Lost and Found

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Well I experienced my first phantom loss last night.

A still clear evening with 4 charged lipos, that'll do nicely.

I flew it a long way away, then turned right so I knew which way it was pointing and I could see how far away it was, then carried on turning and headed in the initial direction, towards a distant building.

I then lost sight of it, no problem, I engaged HL and pulled back on the right stick, still nothing visible - don't make it worse, think - ah remember to switch to gps then pull stick back with HL, did that, still nothing. This looks like a job for RTH, engage RTH with right switch, still nothing.

Much hedge and fence climbing ensued, however light was failing and the field I thought it was in was occupied with a small herd of very boisterous bullocks - there were also a group of farmers taking part in a shoot.

My gps phone on the phantom was telling me it was not in the field I thought it was, so checked what I could of the field, and where the gps said it was, found nothing and resigned myself to it having to have a night in a field as I didn't want to get trampled or shot. Checked with the farmers that it was OK to search the next day, no problem.

Took a day off work today and got up early and headed off in torrential rain to find it.

I found it, and am currently drying it out.

Seems like my battery died after about 3 minutes of flight - I have my RTH button set to RTH not land (I fly over water so RTH seems more sensible on signal loss) as after my slow HL pull back with GPS on (after I remembered) the phantom did a controlled landing. It toppled over and 2 props carried on idling for approx 1hour 'til it beeped

Lipo was puffed this morning, and I've already binned it - never liked that one anyway, had a connector that was always too tight.

Let's hope it dries out OK

Lessons learned
Remember to enable GPS mode before using HL
Enable the most accurate GPS mode on your on-quad phone
Enable the loudest ringtone on the on-quad phone possible
Cattle should be treated with respect, but eventually get tired of a man walking up and down a field looking in grass for his quad
I need new wellies, mine leak
 
Newbie here....what's a "gps phone on the phantom".

Thanks for the rest of the lesson.
 
Buk said:
Newbie here....what's a "gps phone on the phantom".

Thanks for the rest of the lesson.

I've got an android phone stuck to the bottom of my phantom in case of a fly away - a cheap pay as you go off ebay. It's got tasker on it (software that allows complex macros), and if I text it, it texts me back its gps location so I can find it. Only useful if the phone reports an accurate location, which this time it wasn't :roll: So I need to fix that.
 
I've thought about the phone thing before too. But I'm concerned about weight with a gimbal and GoPro. What phone did you use? Has anyone else tried this?
 
stargazer75 said:
I've thought about the phone thing before too. But I'm concerned about weight with a gimbal and GoPro. What phone did you use? Has anyone else tried this?

I use a u8110 which comes in @ 110g and atm I'm only carrying a gopro.
It impacts on flight time, I've a timer set to 5 mins with the expectation I'll land before 6 mins.

That said, it has been a reassurance in case of loss (but I set it to the least power hungry positioning, but with too little accuracy as it turns out, I had tested it but thought the low accuracy was caused by the testing location (next to a hill) - I also had accidentally put it into mute, I was calling the phone to hear it ring in the long grass as an aid to finding it, but with no joy).

I'm getting to the point of trusting this phantom and firmware as I must have close to 80 trouble-free flights with it. I have just done a body swap, and will be keeping the phone on it for a while more since it got wet. Longer term with more things planned (FPV and gimbal) I think the phone will go.


Edit
should add - after drying it yesterday I tried it with a fresh battery - it's still in bits and it's not flown, but the light sequence seemed fine, and all motors responded as expected to command
 

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