The 6 Most Expensive Letters in FPV - How to lose $1200 in 2 seconds!
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- If you fly drones of any kind outdoors, you know that losing your aircraft is always a possibility. If you can't accept that, you should probably stick to flying whoops indoors.
I'm not very happy at the start of the video - but probably not for the reason you think. Losing gear is part of the hobby that I hate, but accept. I'm upset about why it happened. I was flying crossfire at 100mW and 150kHz refresh - distance less than 150 yards. Let me know if you think I'm off base.
The flight isn't anything to write home about - I was mostly cruising and working on inverted hang time.
Oh.. if you want to know those expensive letters watch the video...geez.
RIW: (Rusting in Water)
TBS Source One 5" (I got 3 years out of this quad!)
GoPro 10, 128gb sd, Camera Butter ND 8
Your battery was not performing well, sagging to 3.3v and below. Definitely want to land when it's screaming at you to land now, otherwise things start shutting down. That sucks man, I'm sorry.
Interference from boat radios, water reflection or things between you and quad could've contributed to an RXloss. Although its also possible one of those bushes clipped antenna loose and it got chopped off by the props.
I doubt its the battery like some are commenting, voltage was bouncing back from the dips and it still seemed to have some juice when you lost it.
It sucks when it happens, I have a rule not to take anything above water I'm not willing to lose to the deep. Quads are never 100% reliable.
Thanks for the comments. I'm not convinced it was low battery that caused the failsafe - it could have been. Marine radio interference from the boat is maybe more possible. The chance of a damaged/lost antenna is about zero because of how I mount the crossfire antenna. It's hard to explain, but easy to do. I use 100lb fishing line doubled over (200lb break), wrap that around the very end of the arms and heat shrink it to the antenna. I've never lost an antenna - ever.
That does suck. I just failsafed for the first time also. I have tracer and I kinda take some blame. I wasn’t pointed the direction I was flying. I had the car blocking me and my body. Also I have the Mambo it has a internal antenna. Some one told me “having a GPS unit would have saved it” so I’m adding one. I do suggest the same for you next time. Kinda makes since rather safe than sorry. I also found in my experience of flying FPV. “ if something is going to happen. It’s going to happen while your over water” .
If you have to choose to fly over water next time strap a water bottle or pool noodle to the quad. Good luck my friend 🙏🏼
It’s an expensive lesson for sure, but DON’T EVER leave your failsafe settings on “drop”. Leave it in RTH or whatever BF calls the return to home mode (I only fly iNav and Ardu). Also always have a GPS installed and telemetry logging enabled on your radio (it’s an OpenTX/EdgeTX feature). Learned it the hard way too. Not a good feeling… 😬
I appreciate the comment. I'm going to look into that idea of telemetry logging on the radio. I haven't heard of that before. Just posting this video and reading everyone's comments has been educational and helpful.
RTH requires GPS
@@jimreynolds8284 Yes, it does. But there is really no reason why you shouldn't equip your quad with GPS if you plan to fly outdoors and do some terrain exploring with it...
So sorry this happened! Seems like an unfortunate fluke.
I've seen a few people duck tape a water bottle or a 2 liter soda bottle sealed with hot glue when flying near or over water "just incase" of the worst so at the very least you can recover and salvage what you can.
Good luck in the future!
I've already put a few bottles aside. Thanks for leaving a comment and watching the video.
Dont tell my wife 😂, mine would have killed me. Sorry for your loss Sir!
I actually called my wife 3 minutes after I filmed my comment. She was very supportive - I'm grateful for that.
Gosh that really sucks! I would have never expected that to happen in a million years 😢 but sadly that’s been my experience with 900mhz gear even though it gives amazing range it’s much more susceptible to sudden interference. Probably a radio from that boat. I remember having constant failsafe while my friends on frsky were enjoying flying before I discovered there was a cell tower near by knocking me out. I’ve had amazing luck on elrs 2.4 for the past years. Don’t be hard on yourself I didn’t see you do anything wrong here
This was one of my last quads running crossfire. I've been switching over to ELRS due to antenna size and overall cost. The link quality and range has been solid for me too. I'm really starting to think RF interference from the boat - or maybe the dam turbines/power system (3 km away) was the cause. Thanks for the comment and kind words.
