I turned on my H Plus for the first time the other day to calibrate the compass, but before committing to the calibration I decided so see how the gimbal reacted to being upside down. As soon as I flipped it over the landing gear retracted. "What the!" Then I couldn't figure out how to bring them up again, another "What the!".
I am very familiar with how to retract and lower the gear on the non-flying H480 for packing, but for some reason it wasn't working the same. Not sure how, but after flipping out and flipping the Plus over I got them down again and went on with the calibration.
I was grounded by rain today so I decided to get to the bottom of it. I took the camera off for the tests to save it the unnecessary workout. Here's what I found out.
First how to lower the gear once they have retracted in a non-flight situation. This is the simpler half of the subject so let's start there.
Like the H480, lowering the gear does not require the Controller, however the procedure is different. The H480 will immediately lower the gear as soon as the power button is pressed. With the Plus you must power it on first while holding it upright, then as soon as the LEDs stabilize after the boot, invert the Plus and within a second the gear will lower. As soon as they start to move you can return the Plus to its upright position while they are lowering. Basically the Plus needs to be upside down for both lowering and raising. I have repeated this process many many times, with and without the Controller on, and it works consistently every time.
Raising the gear in a non-flight situation is another subject altogether, here I cannot produce consistent results. It is as if there is a glitch or bug in the firmware. I am speaking in terms of Power Cycles "PC" here. In any given PC that raising the gear is successful, the results are very consistent and repeatable. That being when the Plus is inverted you can retract the gear with the switch, just like the H480. It does not matter when you flip the switch, it can already be in the "UP" position and as soon as you flip it over the gear go up.
This is something that can go unnoticed since the gear won't raise after power up if the switch is "UP" before the motors are armed and you are airborne, then you must cycle the switch before they will retract. This might be why many of you have experienced this "Involuntary" raising when inverting it. I can't rule this out in my initial experience, I wasn't going to fly it so I was not paying attention to the switch. Furthermore at no point in the testing was I ever able to get the gear to raise "involuntarily" upon inverting it, the switch HAD to already be in the "UP" position.
The problem with activating this function is not every PC is successful, and those that are, aren't consistent with each other. It seems to be a mater of timing, how long the Plus needs to be powered stationary up before inverting it to get the gear to operate. This can be anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes or more -if at all. Not practical for those of us who pack it with the gear up. 20 seconds is OK, but two minutes is too long.
I ran more PCs than I kept track of but easily more than 30 (it rained all day!). At least 80% were successful, but the time it took to activate varied greatly. I had a string of 6 successful PCs in a row that took 20 seconds, I thought I had it figured out, but then went thru 6 unsuccessful PCs in a row where I gave up after 3~4 minutes -after that there no point in waiting. I even tried powering it up then inverted it right away and waited for them to retract, never happened. So at the end of a rigorous day of testing, I have come to the conclusion that there must be a bug causing this timing inconsistency.
I encourage anyone to try duplicating this with their Plus. No worries now because I am confident I have solved the "Lowering" side of the issue. The raising problem might be solved in FW versions newer than mine. If so I will upgrade to any firmware that restores this functionality. Anyone willing to explore this with me?
My Firmware is 20180906
I am very familiar with how to retract and lower the gear on the non-flying H480 for packing, but for some reason it wasn't working the same. Not sure how, but after flipping out and flipping the Plus over I got them down again and went on with the calibration.
I was grounded by rain today so I decided to get to the bottom of it. I took the camera off for the tests to save it the unnecessary workout. Here's what I found out.
First how to lower the gear once they have retracted in a non-flight situation. This is the simpler half of the subject so let's start there.
Like the H480, lowering the gear does not require the Controller, however the procedure is different. The H480 will immediately lower the gear as soon as the power button is pressed. With the Plus you must power it on first while holding it upright, then as soon as the LEDs stabilize after the boot, invert the Plus and within a second the gear will lower. As soon as they start to move you can return the Plus to its upright position while they are lowering. Basically the Plus needs to be upside down for both lowering and raising. I have repeated this process many many times, with and without the Controller on, and it works consistently every time.
Raising the gear in a non-flight situation is another subject altogether, here I cannot produce consistent results. It is as if there is a glitch or bug in the firmware. I am speaking in terms of Power Cycles "PC" here. In any given PC that raising the gear is successful, the results are very consistent and repeatable. That being when the Plus is inverted you can retract the gear with the switch, just like the H480. It does not matter when you flip the switch, it can already be in the "UP" position and as soon as you flip it over the gear go up.
This is something that can go unnoticed since the gear won't raise after power up if the switch is "UP" before the motors are armed and you are airborne, then you must cycle the switch before they will retract. This might be why many of you have experienced this "Involuntary" raising when inverting it. I can't rule this out in my initial experience, I wasn't going to fly it so I was not paying attention to the switch. Furthermore at no point in the testing was I ever able to get the gear to raise "involuntarily" upon inverting it, the switch HAD to already be in the "UP" position.
The problem with activating this function is not every PC is successful, and those that are, aren't consistent with each other. It seems to be a mater of timing, how long the Plus needs to be powered stationary up before inverting it to get the gear to operate. This can be anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes or more -if at all. Not practical for those of us who pack it with the gear up. 20 seconds is OK, but two minutes is too long.
I ran more PCs than I kept track of but easily more than 30 (it rained all day!). At least 80% were successful, but the time it took to activate varied greatly. I had a string of 6 successful PCs in a row that took 20 seconds, I thought I had it figured out, but then went thru 6 unsuccessful PCs in a row where I gave up after 3~4 minutes -after that there no point in waiting. I even tried powering it up then inverted it right away and waited for them to retract, never happened. So at the end of a rigorous day of testing, I have come to the conclusion that there must be a bug causing this timing inconsistency.
I encourage anyone to try duplicating this with their Plus. No worries now because I am confident I have solved the "Lowering" side of the issue. The raising problem might be solved in FW versions newer than mine. If so I will upgrade to any firmware that restores this functionality. Anyone willing to explore this with me?
My Firmware is 20180906
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