3.0.6. Update Users Notes

[Damon]

Finally had a chance to test out the FPVLR antennas with a longer range flight.

After launch and resetting home location about 40 meters overhead, I flipped the P2 into ATTI mode and headed out with the light wind behind me. (4.5 mph) Full speed ahead continually testing my nerves the whole way. While watching the monitor I expected the geofence "limit" to kick in at 1600 Meters. Nope... Forgot I was in ATTI in which case the fence did not kick in, but I continued out to 1720 Meters. I stopped here only because I knew I would be heading back into the breeze and did not want an auto descend issue.

Did a full 360 degree spin and FPV was rock solid!

Once it was back and safely over my head I still had 65% battery left. I believe it got down to 11 volts on the way back but once hovering it climbed back up to 11.3 volts.

I guess my next test will be flying out near the 1600 Meter geofence and then flipping to GPS to confirm it actually does limit the distance on flight. Hell maybe I'll even flip the failsafe switch to confirm it comes back at same pitch as ATTI mode.

I'm actually thinking about changing the title of this tread to "The diary of a mad man" since there has not been very many posts by users with comments.

 

[Damon]

Thanks for the great antennas Tony! I'm sure eventually once I find the balls to do so, I'll try it. I'm still a noob and they just have not fallen yet.

 

[gruvpix]

Thanks for the great antennas Tony! I'm sure eventually once I find the balls to do so, I'll try it. I'm still a noob and they just have not fallen yet.

I can attest, the geo fence definitely does work!
Upped it to 2.5k, and now no problems

 

[Damon]

Thanks for the great antennas Tony! I'm sure eventually once I find the balls to do so, I'll try it. I'm still a noob and they just have not fallen yet.

I can attest, the geo fence definitely does work!
Upped it to 2.5k, and now no problems

What has been your furthest distance? I just have a huge fear of hitting that 10.8 volt range forcing auto descend.

Plus its dove season here and I hate to tempt a kid into shooting my drone. I was once a dumb little ****, and I'm not sure what I would have done being presented a nice white flying object...lol

I knew the ceiling works after flying up to it when trying to get a picture of the entire football field and track. I had it set at 400 ft to prevent accidentally going over that FAA threshold.

 

[Damon]

Finally had some time to test out a little further on the distance, since FPVLR trusts his product, and gave me the challenge.

It was not the most desirable wind condition but it seemed calm enough to try. (later checked when back and it was a about 3.5 M/S sideways drift speed at 30 meters up. Again launched it and set a high home point before trucking off in ATTI mode.

Buzzed out to 2500 meters which was my set goal. FPV was solid all the way out, but on the 180 turn around to face my location I lost signal. Mind you, the antenna is placed next to my left rear leg at bottom, but obviously my gimbal, camera and tracker are blocking some of the line of sight.

I figured since I had no FPV I would throw it into home lock, and pull right stick full down. I was getting intermittent FPV flashes and was noticing distance was actually increasing! I ended up at 2740 meters before turning it around to get actual FPV to analyze what the hell was going on. Once the antenna had a clear shot of me for FPV it was slightly showing noise on screen but I was happy as hell just to see what was actually going on.

I can only imagine if I would have kept pulling the right stick down in H/L where it would have ended up. Like I've said before I'm still new to this stuff so my heart was probably going around 160-180 beats a minute. Thus thinking mode was definitely not there. I can now understand if a really new person does this, he is definitely tempting fate in which he will be screaming fly away when it is actually pilot error.

Once I had the bird back from this flight I still had 52% of battery and voltage was bouncing between 11.0-11.1

I guess for now this will be my furthest flight until I can figure out a better antenna location and make **** sure wind is around zero.

 

[gruvpix]

Thanks for the great antennas Tony! I'm sure eventually once I find the balls to do so, I'll try it. I'm still a noob and they just have not fallen yet.

I can attest, the geo fence definitely does work!
Upped it to 2.5k, and now no problems

What has been your furthest distance? I just have a huge fear of hitting that 10.8 volt range forcing auto descend.

Plus its dove season here and I hate to tempt a kid into shooting my drone. I was once a dumb little ****, and I'm not sure what I would have done being presented a nice white flying object...lol

I knew the ceiling works after flying up to it when trying to get a picture of the entire football field and track. I had it set at 400 ft to prevent accidentally going over that FAA threshold.

Max distance was 2.5k. Now I am cheating because I'm piloting it from a motorboat that is keeping pace with the phantom as it flies along the shoreline, so doesn't really count

 

[Damon]

I believe you have hit the nail on the head Tony. I was only at about 90 meters when I made this run.