Could be a signal loss security feature to protect that reservoir. Ya never know.
Hello, just commenting for public knowledge. That would not be the case. I am familiar with anti-Drone safeguards at airports. Dropping a drone into a reservoir made for a public consumption is probably not some thing officials would do on purpose.
@@GordonScottYankeeEngineer with the advent of large agriculture drones that can spray pesticides in bodies of water it wouldn't be far fetched. One very expensive drone loss with one dose Vs constant spraying of chemicals with this said drone undetected is lesser of the two evils.
@@thefpvlife7785 definitely not out of the realm of possibility, just probably not likely. Although I should not underestimate how evil men can be. I live near a very large reservoir in central Massachusetts, it is Boston’s drinking water supply. 412,000,000,000 gallons of water with almost no security whatsoever.
And now, with remote ID coming in September, the air space will have more drones soon than ever before. 😕
Very sorry to see this dude. I know it's no consolation but UHF (marine bands) are riiiight around 900mhz and they often have 5W radios. Probably the two water craft communicating as they passed each other. Very sorry for your loss though. Having seen your other vids, I know you must put a lot of time and passion into the hobby. Good news is you get to plan and build another now! I hope my subscribing and liking helps ease the pain. Still sucks though. Maybe ELRS this time?
Thanks for the comment and sub. - both are appreciated. I wondered about UHF - that certainly could kill crossfire link, and it is a requirement for boats to have it around here. Luckily I had just finished a 6" build.
It was probably the boat's. Ummagawd lost a digital quad when the crab boat turned on the sonar. Dropped straight into the water. If you're flying solo, you can turn your vtx up to 200-500mw for a better video signal.
Flying over water @25mw with a single patch antenna ...running crossfire at 100mw with a beat up old battery....and no gps chip? Need i say more?
25mW at 150 yards should be no issue, I had an axii omni + patch antenna. I'm not sure how a beat up battery on the quad connects with my radio transmitting at 100mW. It was a 4s pack, so even at 3.2v/cell the FC is getting 12.8v (more than a 3s pack at full charge), so the 5v BEC on the FC should have had lots of juice for the receiver. I could easily be wrong on that.
I'm sad for you ! Few years ago I live the same mistake. Good luck
why is fail safe behaviour to drop to the deck ? why not hover in place i only fly wings at the moment and fail safe is configured to hold current heading, speed and altitude for a short loss of rx and RTL for a longer one... surely quads can do the same?
Thanks for the comment and question. Pretty much any quadcopter that has barometer can manage altitude control, and with GPS/Compass position control. DJI drones for example are all like this. However, not all quads are built the same. The particular quad I lost in this video was a 100% freestyle quad designed to fly in ACRO/Rate mode only. It had no GPS/Compass or barometer, and I didn't have angle mode on a switch, so it didn't have any ability to hover in place. I'm 95% sure the boat driving past blasted it out of the air with its VHF radio.
did you push the gas right before rx loss?your battery is at a low stage maybe you got an undervoltage brownout
I once lost ELRS within 50 feet :-) My quad had survived many nasty crashes before the accident; at that time, it only had a light tap on a branch. So, OSD said it lost the signal, but actually, the whole onboard elrs was dead.
Glad it wasn't a complete loss.
It was flashing low battery for almost a minute before you ever went out over the water again....why take that kind of risk? totally avoidable.
This kind of bad luck can be devastating. Totally understand the irritation. Great save at 2:12! WAIT WHAT Watching the clip of it happen looks so unfair. My only thought is is your body between your tx and the quad it could have greatly reduced the signal; however, expect more from crossfire. Sorry this happened to you!
Thanks for taking time to drop a comment - much appreciated. The RC signal was going through me and my vehicle, so it certainly could be the issue. However, I've never had an issue with that before, and how I was standing in this video is how a normally fly - leaning against my truck. It does suck to lose the gear - but it is part of the hobby.
