New Flytrex Goodies

[flyNfrank]

frank.. the find your phantom only works if you were flying within wifi range.. if you are beyond that range (or out of LOS), you have a totally useless "last location".

If power is lost, the phantom is going down like a rock. The last transmitted location will be a zillion times more accurate than without.

Based on your "going down like a rock" theory, allow me to present a flight I'm familiar with, and hopefully you or the rock will know it's location.

Say Pete is out in the country where there is very little structures other then some wooded areas here & there. Based on before last firmware update that brought us the smart battery feature. Pete flies straight up to 3600ft altitude where he stops because he started getting lost connections and knew he was close to his limits based on the weather. After some 45 seconds Pete notices on his monitor/screen it shows his quad is at 255ft distance which in this case means when he reached the point in the sky that is directly above Pete's Home Point, that his quad is slowly drifting. When he goes to grab the controls to lower more to a altitude that suits his connection, and also fly it closer to over head again.....Pete inadvertently yaws his quad which turns his main connection antenna totally opposite of him. He realizes there is absolutely nothing he can do at this point except hope for miracle. Even though he continues to work his controller hoping he will get a connection, he doesn't and eventually his battery reaches the point of stopping, and the quad begins falling. There is an occasional 7-10 mph wind gust, and is the same gust responsible for pushing his quad into the drift.

So Pete's quads last transmitted location was just before the battery expired. None the less we have that spot which is showing in the dji setting under "Find My Phantom 2 Vision".

So Jayson says Pete's quad will drop like a rock.
My question for you Jayson is, why when Pete went to the spot shown in his app, it was nowhere in sight? And based on the given details given, where is Pete's quad now? What is your best guess?

*Note- The above is not the actual events that took place. They were changed to better help Jayson come up with a reasonable answer. Getting the FLT to more rewarding device is the actual goal. The above example is to show that our quads do not fall straight down. And for anyone complaining about high altitude, I can put together an example for you that is under 400ft if need be.

 

[amitregev]

A clear necessity for the FLT is for it to at least have a small battery backup with enough power that if the main power exhausted, the backup could transmit a signal to show it's position. It only needs to transmit 1-3 hours maybe once every 15 minutes. A watch battery to a 9volt battery could be a possibility.

As it is now, because the FLT uses our vPlus for it's battery source, should the vPlus battery go dead while in flight you will not know your quads exact location. Which makes the FLT useless in this situation, when it doesn't have to. Basically, in regards to tracking position, the FLT in it's current state is no different then the vPlus "Find My Phantom 2 Vision" feature in the DJI app settings. That feature stops working when it no longer receives a GPS signal.

The FLT in true form is actually far from being a near $200 device. The expense to add the ability to continue transmitting it's location/position after the main source has expired could be minimal compared to the benefits. Of coarse I would think that one of Flytrex goals would be to keep their customer base in the air as much as possible. I strongly feel that if Flytrex were to make a battery backup option, it would draw the interest from other markets, and in that case the online live part of the device would be considered a perk. Overall this is a very important request. Amit, Please make some serious considerations on this matter.

Also can you let US customers know what steps are currently being taken to replace 2G for those in the US? The 2G is deteriorating very fast in the US.

Hi flyNfrank,

Thanks for the feedback!

Unlike many other trackers, Flytrex Live - combined with the Flytrex servers - logs and stores each beacon sent from the Live and is immediately updated on the Last Seen feature that you can access at any time from your Flytrex Profile account.

This means that in the even if you crashed far from home and your battery goes dead completely after a while, we'll still have a full report including all your last data obtained from your multirotor and available for you, which can be vital when trying to locate your aircraft.

As for loosing the battery completely during flight in the air - as far as I can tell, your engines will stop working (or lose the power needed to actually fly) long before Flytrex Live will. Flytrex Live needs much less current from your LiPo to actually operate compared to the engines (much much less..) so even if the battery went dead while flying and you crashed badly, the LiPo should have more than enough juice available for the Live to continue transmitting data for much more time.

If you crashed badly -- for example -- hitting a lake, most chances that Flytrex Live will have the best chances to help recover your last-hit location as well. Beacons are stored between 2 to 4 times a second, so we can give a rather accurate pin-point of your last known location, which dramatically increases your chances of finding your multirotor.

