,

Can I confirm S2 switch settings with you?

Up is off
middle is course lock?
Bottom is home lock?

What the devil happened ?
Well it sounds like you flew it into the ground by pulling down on the throttle until it crashed.
Did you confirm GPS lock before taking off ? And how many satellite's were displayed ?

OF course that's what I did because it was heading towards the cliff at a great rate of knots. Tony seems to have sussed the issue. When I told it to go home it must have tried to return to where I was flying it that morning about 30km away,
Anyway  its all been sorted. When I changed to Naza system from Phantom I failed it click to IOC tab so my home lock also failed to work.
In the end I had the choice of flicking back to GPS and hoping it would stop its forward progress to the ocean, then run over the hill until I could spot it, or just drive it into the ground quickly knowing my chances of retrieving it were greatly increased. I chose the later. I still have a fully functioning Phantom with a slightly lopsided Gimbal - I'm happy.

dobie123@bigpon Posted at 2014-10-4 12:51
Thanks Tony,

Can I confirm S2 switch settings with you?

That is correct.

Thanks everyone I think its all worked out. I'm heading out again tomorrow morning and i'll make sure home is set for where I'm actauly standing. Hopefully i'll have to courage to set way points more than 50 metres away, :-)

dobie123@bigpon Posted at 2014-10-4 12:51
Thanks Tony,

Can I confirm S2 switch settings with you?

Exactly!

And only after switching into Naza-M mode in the assistant software.

dobie123@bigpon Posted at 2014-10-4 15:41
OF course that's what I did because it was heading towards the cliff at a great rate of knots. Tony  ...

I think it was brave, and solid, call to purposefully ground the Phantom to prevent a fly away. And it's great it didn't cause too much damage. Best of luck with the gimble repair!

Thanks mate, while I have you - one final question (for now)

Is the software the only way to alter the Phantoms orientation or can it be done in ground station? I like to idea of being able to have it fly to preset points with the camera pointing sideways.

Thanks again.

dobie123@bigpon Posted at 2014-10-5 05:50
Thanks mate, while I have you - one final question (for now)

Is the software the only way to alter ...

This is the topic of much discussion here. We are all asking for an update to Ground Station that allows you to Yaw (spin) the Phantom, while in Way Point flight. Not possible as of now.

To do this type of thing, for now, you will have to enter in Naza-M Mode, and switch to Course Lock or Home Lock. When flying in Course Lock, for example, up on the right stick will send you off in the direction your Phantom was facing the moment you set Home Point. Then you can use the left stick to yaw (spin) and the Phantom will continue to travel in the forward direction, but spin on it's axis as it travels. It is very impressive to see.

But, to again answer your question, not possible in waypoints... yet.

Hope I'm not jumping in too late on this thread, but the story gave me a chill and I just have to know.... Were you shooting video at the time? I would pay to watch this video, especially the look on your face as your phantom sailed by overhead.  

Too bad you didn't have your home point set... you could have just flipped S2 to HL after it went out of sight and just pulled back on the stick.
Afterthought: I guess this wouldn't have happened in the first place if you had your home point set.

Great story. I definitely learned something from it.

THanks for the replies. It's funny how your brain works when hit with panic. Even though I have been flying for a while, having something fly off on me is quite foreign. Thinking back I could have done something diffirent, but at the time all I could think was if my new toy makes it to the cliff edge the wife will be very unhappy. Good news is that dispite the impact being hard enough the dislodge the battery (I actually had to have a bit of a scout around for it) total cost was two broken props. Lesson learned.

Hi.... After reading your story my initial thought was why oh why did you not flip the switch back to gps... but, it seems the phantom was beyond visual sight and only then you decided to pull down on the throttle in order to avoid a fly away. I consider myself an experienced quad pilot and what took me 3 minutes to figure out took you about 3 seconds and that too under shock. Well done in the end and hope you don't experience this again.