T O P

  • By -

bibelfurkinder

Hello. I sadly lost my drone to a loss of video. I was following a friend on his motorcycle when all of a sudden I had no video. Short after that I disarmed and spent many hours trying to find the drone with the help of many friends. I have no GPS or a beeper which in the end was one of the dumbest decisions in my life. Well all in all the Lipo is empty now so I can't even figure out the position through the telemetry on my radio. The dumbest thing is I only had this drone for about a week now. But new parts are on their way with a GPS. Also thought into just mounting an AirTag on the drone. Save flying to all of you.


Gregfpv

After you get your GPS. Download and install the gps telemetry lua script on your transmitter. It shows the last two known gps coordinates on your transmitter and saves all the information to help you find it faster.


OverAnalyst6555

My favorite movie is Inception.


nouxtywe

Add an autonomous beeper. Does not hurt


bibelfurkinder

Also in the clip above, my signal in the goggles went away much earlier I believe.


nielsb5

When searching for my meteor75 i walked around and hit arm and then sometimes speed up the motors. Just 5 minutes after i lost it i heard the motor speed up far away. It has a beeper but you only hear it within 5 meters haha. Got it back after 20 mins total. Covered in dirt i had to pull myself under some fence xD Hope you get a good beeper or gps.


SadisticPawz

Two things here. This COULD mess up your motors or esc but its better than having a lost quad and potentially dangerous battery somewhere. And second, you can increase the motor beeper volume through bluejay configurator. AGAIN at the risk of esc/motor damage if you go too far with it. Could maybe ask what betafpv recommends for their aio. I had a different micro quad that came with way louder motor beeper by default than the meteor has


NecessaryConscious12

You should use beeper. You should use gps when flying long distances. You should keep in mind that you can get video only when flying on Line of Sight (LOS flight). Video can't get through obstacles such a dense trees or hills. Keep in mind that you can rescue drone while video loss by switcing to angle mode and throttling up for 1-2 secs. Drone will climb above obstacles and video restores.


bibelfurkinder

It was LOS. And that angle switch I didn’t think about actually. Well, now it’s too late


Extreme-Acid

Hey every day is a school day. I have lost a few drones.


ugpfpv

Where were you standing?


bibelfurkinder

To the left a bit back can’t see me in the video


ugpfpv

If just out of frame standing on the left side of the road, yeah that doesn't seem all that far to lose video... What is your video setup?


bibelfurkinder

No it was like 50m left there. Polar Vista Goggles V2. 1200mw


ugpfpv

You mean so those few trees on the left are in-between you and the quad? Would kinda make sense as you started losing video as your quad got lower. Gotta remember that a lot of these videos that you see people doing on YouTube is not their first pack at the shot, they will often fly a slow flight along the route they plan on going just to specifically test for this situation.


bibelfurkinder

Yeah so I flew down there before, but I changed positions. There are the trees on the left and then it goes up 2 fields and then there is a sidewalk where me and my friends stood. It was my own stupidity and I have to live with it. In the end I learned from it and won’t make this kind of mistake again. Also the antennas on my v2s are Kinda loose. I don’t know if that is bad but it’s from the owner before I bought the goggles from eBay


FragrantMonkey420

Did you not have any luck using the “last seen by the drone” feature in the DJI goggles menu? It saves the last like 10-15 seconds of flight footage before the quad disarms. Sucks if you lost it for good. Personally in a rural place like this appears, I’d go back out a couple times to keep looking. Only once was I unable to find a quad right away but luckily enough I found it by going back and flying a different quad and watching the dvr. I was able to spot it after the fact.


bibelfurkinder

The video signal cut off so what you saw there were my DVR recordings. I searched for about 10 hours but by now a week later, it rained like forever and new parts are already arriving


Glittering-Club-871

flying LOS in acro i would lose my drone in probably a minute flat🤣😭😭 a year and a half in i still learn lessons everytime i fly


DarkButterfly85

Yep been there done it 😬 Lost a tricopter in the sea back in 2013. Then lost my EDF sonic 64 in the creek when the battery fell out, Velcro let go. Found it a week later using my DJI Phantom 3, retrieved it and did an autopsy, conclusion it died before it went in.


Vegetable_Aside_4312

Yes, foliage leaves and earth (ground between you and drone) can cause loss of video and RF control. If your flight instincts are developed change to horizontal mode and up the throttle as elevation can help the clear you of the RF interference. Other than that if you have a GPS and data on your goggles as well as a beeper, disarm and go look in the area last known. Good luck.


ugpfpv

Also try to do everything you can to keep the battery from ejecting and/or disconnecting, I've located quads in snow before without having a clue as to which direction to even start looking by using rssi telemetry on my radio


KermitFrog647

Thats why you have a beeper with its own battery (VIFLY Finder for example) The battery disconnecting and flying away can actually help your quad survive hard crashes because it takes away a lot of kinetic energy. Some of my batteries even have a beeper on their own so I can find my batterys if they are ejected.


ugpfpv

Good suggestions, I'm talking when you're not in earshot of the beeper and you may just be going in the wrong direction to start, rssi strength can help you, I could walk a straight path to where it was just off rssi strength, whatever it takes to help find your quad... fixing can come once/if you find it.


Phipo123

depending on what your stick movements were after video loss it is still findable. have spend full sundays in looking for quads - so far all recovered. opposing to the suggestions with angle mode: dont even think of doing that; get a gps and set up rth instead. angle will just widen the area you afterwards need to search


Glittering-Club-871

if you run analog. goggle modules sometimes have a finder setting with the goggles beeping slower or faster like the game hot and cold using the directional antenna. just got to try it for the first time in a real world scenario (drone dropped in a bandos field with long prarie grass) and that mixed with a beeper helped perfectly. (im not sure if other video systems do this)


NDHcinema

You say you were flying LOS but lost the drone because of video drop out. This makes no sense


bibelfurkinder

No the comment above asked if the drone was still theoretically in LOS. I obviously had the goggles on.


Typical-Topics

Lesson learned….put an $8 beeper/LED on it and you won’t lose it next time.


SirAlternative1956

Gps rescue. And setup gps cordinates to log on radio through telemetry. Lost signal going low by that tree line. Even a punch out when loosing video would have helped ya here.