We know we had somewhat of a 'rough' start with the Live release - this is a major leap forward for us and we've been able to improve lots of things since its release and continue to do so daily. We're now working closely with a group of users to fix another annoying bug which I hope a fix will be available for shortly.

We already have several great stories posted by users at our Facebook page after recovering their aircraft using the Live and being able to pin-point its exact location using the last-seen tool.

@ As for 2G connectivity in the states - I can't disclose much more details at this stage, but we'll definitely introduce a solution for this. I hope to have more details coming shortly.

I will of course post more details as we're getting more things ready.

 

[flyNfrank]

A clear necessity for the FLT is for it to at least have a small battery backup with enough power that if the main power exhausted, the backup could transmit a signal to show it's position. It only needs to transmit 1-3 hours maybe once every 15 minutes. A watch battery to a 9volt battery could be a possibility..

I made a post asking about this once before buying the Marco Polo and its something I agree with.

First, I did not want to have a device that relied on Phantom power. And secondly did not want one more stupid thing to keep charged. I compromised with the Marco Polo as the battery will last a month.

But my personal preference would onboard tracker battery that trickle charges off the Phantom battery with a diode or whatever circuitry needed so it did not discharge.

I would be happy to pay Flytrex the $200 for that option along with 3G or better and micro SD.

rrmccabe, it's responses like yours why I would like to add a Flytrex section to my site where the manufacturer can be exposed to the benefits of true public relations. When a company can give the customer what they want, the company experiences growth. Nothing better then coming to work knowing you are doing things right. It's generally just a matter of surrounding yourself with the right people.

 

[flyNfrank]

Bare with me as I sometimes take a long time responding having to leave and come back. So it may look like I'm behind on my posting.

- In regards to the discussion on FLT backup battery. I'm not 100% sure we're on the same page with what message we're trying to get across. To begin with, this is solely on the FLT as it is right now. From this end there is two areas of concern. The being the FLT to have the ability to transmit location signals in the event there is no power coming from the dji smart battery, only. Whether the battery is dead or off, there is no available power of any kind whatsoever. This means the FLT is unable to anything. Please understand I spent an additional $3000 this year due to being unable to locate my quad after a fly away, and a crash I watched take place and still could not find it. If this is not something you are interested in pursuing, then please by all means say so now. I can relate to a project that already has enough irons in the fire so to speak. I on the other hand would prefer to work on such an option with your company because anything else we are involved in will most likely interfere with the FLT in one way or another. On such a device there is just noway around it.

And unfortunately the other area of concern falls right into the same scenario. As you know I emailed you the end of August with questions on the FLT's abilities, and mentioned I may have a fix for based on your response. I want to do all that I can to help you. But your response did indeed pull the plug on what I had hopped would not happen.

 

[Jayson Hanes]

Frank, as Amit said, when the motors stop due to low battery, there is still plenty of juice to power the FLT and maintain location to the flytrex servers as long as a data connection can be maintained. I would put money on the idea that, up until impact on the ground, that the FLT would still be transmitting to the best of its ability, and be far more accurate than the "find my phantom" -- because the phantom would already be off and no longer updating it's location via wifi.

However, the phantom will not sit up at altitude until the motors shut off.. so I think this is a needless hypothetical because it'd be on it's way down long before the motors shut off due to low voltage..

Regardless of that, if it were to drop out of the sky at altitude due to motor shut off, during impact many batteries are ejected and there would likely be no more updates.. in those cases I don't see why we couldn't use a lightweight 12v lipo (or close) in parallel with the power source (and a diode between the batteries's positive's, to prevent the phantom from drawing current from it, while allowing the smaller lipo to source current FROM the main battery).. I haven't seen the current requirements of the FLT anywhere yet.. but this should be easily feasible even if only as an upgrade.

In fact, I've seen a few people decide against soldering to their phantom and using an external lipo.. so a combination makes sense to me, even if I don't see it as necessary.

 

[Lowepg]

Love the transparency in those last few posts!

I'm a Live 2.0 buyer the MINUTE 3G is announced.

In fact, Id even buy one now if flytrex committed to a free upgrade once a 3g solution is released.

In the meantime, I will keep using the (bulletproof) core 2.... only think I could even wish for is actual date stamps on the files- but thats a minor niggle.

 

[rrmccabe]

only think I could even wish for is actual date stamps on the files- but thats a minor niggle.