Same thing happened to me on Sunday too..but with a Dji Bnf..instead of loosing rx, I suddenly lost video as soon as I flew over water..so quick that gps return didn’t activate..mine is recoverable though as it’s not too deep there,
Very sorry to hear that. I really hope you're able to get your gear back.
Excuse me, but with a low battery warning that came up several times, flying over water is a stupid idea.
Thanks for taking time to leave a comment.
that sucks i too fly crossfire but i turn up the MW to get better range
I'll probably be moving up to 250 or 500 mW from now on. I don't usually fly more than a few hundred meters, but stronger signal is probably better.
That was bizarre indeed- wonder if the boat had anything to do with it 🤔
Thanks for dropping by and taking time to leave a comment. I do wonder if the boat was using a marine radio - they also run at 915 like Crossfire.
oldguyFPV says; Bummer for sure! I do a lot of flying. So far, I haven't had a crossfire fail. Sorry you lost your quad.
Thanks for kind words.
Lost mine last week in a river. Spent three days trying to retrieve it. I really wanted that camera back. 😫
That really sucks. The biggest loss for me was the camera too.
You spend 1200$ on a rig, and dont even spend 12$, for a bn220 gps. That sucks, and could have been avoidable. I wouldn't start blaming Crossfire unless you can definitively says thats what caused it. Can't see RF mode, or LQ on your osd, just dBm with isnt exactly usefill. The only thing i would suggest is getting stage 1 failsafe guard time from 1.5sec to 2 or even 2.5 to allow an extra second to re acquire signal if its indeed still there.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I'm not sure that a GPS based failsafe 'rescue' would have even had time to kick in before it hit the water.
So a few month ago I lost my nazgul in the sea .instead of switching modes I flicked the disarm . And it went straight in. I will never fly over water without foam or a water bottle strapped.. man don't you get dizzy waking such quick moves? I this you need to fix you rates . They seem to be very fast and uncomfortable.
Thanks for the comment. I'm looking into some kind of floatation to add on my quads. As for the rates - they aren't really that high - I use actual rates (centre sensitivity: 200; pitch/roll: 900/sec ; yaw: 800/sec with .20 expo on all 3 axis). I'm not 100% set on these rates as I still under/over rotate some times. They are the same rates I use on Whoops, so they may seem fast on a larger quad.
Something else happened to that drone I think, your video straight cuts well before you would have hit water, almost like the electronics stack was lighting on fire while you were going. It's tough to tell but I suspect the control link wasn't the only problem here.
If you couldn't recover the drone I guess we'll never really know :(
Yea...we'll never really know what happened for sure. Thanks for leaving a comment and taking the time to watch.
Sorry for you loss! Ive had a few issues usally user error somehow.... water = gps rescue in my book
everything about this flight seemed preventable.
1) you have a field, fly on it? why go over the water at all?
2) you are flying batteries way too low.. you need to land at 3.8 or 3.7 you do a huge PUMP and your battery will sag. why would you want to be at 3.4v so when you pump you drop below 3.2 ?
i bet you have a configuration setup where if you hit a certain voltage it will failsafe.. if you would have landed at the first low battery notification you would have a quad still. or even as a compromise... how about flying over 'land' when you have low battery warnings? why risk it with the water with a low battery notification...
if you get another quad, i would research the configs on battery / voltage / failsafe etc...
also... you got a battery or wiring issue... look at your take off. 4.12v you throttle up and it drops to 3.51? that is not normal... you either have too much weight on too little battery or you have something else thats not right... you shouldn't require that much battery power to literally take off? (2:00m into video)
Thanks for leaving the comments. I fly over water because I choose to, as I said in the video. You can lose a quad in a field, forest, or abandoned building forever too. The failsafe on all my quads is not voltage based.
right i do see RXLOSS and if you look it goes from -70 to -130 on the last few frames... probably the boat or some interference with their equipment. (possibly) I know that if i fly outside my house and i stand next to my office window which has a 2.4ghz / 5.8ghz router, I go from 50mbit to 14mbit instantly on my DJI o3 / v2 goggles@@blueskyfpv
I know the feeling,... but at least it wasent a jetplane near people or car etc..
