Crazyflie goes crazy (even midair)

[ondrej.budac]

Dear Crazyfliers,

I got a very nice Christmas present (Crazyflie 2.0) and I was amazed, big thanks to everyone working on this.

For a while it worked very well. However, after ~1h of flying time the quadcopter sometimes (but rarely) went crazy, where by crazy I mean:

• if it goes crazy midair, the behavior is completely uncontrollable, the quadcopter quickly turns upside down, and soon after that crashes.
• if you put a crazy quadcopter on the ground an try to take off, it turns around and starts smashing the ground
• if you hold a crazy quadcopter in your hand and try to take off it feels wiggles a lot and I need to hold it quite firmly.
• I noticed that everytime it goes crazy, the M4 starts blinking in green-red and not just green.
• It happened a few times in midair but most of the times it goes crazy after a landing.
• I can reproduce the crazyness by letting the quadcopter free-fall from 10cm to a solid ground.
• After a restart of the quadcopter, it is normal again.

I am controlling the quadcopter with the Android app. I will appreciate any help or advice what to try. I can provide more information if needed.

Similar threads in the forum I found: viewtopic.php?t=1764
The difference is that I can't reproduce the issue when shaking the quadcopter.
Also, that thread is not very conclusive.

Thank you very much in advance and I wish you a lot of happy flying in 2016.

[chad]

Hi ondrej.budac,

Welcome!

Do you have the 0.6 VM? If so, you can connect the Crazyflie via USB cable and see some output in the python client. It would be good to see what the self-test reports in the console of the client to help troubleshoot this.

[ondrej.budac]

Hi chad,

thanks for the suggestion. I will try it over the weekend and then post here the results.

[ondrej.budac]

I installed VMware and ran the VM 0.6 you recommended on my computer with Ubuntu 14.04. I have no controller (xbox, PS3/4, ...) but I tried connecting just the crazyradio and the Crazyflie 2.0 by USB. The client doesn't seem to find them. This is a log from the terminal, maybe someone can guess what's causing the problems:

Code: Select all

sudo /home/bitcraze/projects/crazyflie-clients-python/bin/./cfclient
INFO:cfclient.cfclient:Disabling STL printouts
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputreaders:Found readers: ['linuxjsdev', 'pysdl2']
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputreaders:Successfully initialized [linuxjsdev]
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputreaders:Could not initialize [pysdl2]: No SDL2 support on Linux
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Found interfaces: ['zmqpull', 'wiimote', 'leapmotion']
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Could not initialize [zmqpull]: ZMQ library probably not installed (No module named zmq)
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Could not initialize [wiimote]: Missing cwiid (wiimote) driver No module named cwiid
INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Could not initialize [leapmotion]: Leap Motion library probably not installed (No module named Leap)
WARNING:cfclient.utils.zmq_param:Not enabling ZMQ param access, import failed (No module named zmq)
WARNING:cfclient.utils.zmq_led_driver:Not enabling ZMQ LED driver access,import failed (No module named zmq)
INFO:cfclient.utils.config:Dist config read from /home/bitcraze/projects/crazyflie-clients-python/lib/cfclient/configs/config.json
INFO:cfclient.utils.config:Config file read from [/home/bitcraze/projects/crazyflie-clients-python/lib/../conf/config.json]
INFO:cfclient.utils.input:Using device blacklist [(VirtualBox|VMware)]
WARNING:cfclient.ui.tabs.GpsTab:GPS tab not enabled since no Pythonbindings for Marble was found
INFO:cflib.drivers.cfusb:Looking for devices....

Maybe my VMware doesn't forward the USB devices well? When I run lsusb in the VM I get only:

Code: Select all

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Is that normal? I will be happy for any direction as to what to try next.
It sucks to restart my Crazyflie every minute just because it goes literally crazy.

[chad]

I installed VMware and ran the VM 0.6 you recommended on my computer with Ubuntu 14.04. I have no controller (xbox, PS3/4, ...) but I tried connecting just the crazyradio and the Crazyflie 2.0 by USB. The client doesn't seem to find them. This is a log from the terminal, maybe someone can guess what's causing the problems:

The terminal log is all fine. What we need to see is the log in the console tab of the GUI client after you've connected the Crazyflie via USB and powered it on. It will report self-test results and that's what we want to look at.

Maybe my VMware doesn't forward the USB devices well? When I run lsusb in the VM I get only:

Code: Select all

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Do you have VMWare or Virtual Box? It certainly does sound like the USB devices aren't being passed through to the VM.

Since you're running Ubuntu on the host, it could be pretty easy to install the Crazyflie client natively. Just clone the repository (or download a zip) of the client source and checkout the Read Me "Linux" section. It might be easier than doing internet searches on ways to get your USB devices passed to a VM...

[ondrej.budac]

Thank you, chad, for another fast reply.

I managed to install the cfclient without a VM and to connect the Crazyflie.
In the console tab of the cfclient after connecting it shows:

Code: Select all

---
SYS: Crazyflie is up and running!
SYS: Build 0:29624e7f6e3b (2014.12.1) CLEAN
SYS: I am 0x31343835313347031A0031 and I have 1024KB of flash!
IMU: MPU9250 I2C connection [OK].
IMU: AK8963 I2C connection [OK].
IMU: LPS25H I2C connection [OK].
EXPBRD: Found 0 memories.
EEPROM: I2C connection [OK].
AK8963: Self test [OK].
LPS25H: Self test [OK].
OW: Found 0.
SYS: Free heap: 6048 bytes
30 78 42 43 0 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7D 
Status 0

When I fly a bit and it gets into the crazy mode I can connect it back to my computer and I get this in the console:

Code: Select all

2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: <F>
2CDEV: Error callback nr: 10242CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
I2CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
I2CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
I2CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
I2CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 
Status 5
I2CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
I2CDEV: Error callback nr: 1024
66 14 66 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 

The last four lines are then repeating indefinitely.
I can't figure out what that means but I hope that it is helpful. I will gladly do other diagnostics, if you let me know what might be of help.

Best,
Ondrej

[tobias]

@ondrej This might be a hardware issue. I've sent you a PM

[chad]

The last four lines are then repeating indefinitely.
I can't figure out what that means but I hope that it is helpful. I will gladly do other diagnostics, if you let me know what might be of help.

Thanks Ondrej! That's the info I was looking for.

[ondrej.budac]

Thank you, Chad and Tobias, for your help.
Happy (crazy)flying!