I thought I was the only one annoyed by that

 

[allemtura]

Can anyone tell me which pin the orange cable goes into the small white connector please? I accidentally pulled mine out but I don't know which of the three remaining pins it was.

The red pin for example is still in the last/first pin.

Thanks.

 

[allemtura]

On another note, I've seen the LED status on my live swap between flashing green and solid red, for at least 5 cycles while up in the air. Does anyone know what this means please?

This page doesn't help I'm afraid: http://www.flytrex.com/support/flytrex- ... reference/

 

[allemtura]

Can anyone tell me which pin the orange cable goes into the small white connector please? I accidentally pulled mine out but I don't know which of the three remaining pins it was.

The red pin for example is still in the last/first pin.

Thanks.

I've found the answer now - the orange is in pin 4 (if I consider the red is in pin 1).

 

[flyNfrank]

Frank, as Amit said, when the motors stop due to low battery, there is still plenty of juice to power the FLT and maintain location to the flytrex servers as long as a data connection can be maintained. I would put money on the idea that, up until impact on the ground, that the FLT would still be transmitting to the best of its ability, and be far more accurate than the "find my phantom" -- because the phantom would already be off and no longer updating it's location via wifi.

However, the phantom will not sit up at altitude until the motors shut off.. so I think this is a needless hypothetical because it'd be on it's way down long before the motors shut off due to low voltage..

Regardless of that, if it were to drop out of the sky at altitude due to motor shut off, during impact many batteries are ejected and there would likely be no more updates.. in those cases I don't see why we couldn't use a lightweight 12v lipo (or close) in parallel with the power source (and a diode between the batteries's positive's, to prevent the phantom from drawing current from it, while allowing the smaller lipo to source current FROM the main battery).. I haven't seen the current requirements of the FLT anywhere yet.. but this should be easily feasible even if only as an upgrade.

In fact, I've seen a few people decide against soldering to their phantom and using an external lipo.. so a combination makes sense to me, even if I don't see it as necessary.

For anyone to bring up how much power is still left in the battery after the motors shut off in this case, is only wasting time & energy. When the Vision's battery shuts off, it's off. When it's off, it will not supply power to anything.

Jayson, you told us how if our quads lost power, they would drop to the ground like a rock and their last transmitted signal would be a zillion times more accurate then without a signal. I gave you a flight scenario and asked you to explain or even take a guess on the location of it's where abouts, and apparently you couldn't come up with anything. I mentioned it was not the actual events

The FLT is what it says it is. A Live Tracker...it only tracks when it Live. But with a small mod, it could be a kickass device.

 

[Jayson Hanes]

uh.. the motors would shut off based on your scenario long before the battery is dead. You can hover right in front of you and force it to stay in the air until 0%.. and at which point, shortly after, the motors will shut off, thereby simulating your scenario.. it would drop to the ground, and there would STILL be power provided to the flytrex from the battery because the battery would NOT be "off" yet, just too low of a voltage to keep the motors running and the phantom flying. So we would still have an accurate location until impact with the ground, assuming that the data connection could still be maintained.

 

[flyNfrank]

uh.. the motors would shut off based on your scenario long before the battery is dead. You can hover right in front of you and force it to stay in the air until 0%.. and at which point, shortly after, the motors will shut off, thereby simulating your scenario.. it would drop to the ground, and there would STILL be power provided to the flytrex from the battery because the battery would NOT be "off" yet, just too low of a voltage to keep the motors running and the phantom flying. So we would still have an accurate location until impact with the ground, assuming that the data connection could still be maintained.

What about the wind gust? Or are you saying from 3,000+ feet the quad will still fall straight down to the ground?

And the rest of you added is wrong as well. And if you think it is not wrong, would you want to bet that is correct? I would suggest you speakout on things you know to be factual, something you yourself has 1st hand experience with. Based on what I have read from you, comes from speculation which won't cut it today.

 

[Jayson Hanes]

Frank I did it just last night, so take a cup of STFU. My flytrex has the discharge "flight". I flew to 0% per the vision app (which isn't really 0%), let the motors shut off and caught it, then brought it inside and checked the cell voltages etc on the vision app, and since the motors were not running, the battery bounced back.. I turned it off and on, and logged 32 odd minutes of the flytrex still broadcasting.. before I got bored of the flashing yellow lights from my lanai. I even tried to "restart" the motors but it wouldn't let me due to the battery being so low.