I always try to keep a solid 100m between me and others when I'm flying.
Wow that hurts! Sorry you lost it. $15 m100 gps is cheap insurance imo. I have one on anything digital or that carries a gopro and betaflight return to home is decently reliable now. It has saved me twice, once over water. You can turn it off if your flying in and under trees or structure.
I haven't used betaflight RTH. As you mentioned, it has only recently become reliable. I'm already looking into how I can add GPS to my bigger quads.
You went down right next to the edge of the water. Does it really drop off that deep right away?
Hi...thanks for the comment.. I fish this lake regularly, and it has very steep drop from shoreline. It really does drop off that quickly. It is a massive and deep reservoir (Lake Diefenbaker).
You might of been pushing your luck on that battery. On a level flight (little throttle being used) if I see 3.5 or less I get back home ASAP. Sure most the time you can squeeze out a little more time but eventually that battery won't be able to "push the envelope" like a brand new one. Once the battery gets old it will drop from 3.4 to nothing out of nowhere.
yep..i should have landed. That battery was old.
Do you think that passing boat could have had anything that would interfere with the Rx frequency?
Thanks for watching and leaving a comment. I did wonder that too. I don't know what they would have been broadcasting at 915 mHz. The spot is about 4 km from a major hydro dam. Maybe that had an effect, but I fly the area often and never had an issue before. Who know.
@@blueskyfpv it was a fun watch, and i'm sorry for the loss of that drone. i feel it in my bones. i don't know much about what uses all the different frequencies but 915 would be a strange one for boat equipment i would imagine... what a mystery. and good content for youtube at least!
My thoughts too - dirt and condensation in a marine radar can make crazy harmonics that'll require you shielding your control circuit data links.
I wouldn't blame crossfire. Probably user error.
sucks big time brother. my elrs quad has fail safe'ed on me randomly out of no where 2 times out of roughly 90 flights. super damaging to the confidence of flying .. anywhere. luckily both times were over land.. tho water was close by. i hope to add gps RTH systems soon !
I've ordered GPS units for all my remaining larger quads.
SInce you were never able to get it back you cant know reason. I had a failsafe with my crossfire at a distance of 100 meters. RX LOSS! Turned out after GPS rescue successfully landed my quad that the power lead to my Crossfire micro came off from the flight controller. It had vibrated so badly the cable broke. Just saying.
sorry about the drone But there is also something wrong with your analog VTX reception. Rarely had so much interference in such a short distance. At least in the first few minutes of the video and you should dispose of the battery immediately. ARG took care of itself..... I think it was a voltage drop....
Seriously, I think the LiPo has failed completely.
The RX Lost came and immediately afterwards the picture was gone. The copter wasn't 100% in the water yet. At least the picture should have been there longer.
Thanks for leaving the comment. The video wasn't great, but I was at 25 mw with a 1 patch antenna. The video was getting very bad when I was flying behind the patch. As for the battery - you're right. It was a well used and beaten battery and did sag. Now it's just fish food!
5:00 haha I'm sure she will know somehow.... just wait for it.
Actually I had called her within 3 minutes of the crash. I don't keep stuff like this secret. She was very supportive - which I really appreciate.
I’d be pissed too.
Sorry for your loss bro I feel your pain. I have lost a kwad to the deep blue sea... gone forever.
Question? Why is your RSSI/like reading a negative number ive never seen that before.
Also it think others already answered the issue... It just didnt have any power. Notice your AMP draw it was high the RX would have asked for more power because you went further out.
Battery was too low to comply not to mention you were increasing Altitude so motors were taking most of your dwindling power.
I find anything over a 3" that says LAND NOW... you land.
Whoops can suck more power but a 3" or larger I find requires far more power and ignoring a low battery is asking for problems.
Thats how I almost lost my first 5"kwad running DJI just barely made it to shore. didn't have enough power to stay airborne.
