Originally Posted by octane81

I wonder if im experiencing something similar.. today I was out flying , just a little bit more than 2.4km away ,
then suddenly from nowhere RSSI drops from a good 70% to 5%.
I have flown for years with v1 and v1upgrade and never experienced this.
This is a 2 week old v2 im flying with now.
Have a look here , fast forward to 2:10.
Failsafe engange , because you can see the quick cam center movment.
This happends two times after each other.
200mw low power.

Random Failsafes are NOT normal with Dragon Link You should be able to fly days and weeks with Dragon Link without a single failsafe. I fly the Dragon Link system myself, at all distances, with fiberglass and carbon fiber planes that do not tolerate mishaps, and I certainly would not be flying them with failsafes going on...

So we need to figure out what is happening in your setup. Please do the procedures in the videos below, then just have a servo and your Dragon Link running while you watch TV or do something else. Leave it running for hours, if the system goes into failsafe, you will hear the servo move. This is an easy way to put the system through a very good test, over hours, without having to waste time watching it.

If it is a problem with your system, you know it is fully guaranteed and we will fix it for free

Mike

Dragon Link Installation STEP 1: Transmitter Setup (8 min 13 sec)

Dragon Link Installation: STEP 2 - Receiver, Calibration, Binding, and Testing (14 min 59 sec)

Hi mike. Do you think dragon link is too vulnerable to noise? Would a metal case on the rx help ?

Originally Posted by motofox

Hi mike. Do you think dragon link is too vulnerable to noise? Would a metal case on the rx help ?

No, not at all. The Dragon Link is very resistant to noise, and if it needed a metal case on the RX, we would have already done it

Are you having a problem with noise or interference ? If so, this can usually be traced to something in the plane, and easily fixed.

Mike

Yes i am having trouble with noise from a camera, but it was quite expensive so im trying to keep it if i can. just waiting for the mrs to finish cooking the chicken so i can rob it of tinfoil to cover my camera

Who says you need to go long range to have fun
DL / EZ UHF, on 1.3 to boot.

TBRC cloudy FPV (4 min 40 sec)

Ive had it running for quite some time now , and no failsafes kicked in (outside of the plane).
What ive done is calibrate it again , and changed ID.

Installed it back in the plane , and just did a range test in micro power mode , and got 32 meters with all electronics on except HoryzonHD.
With HoryzonHD ON i got 23 meters.

From what I understand , thats still an acceptable range in micro power?

Originally Posted by JettPilot

Random Failsafes are NOT normal with Dragon Link You should be able to fly days and weeks with Dragon Link without a single failsafe. I fly the Dragon Link system myself, at all distances, with fiberglass and carbon fiber planes that do not tolerate mishaps, and I certainly would not be flying them with failsafes going on...

So we need to figure out what is happening in your setup. Please do the procedures in the videos below, then just have a servo and your Dragon Link running while you watch TV or do something else. Leave it running for hours, if the system goes into failsafe, you will hear the servo move. This is an easy way to put the system through a very good test, over hours, without having to waste time watching it.

Thats a pretty good range in micro power. Thats what i get.

Originally Posted by octane81

Ive had it running for quite some time now , and no failsafes kicked in (outside of the plane).
What ive done is calibrate it again , and changed ID.

Installed it back in the plane , and just did a range test in micro power mode , and got 32 meters with all electronics on except HoryzonHD.
With HoryzonHD ON i got 23 meters.

From what I understand , thats still an acceptable range in micro power?

i hope its supposed to be feet and not metres, i get 20 feet with horyzon camera on now ive covered it in tinfoil, before it was about 6 feet.

30 paces, is what i get. 1 pace = 1 meter ish... with just RX and servo. I get the same with everything installed in plane as well. (bixler).
Did the RX and servo for the test with my wing. Was the same. I haven't done a "in plane test yet"
I just went with the ground test and flew.

Seems that horyzon cam is spewing noise!

Yes, the Horyzon cam is known to spew a lot of noise harmful to 433Mhz UHF systems.
Same with all the other attempts at HD fpv cameras with detached heads. The noise
comes from the camera head and ribbon cable. Some wrap copper tape around
everything and cut the noise a bit, but it makes the ribbon less flexible and
thus harder to use on a P&T mount.

motofox, from what I've seen 20-40 paces is what you should expect, not 20ft.
If your micro-power range test is only 20ft, you've probably got something broken
or defective. Check continuity on antennas, SMA connectors on the Tx and Rx.. etc.

ian

Originally Posted by Daemon

Yes, the Horyzon cam is known to spew a lot of noise harmful to 433Mhz UHF systems.
Same with all the other attempts at HD fpv cameras with detached heads. The noise
comes from the camera head and ribbon cable. Some wrap copper tape around
everything and cut the noise a bit, but it makes the ribbon less flexible and
thus harder to use on a P&T mount.

motofox, from what I've seen 20-40 paces is what you should expect, not 20ft.
If your micro-power range test is only 20ft, you've probably got something broken
or defective. Check continuity on antennas, SMA connectors on the Tx and Rx.. etc.

ian

my navigation cam provides HD image. Joke but it's good enough. I need a goPRO or sony action cam though

Hi Mike,

Having trouble purchasing the dragonlink system online. Can you give me a phone number to call as I would like to get it asap.

Regards,
Mark

Originally Posted by motofox

i hope its supposed to be feet and not metres, i get 20 feet with horyzon camera on now ive covered it in tinfoil, before it was about 6 feet.

Its meters.. i would check if the ribbon shielding is properly grounded..

Originally Posted by octane81

Its meters.. i would check if the ribbon shielding is properly grounded..

Walk off between 20 and 30ft holding the DragonLink transmitter as you go. If the aircraft is placed on a table, you should start to see a failsafe around 20-30ft. If the range before failsafe is much shorter than this, you have a problem with your configuration and you must check this before flight.
e. If you surpass this distance without a consistent failsafe, you are OK for flight.


coppied from online manual... you had me worried lol

Originally Posted by Captain3D

hmm. The random failsafe returns - damn it. I have moved the Rx away from my copper clad GoPros and thought I had it all fixed until another drop out today. I had hooked up my beeper to go off during a failsafe to confirm it was not something else. You can hear the beeps. I seem to get one every two weeks or so and all three within 100ft. After that everything flew great so I don't think my mistake removing the antenna had damaged the DL Tx. Ah frustrating. I think it is time for a rebuild and rewire.

Today...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sybmx7OKDjI

June 13...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA8Zu9hhlHI

May 28th (identical spot to today)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMC45PdqPhY

phil

I used to have the exact same problem.
It turned out to be the BEC of the ESC I was using.
I bought castle creations 20A UBEC and I have never gotten a failsafe since.