And in case you hadn't seen such, objects on weather balloons can reach the edge of space and fall back relatively close to their take off -- and they drift in the wind slowly. A phantom at 2lbs that is more or less a true ROCK, might drift as it falls only a few hundred yards at best.

Therefore, if MY PHANTOM were to run out of battery at high altitude, and have the motors shut off, the battery will keep the flytrex LIVE, alive and broadcasting, for a LONG TIME as it free falls back to earth until it impacts.

 

[Lowepg]

What about the wind gust? Or are you saying from 3,000+ feet the quad will still fall straight down to the ground?

I would suggest you speakout on things you know to be factual, something you yourself has 1st hand experience with. .

Gee, why so belligerent?

I assume from your post that YOU have actually measured the drift of an object dropped from 3000 feet?

I havent. But then again, thats not my normal cruising altitude for my phantom to begin with... I would hypothesize, though, that from most NORMAL flight altitudes, the "drift" would be modest. That phantom is not very aerodynamic when the props aren't moving! I would think it WOULD tend to drop more or less like a rock if the engines died.

At any rate, peace.

 

[Jayson Hanes]

When you're not around a lot of interference and the Flytrex live works, it works amazing! I'm super happy to have purchased it!
http://www.flytrex.com/mission/quadcopt ... anes-74303

 

[flyNfrank]

What about the wind gust? Or are you saying from 3,000+ feet the quad will still fall straight down to the ground?

I would suggest you speakout on things you know to be factual, something you yourself has 1st hand experience with. .

Gee, why so belligerent?

I assume from your post that YOU have actually measured the drift of an object dropped from 3000 feet?

I havent. But then again, thats not my normal cruising altitude for my phantom to begin with... I would hypothesize, though, that from most NORMAL flight altitudes, the "drift" would be modest. That phantom is not very aerodynamic when the props aren't moving! I would think it WOULD tend to drop more or less like a rock if the engines died.

At any rate, peace.

If you too have to be foolish enough to think the quad will drop like a rock, then the next time you have a 10-15mph windy day, take your quad to 50-60-70ft whatever height you want and hover. Then flip your toggle switch to atti and ask yourself why your quad is being so effected by the wind which blowing your quad away at decent rate of speed.

As for the FLT if you're not into supporting the idea to extending the FLT's capabilities, then it's pretty simple. Don't get involved

 

[Lowepg]

What about the wind gust? Or are you saying from 3,000+ feet the quad will still fall straight down to the ground?

I would suggest you speakout on things you know to be factual, something you yourself has 1st hand experience with. .

Gee, why so belligerent?

I assume from your post that YOU have actually measured the drift of an object dropped from 3000 feet?

I havent. But then again, thats not my normal cruising altitude for my phantom to begin with... I would hypothesize, though, that from most NORMAL flight altitudes, the "drift" would be modest. That phantom is not very aerodynamic when the props aren't moving! I would think it WOULD tend to drop more or less like a rock if the engines died.

At any rate, peace.

If you too have to be foolish enough to think the quad will drop like a rock, then the next time you have a 10-15mph windy day, take your quad to 50-60-70ft whatever height you want and hover. Then flip your toggle switch to atti and ask yourself why your quad is being so effected by the wind which blowing your quad away at decent rate of speed.

As for the FLT if you're not into supporting the idea to extending the FLT's capabilities, then it's pretty simple. Don't get involved

So you're comparing the wind effect on a hovering copter to one that's in freefall? Lol...

I guess I'll match your condescending tone and ask if you understand how things like physics and gravity work?

Now you're just come off as foolish....

 

[job2310]

Ordered my Flytrex Live direct from Flytrex and now that the item has reached the UK the shipping status shows as "Inappropriate invoice". Any other UK pilots have this before? Assume customs will now want to drain my bank account even more.

Hi job2310

We've seen this before in the UK. Not completely sure why -- this shows on the status even with shipments to our dealers that are shipped in large packages..

From past experience, give it a day or two, it goes through eventually -- honestly no clue why. We tried to get more details in the past but didn't got any reply.

£20.26 in customs fees later and it should finally be here tomorrow. What a pain.

 

[TxRider]

Flytrex Live Question ??

Ive been trying to setup my Flytrex Live and keep getting this error: "Live ID invalid. Please verify Live ID and try again" Ive been running a Flytrex Core...do I need to setup another account before it will recognize my Flytrex Live ?? Thanks for any help !!