Again my sympathies
Hey...thanks for the comments and suggestions. The RSSI you''re seeing is RSSI dbm, not RSSI as a %. Joshua Bardwell had a couple of good videos explaining it. You can see that here: ruclips.net/video/LnWdIssBk-c/видео.html
I would feed the receiver of a buck converter or something. Looks like you were Browning out there.
Talk to a local diveshop, 60 ft is well within the range of recreational divers and theyll probably be happy to recover it for a fee. We get calls like this all the time
That's not a bad idea. There is a very small local shop.
@@blueskyfpvThe recovery fee is usually based on item value, so do what you want with that information lol. Also water conditions affect it but this site doesnt look too bad.
I got a pond in front of my house. I built a submarine. And behind me, I got a rain forest behind me and for that, I built a grappler protect35 dual cam rescue snatcher(dual video feed).
The submarine sounds interesting. I've wanted to do underwater FPV for a long time.
@blueskyfpv It's a semi buoyant anchor on a tether with a camera and motors(bilge pumps) for directional control. The lights draw 450w the motors 20w
Took battery too far down for what i am guessing was an older pack because it dropped rapidly at the end there....once it started flashing low battery it really dropped off....most likely voltage dropped too much ...or if your using a module it couldve caused it too .i had it happeen with elrs on 1 watt and it would take the battery down too far from the module on 1 w and it would failsafe too i had to put external battery on radio
The battery was certainly older and sagging. I don't think the crossfire module on my radio was the issue - TBS makes high quality modules. It was at 100 mW which is a lower draw on the radio battery, but still plenty of power on Crossfire to go several kilometers - which I never do.
GPS with return to home
We'll never know for sure, but a GPS may have saved your quad.
Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment - I appreciate it. It is possible that a GPS would have saved it - although it did hit the water pretty fast after the RXLOSS.
@@blueskyfpv True, you didn't have much time before hitting the water. By the way Betaflight lets you set up how many milliseconds, after a failsafe, the Return To Home will kick in. In my case, the GPS has saved me a couple of times, not because of a failsafe (I use crossfire too), but because of a video signal loss. I have the Cobra X too, and a few months ago upgraded it with the VRX combo, and it's pretty amazing...
could it be that the battery died? you droped down to 3.2 V
i normally land at 3.5V so not sure if you can have rx issues if the voltage drops to low?
Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. A dead battery is a possibility for sure. That was an older pack, and, I often fly my batteries lower than most people. I aim for 3.5v after landing and resting for a minute or two. That does reduce the life of the batteries a bit for sure.
@@blueskyfpv I dont think the low battery caused the failsafe; although you were definitely nearing the end of the battery you hadn't yet reached the critical drop off point where it goes from 3.2v to 2.5v in 2 seconds... your voltage was actually recovering and current draw very low when it happened. IDK what it really was but doubt it was battery related unless the FC 5V stopped feeding the RX randomly. Id try magnet or hook on a rope maybe you could figure out what happened if you found it... knowing what happened might put your mind at ease more than the financial loss problem cuz loss of confidence and we all prepare ourselves for the financial loss first time we attach that gopro... i lost a rig that was cheap but the not knowing what happened made me search extra few days to find evidence of broken antenna or something.... entertaining video tho! Never Give Up!!
I wouldn't say losing quads has to be a part of the hobby I've been flying fpv for 10 years including a lot of mountain flying where if it goes down recovery would mean multiple days of hiking and I've never lost a single build *yet* haha. I have had to spend hours searching before though and even came back the next day on one occasion. I basically always have a gps for RTH on my builds though even a lot of my 1s builds get them now, I also wouldn't fly over water without a gps even at close distance I've had enough random failures to not trust that.
Thanks for leaving a comment. I've actually got a quad out in a field right now that I'm waiting till after harvest to find. I spent 5 hours looking for it in 3 foot tall wheat that was soaked from the irrigation system. As long as a 60 tonne combine doesn't drive over it I'm hopeful.
You have to adjust frequency & region setting to avoid this happening. There are videos on youtube how to do that. Hope will never happen again.
