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Uncommanded fly up

Danman32

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The Tello I have and used successfully for a few months went nuts this late afternoon.

Outdoors, no wind. Getting near sunset but still over an hour away and plenty of light.

I was trying out TelloFPV for the first time, trying to use it with Gamesir d version. I was flying outdoors in front of my house. I couldn't get the Tello to launch using the controller. I later figured out why: although I had connected the controller, I didn't enable it as a master or student.
I instead clicked takeoff and land a couple times from screen. The last time it hovered but didn't maintain height very well. Then all of a sudden it shot up as high as it could go, then drifted out of sight. Fortunately a neighbor saw it land in an empty lot across the street.

So I abandoned the use of TelloFPV and went to the stock app that I've always used with the game controller.

It started out OK, then flew up like a shot again. Fortunately one of the props flew off so it didn't go far this time.

I thought it might be the controller sending uncommanded throttle, as once I had uncommanded slow yaw which I could counter. Only restarting the controller would fix that.
The controller being the cause of the fly up would explain the symptom with the stock app, but I don't think I had enabled the controller with TelloFPV. Or maybe I had just found the setting to enable it and that's when it shot up on its own.

Any ideas? If it flies up on its own like that, how do I stop it? I just tested killing Wi-Fi connection but it then hovers rather than landing.
If it was the controller, how do I prevent a recurrence?
 
This is a perfect example how to isolate the issue:
You eliminated the app as a source because it happened with both TelloFpv and Tello app.
You eliminated the controller because it wasn't connected when you tried with TelloFpv.
Which leaves only the Tello as the source of the problem. (OK and the phone but that is simply not possible)


This is just another confirmation of a rare problem of Tello.
Nobody knows why but some (actually very few) Tello just shoot into the air - often they then just fall down. Some Tello do this only once, others more often.
Overall its a very rare thing, I read about it a few times but never experienced it myself and I have used I think 6 or 7 Tello or so to date.
My guess is the barometric sensor has troubles.

Now if you had the controller enabled in both apps that would add another alternative: The controller - the T1D is known to show untriggered ghost inputs. My own T1d does the same from time to time, but on the yaw axis and my Tello then just spins by itself.
If the controller is the source of trouble this is visible in the TelloFpv screen where you watch the stick positions for movements. So a screen recording would show it.
 
I think it was the controller, as the fly up may have occurred on the TelloFPV after having figured out how to get the controller to actually take control.

I flew it several times in the house with the telloFPV and controller with no issues. I had more WiFi interference warnings in the house than out. Not surprising since I have two enterprise APs, and 2.4G only has 3 effective channels that don't overlap.

I don't recall TelloFPV showing stick position of the controller on the screen.

As I mentioned, I once encountered a couple months ago a small amount of yaw bias, which I was able to manually counter. It didn't go away when I restarted the app or Tello itself, but did get corrected when I restarted the controller.
I might not have restarted the controller when I shifted from TelloFPV to stock app.

I hope that shoot up never happens again. That was really scary and potentially dangerous. Mavics might fly out but I've never heard of any shoot up.
 
Last edited:
Mine shot up like that once. I had just installed a new set of aftermarket props. Stepped outside, took off from my deck, and it shot up like a rocket.

This was before Tellofpv came along so I was using the OEM Tello app, no controller, no repeater, no Wi-fi interference either. Scared the heck out of me, I thought for sure it was gone.

I had max altitude set at 10 meters but it went way higher than that. Unresponsive but eventually came back down by itself. Lucky there was no wind that day.
 
Tello fuses different sensor data to decide about its position. For altitude it appears to be barometric sensor, VPS triangulation, and IMU. At least I found three different altitude measures in the raw data stream plus another one which is what the Ryze app displays.

now somehow it seems that some Tello get confused from time to time. Could be the barometric sensor, could be the VPS (which is the one that is most likely affected by prop changes).
 
The Tello I have and used successfully for a few months went nuts this late afternoon.

Outdoors, no wind. Getting near sunset but still over an hour away and plenty of light.

I was trying out TelloFPV for the first time, trying to use it with Gamesir d version. I was flying outdoors in front of my house. I couldn't get the Tello to launch using the controller. I later figured out why: although I had connected the controller, I didn't enable it as a master or student.
I instead clicked takeoff and land a couple times from screen. The last time it hovered but didn't maintain height very well. Then all of a sudden it shot up as high as it could go, then drifted out of sight. Fortunately a neighbor saw it land in an empty lot across the street.

So I abandoned the use of TelloFPV and went to the stock app that I've always used with the game controller.

It started out OK, then flew up like a shot again. Fortunately one of the props flew off so it didn't go far this time.

I thought it might be the controller sending uncommanded throttle, as once I had uncommanded slow yaw which I could counter. Only restarting the controller would fix that.
The controller being the cause of the fly up would explain the symptom with the stock app, but I don't think I had enabled the controller with TelloFPV. Or maybe I had just found the setting to enable it and that's when it shot up on its own.

Any ideas? If it flies up on its own like that, how do I stop it? I just tested killing Wi-Fi connection but it then hovers rather than landing.
If it was the controller, how do I prevent a recurrence?
Tello fuses different sensor data to decide about its position. For altitude it appears to be barometric sensor, VPS triangulation, and IMU. At least I found three different altitude measures in the raw data stream plus another one which is what the Ryze app displays.

now somehow it seems that some Tello get confused from time to time. Could be the barometric sensor, could be the VPS (which is the one that is most likely affected by prop changes).
I had a similar problem . My Tello would fly upwards at a high rate uncommanded. Fortunately I was inside at the time. Ryze repaired it under warranty. Shortly after that it would fly up about a foot then land with blades still spinning then fly up again. This process would continue uncommanded until it ran into a stationary object. It would not respond to a land command. I called it my Tello frog.
Ryze wanted $91 to repair it claiming I caused the core module board to fail.HELLO. I will not buy another Tello.
 
Well I flew in a football field in the park using TelloFPV with no issues. Actually worked quite well. Return Home was neat. Understandibly it missed the mark within I'd say 5ft. However I forgot the remote at home so I used my tablet with screen controls. Now I have to configure app settings on tablet same as on phone.
 
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