Loss of tilt control - wind? Problem with drone?

Consolas · Jan 1, 2021

Hey everyone

To start with - i have this exact problem

Loss of tilt control during flight

Hi all, just got a tello for Christmas and must say really liking it for a small drone. Issue i seem to have is that mid flight I lose the tilt controls (F,B,L,R) and my tello is at the mercy of the breeze. I can still rotate, or go up and down . I can also use land command (R2+Y) and it will...

tellopilots.com

Anyone else has this? I haven't tried flying in a real open area but this loss of controls, to me, is happening when I'm at 8,10 meters which doesn't have any obstacle within 1m.

Could this be an issue with the drone? Calibration? A real hardware problem?

I understood the hard way that when is close to the ground you will lose the tilt controls. I would assume at 6 meters height this wouldn't be an issue.

It's windy but not too much - i think enough to get a kite in the air and that is it.

I would appreciate any tips!

Thank you my fellow drone pilots

adiannon · Jan 14, 2021

Hi,

I run into this on occasion when the following are present:

1. Flying over an open field, i.e. grass, can throw the Visual Positioning System off. This is because to the Tello, it all looks the same. You will get this over trees, grass, and especially water. Don't fly over water! I have experienced this problem over my roof as well, since the color pattern is fairly uniform. Some people on other sites note that placing small traffic cones in your flight area can help the Tello.

2. Try placing some kind of bright marker on the ground, like an orange / green / something "neon" and bright that the Tello can "find". It helps in the 8-10m range. Now, if you fly away from this and it loses sight, the problems may happen again. I painted some markings using bright green paint on a 1m x 1m piece of plywood. You can buy landing pads too.

3. Clean the sensors on the bottom with a soft cloth. If there is dirt or even a fingerprint on them (easy to do if you grip the drone and touch the sensors). Try giving them a cleaning and fly again.

4. Time of day. I assume you aren't flying at night, since the Tello doesn't really like that

If it doesn't have the VPS active, it will fly very erratically.

5. Last - propellers. Even the slightest imperfection can cause erratic behavior. I know this every time I hit one and my Tello gains some interesting characteristics! Including drifting, wobbling, or even flying off in a direction.

There is no real collision avoidance on the Tello unless you run into something, and the behavior is that it will stop and fall to the ground. Try clipping a tree branch, watch it fall!

Hopefully this helps. It was a bit of frustration for me, but was relatively easy to address.

- Adi