Hi Dimitry - thanks for the comment. I had the frequency (915) and region set for N. America (where I am). I've been using crossfire on that and other quad for about 3 years. It was only the 2nd failsafe I've ever had with crossfire. I'm starting to think that I probably got UHF interference from the marine radios boats must have.
@@blueskyfpv unfortunately these things happen, I had same issue with fail safe, updated software and region setting, all ok for the moment but it still left a bad taste. I feel your pain :( ...
What about diving under water to get the quad back? I feel sorry for you man.
I thought about it. I used to be a certified diver, but I don't have gear and I'm 20 years since my last dive. I fish this lake often, and has very steep drop off, so the quad is at about 60'. Best just to move on. At least I had 3 good years with that quad.
Your battery was weak that’s what it was about you should of landed my friend
Went farther than FRsky
Sry For your lost friend keep Rippin it happens
These things do happen. Thanks for leaving a comment and watching the video.
THAT WAS TOTAL PILOT ERROR CROSSFIRE RECEIVER CANT BROADCAST IF IT HAS NO POWER FROM YOUR SUSPECT BATTERY THAT WAS SAGGING FROM THE RIP. FLIGHT CONTROLLER TOLD YOU TO LAND, YOU TOOK IT OVER WATER
BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO ALL COMPONENTS AT LOW POWER
Hey...thanks for taking the time to watch and leave a comment. I really appreciate it. The battery was sagging - it was old and well used. I am foolishly hard on my batteries. I often fly till 3.2v - I know that is VERY low. However, I have never had a failsafe from a low battery. This was only my 2nd ever failsafe in 3+ years using that quad - the first was 2 years ago from a clipped wire.
you are analog or HD because i can tell you analog dont work at all
Analog
Try magnet fishing it?
I hadn't thought of that. Interesting idea.
@@blueskyfpv
On the other hand you now have a justification for a submersible camera drone. 😜 but I bet the magnet is more efficient.
@@MindRiderFPV I'd LOVE an FPV sub. I've been dreaming of one for years. Their just so bloody expensive
@@blueskyfpv
I agree.Hope you get the quad back!
That doesnt make much sense? Shouldnt have failsafed that close. One could ask what power settings you had on the tx and receiver settings but it was too close to matter really. And it looks like its not too far from the bank where it dropped. Hmmm. Sorry this happened to you man. Dont give up on crossfire though.
Thanks for the comment. I run all my crossfire at 100mW and 150kHz refresh. I often fly 1 -2 Km out over fields and never had an issue. Losing gear is part of the hobby - I just hate it when it is because of gear not working as expected. At least I had just built a 6" Source 1 a week earlier.
INAV RTH
Can't use INAV RTH on Betaflight :-) But you're probably right that a RTH may have saved the quad.
No I agree, but you can use INAV for cruisers and Freestyle as well as long range. In fact I've never flown Betaflight, well yet, I do have a Whoop coming soon. I have put INAV to work on two 5 inch and one 7 inch quad and they fly great. I have also had to use rth when an analog VTX smoked while diving trees. I started the walk of shame and here she comes at a preset altitude then proceeds to land a foot or two from the launch pad. It can save the day, maybe not 100% if it runs into something. Since then I often test position hold and rth so that I will be ready when I need it. And it work work on a plane, car, boat, and soon on a VTOL. Just saying.@@blueskyfpv
SORRY IT HAPPENED TO U
Thanks for the comment. Losing gear is part of this hobby. A painful part for sure.
😢
🪦
I feel your pain, i had the same thing happen to me a couple of months ago. Was with my favourite quad too. 40' down in the ocean. Apex 5" , Caddx Vista, DJI Action2 gone. Shrugged my shoulders, packed my gear and drove home. On the plus side i didn't have to worry about looking for it. 🥲
Man...sorry to hear that. Thanks for taking the time to drop a comment. Much appreciated. It was a 'plus' not to search for 3 hours trying to find it. Funny about shrugging shoulders and going home. I'm getting better at that now.