I cannot speak. Heart broken :(

Tony

Staff member
Dude you hit the power cables, lucky that did not fry everything on the quad

Actually, without a ground, there is no way for the current to pass through there.

And I thought you said you lost signal? lmao. Just glad that you found it.
 

Lee

Well-Known Member
I lost video signal. Not radio.
I tried to give it a little height to give me a chance to see it when I took the goggles off.
That was a mistake that will never be repeated.
I will drop it as soon as I loose signal, if there is a next time.

But I have made some changes, that i hope will avoid this.
Separate battery for the VTX so I don't loose picture when the main pack is ejected.

Here is the battery. The quad is 20ft beyond the two water troughs.
You may just see the VTX antenna sticking out of the grass.

IMG_20140724_181042.jpg

IMG_20140724_181042.jpg
 

Tony

Staff member
Ah, so you didn't even know you hit those lines until you saw the video. I got ya. Damn. And yeah, I would run a dedicated battery as well. Great idea!
 

Lee

Well-Known Member
I lost the signal just before you see it dive towards the ground.

Forgot to mention the full story of how we found it.

My friend Inaki came out with his QAV500 to survey the tops of the trees for me.
I was spotting for him, giving directions.
The second he got over the trees, he lost control and it plummeted to the ground.
Oh no, not another one!!!
Luckily we found it, but even knowing where it fell, we still had trouble finding it.

Turns out, a loose prop caused the crash. No damage though cause he landed in a tree.

So while he was fixing the prop, I had a wonder into the field behind the trees, that I thought the Quad was in.
A couple of minutes walking the fence line, and BINGO!! there it was. :thumbsup:
 

treff

Active Member
Well Lee, you did say you were on a line for loseing the quad. Should have gone straight to that pylon and found it. lol. What you need is 2 gopro's one to watch the other, One to see where your going
the other for where you've come from. lol. Then there's the auto flare device that fire the red rocket up to 1000ft not to mention the 500 decibel audio warning so if you can't see you can surely hear
it in the next country. That's what you call safe and un-loseable
 

wolfman76

Well-Known Member
Wow, you got really lucky no more dammage than there was.
Glad you got it back
So, OSD with GPS in the future?

Maybe atleast GPS thst if you ever lose video again just flip the magic switch. . And as far as alerts treff I think they actuall do make a very loud audio alert device that will sound in a crash
 

Lee

Well-Known Member
It will only sound in a crash, if the battery isn't 50ft away from the quad LOL :D
I made a number of mistakes in my decisions. But you can bet, i won't make them again.
1) Don't take your goggles off to spot the quad. (I did still have intermittent signal) When it crashed, I would have known roughly where it was.
2) Don't give throttle to try and give you time to spot it. Just drop the throttle instantly.
3) Hot glue all connectors. I think the VTX signal plug came loose.
4) I will use a small extra battery to run the video gear, not the main pack. Redundancy is good.
5) Save up for a GPS with RTH feature. :D LOL
 

treff

Active Member
Yes wolfman I have an audio finder on a couple of my gliders. Trouble is when your an old fart like myself, it ain't loud enough. lol. I
need a laser that writes in the sky "I'm here!"
 
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hey Lee, how about this device for a suggestion on tracking your lost quad next time, maybe a good idea for ALL you FPV'ers out there. i use this in the Jeep 24/7 in case it gets stolen.. and its VERY cheap

tracker

all you have to do is ring it up, it will hangup after 2 rings and send you a google map link of where it is, its very accurate too
 
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Lee

Well-Known Member
Its a good idea.
A bit chunky for my quad.
But they are getting smaller and smaller.
Best thing is a return to home Flight controller.
 
im sure if it was taken out of its case and heat shrinked it would be a lot smaller/lighter

The circuit board is actually only 10-11 mm smaller than the enclosure, and the GPRS antenna is a pain to get out. I've actually got 18 of these as we use them for a company project. They have a 1S lipo which we remove too.
 
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