Once I get a completely wind free day I will try taking the elevation up as I go.

Also wish someone could print or fabricate a Tracker mount that also allowed for a rubber assisted loaded mount arm. In theory I could launch with antenna laying horizontal and have it spring down below the quad. I hand catch all landings so it would not be an issue. I could have you fab me an extension wire from RX down to antenna.

 

[Damon]

Max distance was 2.5k. Now I am cheating because I'm piloting it from a motorboat that is keeping pace with the phantom as it flies along the shoreline, so doesn't really count

That is definitely cheating, but your flying over water which would be way more stressful than me flying over farmlands! The only stress is landing in orchards, or an irrigation canal which are scattered about the route.

Did you see the video on the guy that made a 10 mile run in desert following along in a car? I was impressed with the Phantom Battery on that flight, but he unfortunately ended the flight with a crash landing.

 

[Damon]

I went out for another flight because weather was nice. This time I wanted to test and verify some things I noticed on the failure to H/L for return today in ATTI mode. Confirmed that P2 has to be in GPS mode for H/L to work, which makes since because ATTI eliminates GPS information from the equation and that is why ATTI is great when issues arise most likely caused by fight with GPS and Compass values.

I did a quick 1600 Meter flight and confirmed geofence stops my bird dead in it tracks when in GPS. I also again confirmed the geofence ceiling worked, which I limited height to 115 Meters, since I did not want to have FAA problems of flying over 400 AGL.

FPV was rock solid again, so I can say I'm a firm believer in FPVLR.COM products!

I noticed a very strange quirk with setting my home location high above me before forward flight. When I tested Failsafe RTH it climbed at a real slow ascent .5 m/s and hit the ceiling. It seemed like forever for it to actually come home. I noticed the pitch was bouncing from 10% to 15%. I speculate this variance was being caused as the quad was bouncing off the ceiling during its return. Can anyone tell me offhand if RTH when initiated is limited to the 15% pitch like flying with GPS or does it go to a steeper ATTI 25% pitch?

I personally wish it would RTH at a 35% pitch just for the sake of getting it home safely to prevent battery levels from reaching auto descent voltage rates, and to ease my anxiety levels!

 

[Damon]

Today I tested out Fail Safe RTH to verify what pitch it flies in without hitting the geofence ceiling like occurred yesterday.

It was windy today ( gusting probably around 15 mph) I think the ATTI drift was 5.6 M/S. I tested the RTH at ranges of 100-200 meters from home point from north, south, east and west. It appears that RTH is not set up to fly at a full throttle return. I noticed when it had wind assisting the pitch was minimal bouncing from 3% to 8% and a speed of 8 M/S.

When facing the wind on return its pitch would max out at 15%, so it apparently will either use the 8 M/S or 15% pitch which ever is reached first. I guess the next test will be doing RTH from greater distance and see if DJI has the pitches and speeds set at different levels based on distance from home point.

 

[Damon]

Today I re-confirmed the firmware is limiting the RTH speed at 8.0 M/S or approximately 18 MPH. (From 600 Meters out) It was calm today with hardly a breeze the RTH pitch was around 5% hitting the 8.0 M/S limit. I guess if your a longer range person you might want to really factor that in when returning especially if you returning into a head wind or flying in higher gusty winds.

I imagine a lot of "fly away" birds are just not making it back to home into head winds and auto descending before the pilot has LOS or established FPV.

I really wish I knew more about batteries and electrical current, drain, or loads. I'm curious if this 8 M/S RTH extends the flight time on return home, thus reducing the load so the voltage actually stays higher for a longer period of time. Anyone?

I also tested out trying to use H/L for POI video of a larger item "Hay Stack" trying to simulate doing Real Estate video. I set the new home point over the stack and then backed it out about 20 meters. Applying right stick sideways, as true as possible, it appeared to travel around the stack. But I still had to use YAW to center the image. Plus I noticed the distance slowly increased as I was travelling CCW around the stack and yawing left. So I would have to say this is a shitty way to do POI filming. I can do better with use of sticks on my own without H/L.

 

[q8f1]

"I'm curious if this 8 M/S RTH extends the flight time on return home, thus reducing the load so the voltage actually stays higher for a longer period of time. Anyone?"

You may be right, since the update I getting more RTH's now and each battery has about 20% when returned.

 

[Damon]

"I'm curious if this 8 M/S RTH extends the flight time on return home, thus reducing the load so the voltage actually stays higher for a longer period of time. Anyone?"

