FPVLR Stage 3 - 2.4ghz Video issues - Need help

[WellyflyerNZ]

Hi,

Over the past week i have finally got onto some long planned upgrades for my vision plus.

aluminium foil gps mod.
stage 3 fpvlr
flytrex live 3g

the flytrex and foil mod worked great.

I am having some trouble and having really bad results with the 2.4ghz video connection.
I am not sure if i have done something wrong, or if i have damaged something during the install process.
I am losing connection at very close distances, like 20m away at some times. i have tried all the different resolution and frame rate settings. lower ones are working better, but still not use-able . Much Much worse than before the mod.

I have since removed the foil mod to make sure that was not causing an issue. No change.
I have checked all the pigtail cables, and that all connectors are tight and male to female. Surely if ONE was loose i would still get a reasonable connection from the other.
I also went through and made sure there were no kinks or hard angles on the pigtails. The connectors in the range extender are not and have not been touching the metal box.
I have tried reseting and re binding the extender.

My thoughts would be that something is wrong with either the range extender of the Wifi module. i am just not sure how i can isolate which one could be the problem.

When doing the mod on the range extender i accidentally flicked the power switch on, when there were no antenna connected. It would have only been on for about 2 seconds at most. Could this have damaged the device severely?

please check the pics and let me know if you see anything that looks worrying.

The device i am using is a Samsung tab s 8.4






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Thanks for any help anyone might be able to provide.

Chris

 

[max]

Hi Chris,
I made a stupid mistake when I did stage 3 and screwed the cloverleaf antennas onto the wrong connectors on one side of the bird. Can't be sure from your pictures, but it doesn't seem like you've made this mistake, but I mention it because I had similar symptoms with video cutting out very close distances.

 

[WellyflyerNZ]

Hi WellyflyerNZ,
we've corrected a few of these installation problems in the past, recently we had a customer do a self installation and he pushed onto the u.fl cable and he bent the pin inside, not knowing it of course, if the pin does not line up with the hole, you should not press hard, this created a short and of course the guy had a problem.

I replaced the internal cables.

Another customer who also was only getting 20 meters of range sent us the wifi extender, and we found it was dead, I mean it would power up but no RF was coming out of the sma connectors.

Best way to check it is with a rf power meter.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

I have had a look at the connectors inside the extender again this morning. From memory i didnt force them on, and they seem to look ok. Check the pics below.




I downloaded Wifi analyzer onto my tablet and checked the signal of the two wifi networks. I made a alias within wifi analyser for the hidden ssid of the phantom wifi module.



Not sure if the wifi module signal should be that weak compared to the extender signal??

I may try source a replacement range extender to try and isolate the problem.

Cheers

 

[offthefront]

ok ..... how do we know what the hidden SSID is ?


Also ..... " WellyflyerNZ" any progress ????? thanks ......otf

 

[rotorwash]

what is the name of that wifi analyzer?
I am dealing with the same issue and weather hampers my testing. I just finished replacing the wires in the wifi unit after I tried to route them like this download/file.php?id=10758&mode=view I have since changed it to this


I find it a really tight space inside the wifi extender and I might just try routing the wires outside the extender if my last attempt doesn't work. Just frustrating when its hard to diagnose the issue when the only thing I can do is fly it.

 

[Kev the Frog]

what is the name of that wifi analyzer?

I think you will find it here.... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

Free and very good to boot!

 

[rotorwash]

what is the name of that wifi analyzer?

I think you will find it here.... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

Free and very good to boot!

Thanks!!!
Unfortunately Its not available for apple grrrr.

 

[WellyflyerNZ]

ok ..... how do we know what the hidden SSID is ?


Also ..... " WellyflyerNZ" any progress ????? thanks ......otf

I have had some sucess in solving this problem. I have not tested further out than about 800m so far.

First i removed all stage 3 antenna from the phantom.
I then Re-routed the cables, so the 2.4 pigtail was not crossing over the main board and reciever. Ended up wih the 2.4's on one side and the 5.8's on the other.
I then re-installed the stage 3 antennas on the bird side. Without the locking washers and using two small adjustable wrenchs to make sure they were really tight at the connection. At this point I also removed a 90deg rp-sma adapter that was used to have one 2.4ghz antenna out to the side. Instead I gently bent the antenna stem. Im not sure about this, but just wanted to remove any item extra i could, in case it was that causing a problem.
I had mangled the pigtails for the inside of the range extender, having taken them out, put them back in, tested, taken out, put back and on and on. I ordered some new ones off an ebay seller. Cant remeber the name.
I installed these cables, and this time attached the pinwheel and the helix sphere while the extender case was open, to make sure the cable on the inside was not turning while attaching. Once again, i made these connections ALOT tighter than i had before. Removed washers, as with bird side.

So basically just re-installed everything and took my time, making sure at every step that i had not missed anything.

I have yet to test it for long range. I will report back once i do.

 

[offthefront]

Ok ..... trying to get a grasp of this ..... according to the analyzer my wifi from the remote (Phantom_Air_Belsys) is good? ~25 .... But the Signal from the Phantom (Phantom) not so good? ~68 ...... Plus the Phantom Signal will come and go ...while the remote seems rock solid ......

Also .......Should there be a 5.8 Signal for control?

 

[RichWest]

That was my experience, 2.4 hidden was weak compared to the extender's output. Also the hidden comes and goes like a typical wifi network SSID, whereas the extender never varied.

Sounds like you have a connection issue, like not fully seated SMA (actual antennas) connections, either at the extender or bird. When you are too close, anything will work.

The pictured U.fl connectors looks fine. Just center them on the smt connector and push straight down. Should kind of click into place....

When done re-wiring don't forget to plug in your GPS cable firmly. Not a source for your problem, just a possible oversight when everything gets bolted back together.... I did this two different times...

 

[offthefront]

That was my experience, 2.4 hidden was weak compared to the extender's output. Also the hidden comes and goes like a typical wifi network SSID, whereas the extender never varied.

Sounds like you have a connection issue, like not fully seated SMA (actual antennas) connections, either at the extender or bird. When you are too close, anything will work.

The pictured U.fl connectors looks fine. Just center them on the smt connector and push straight down. Should kind of click into place....

When done re-wiring don't forget to plug in your GPS cable firmly. Not a source for your problem, just a possible oversight when everything gets bolted back together.... I did this two different times...

I plan on checking on the connections ... On the Wifi Analyzer ... is there a way to only see the phantom wifi and not all the junk around us? I cant seem to figure that out ....and the 5.8 for the control? should it be visible? otf

 

[RichWest]

I've never seen the control ban at 5.8 on the wifi analyzer app. I'm fairly sure it's not using any network protocol like the video side.

I'm not sure you can block the other ssid's in the graph screen, but you can select a specific ssid to watch on the metering screen. Just play around with the apps options.