You may be right, since the update I getting more RTH's now and each battery has about 20% when returned.

Yes the firmware is set to initiate RTH at 20%.

Are you noticing that once you do get it to home location on longer flights the voltage remaining is higher than it used to be? Or do you not have a typical distance from which you used to start your RTH from on previous firmware?

 

[Bluegrass]

Thanks for the great antennas Tony! I'm sure eventually once I find the balls to do so, I'll try it. I'm still a noob and they just have not fallen yet.

Can you tell me what antennas you bought?

 

[Damon]

I basically bought this package. http://fpvlr.com/shop/index.php?route=p ... duct_id=97

If you order just make sure in the comments section of the order make sure to list male or female for each antenna and 90 degree if needed for your application. I had to do 90 degree on both pinwheels with one male and one female because my transmitter needed male and my monitor needed dual female.

I unfortunately bought the 4.25 helical first and then the other two pinwheels later. Effectively spending more money and more shipping. :shock:

I originally had a cheap patch panel and a Fatshark Mushroom on my monitor, and a Fatshark mushroom on my transmitter. These were blown out of the water by the new set up. :lol:

 

[q8f1]

Damon; "Are you noticing that once you do get it to home location on longer flights the voltage remaining is higher than it used to be?"

Yes I would almost certainly, whether this is to do with the slower speed RTH I don't know, but normally when I want to I flick the S1 switch down and up near the home location, back into GPS mode and I can easily fly another 5mins+ before the 2nd set of faster red LEDs flashes.

Or do you not have a typical distance from which you used to start your RTH from on previous firmware?" No never really got that far, maybe 400/800mtrs, still new to it, but only twice in 70 flights did RTH activate, since the latest update 6 out of 31 flights RTH activated.

One thing I've picked up on the forums is; do NOT fly too fast or do rapid manoeuvres when the RTH is about to be initiated, the P2 can't cope and will fly away or nose dive, seemily. My personal safety figure is 10.8v, once I get below 11v on the FPV I look to start to finish the filming.

Cheers Mark

 

[Damon]

Mark,

Thanks for info, its good to compare different users experiences. I have noticed a couple times "auto land" initiated at 10.8 volts. I definitely keep it fairly close to home at that level now.

 

[q8f1]

No problem it's good reading yours and everyone's posts, all very helpful.

Yes 10.8volts seems to be the magic figure, personally I don't mind I see it as an added safety feature, my last flight was 1km out over the sea, even if RTH had initiated (which it hadn't, 11.2v), I know I could get it back with some battery left.

Cheers Mark

 

[Bluegrass]

I basically bought this package. http://fpvlr.com/shop/index.php?route=p ... duct_id=97

If you order just make sure in the comments section of the order make sure to list male or female for each antenna and 90 degree if needed for your application. I had to do 90 degree on both pinwheels with one male and one female because my transmitter needed male and my monitor needed dual female.

I unfortunately bought the 4.25 helical first and then the other two pinwheels later. Effectively spending more money and more shipping. :shock:

I originally had a cheap patch panel and a Fatshark Mushroom on my monitor, and a Fatshark mushroom on my transmitter. These were blown out of the water by the new set up. :lol:

I assume that the connector on your transmitter points directly out the back or out a side under the belly. Do you have your new antenna pointing straight out the side or straight down with a right angle? I have a black pearl monitor/receiver and cloverleaf antennas on both the transmitter & black pearl. I think the transmitter is a knock off of the Immersion 600mw but mine has an 8 segment desplay. I bought mine as a deluxe Kumba kit from Amazon. I'm pretty sure there all the same, male or female.

 

[Damon]

I assume that the connector on your transmitter points directly out the back or out a side under the belly. Do you have your new antenna pointing straight out the side or straight down with a right angle? I have a black pearl monitor/receiver and cloverleaf antennas on both the transmitter & black pearl. I think the transmitter is a knock off of the Immersion 600mw but mine has an 8 segment desplay. I bought mine as a deluxe Kumba kit from Amazon. I'm pretty sure there all the same, male or female.

I have my TS832 tx mounted on the belly sideways with antenna mount opposite the side that has compass mounted.

The new antenna is a 90 degree and I placed it just to the back of the left rear leg. Its length is a little to long to be hung straight down. The only reason it is placed at the rear leg is because the hard case allows me to leave it on in between flights. ( I'm lazy and I would hate to forget to put it back on prior to turning P2 on and ultimately destroying the transmitter.)

I can post picture if you would like.