Hello,
Lost my Iris+ when I took it out for a mission today. Put it on auto to do it's mission and set the drone so that it would RTL if the battery voltage goes below 10.5 V. Needless to say it did not return. I am using APMplanner 2.0 to do the mission planning stuff.
Any advice or help would be appreciated.
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You really should invest in a tablet. a 10.1" Motorola Zoom with Verizon LTE (or set up your phone as a hotspot) can be had on ebay for $80 to $100 and supports USB. Another good option (Especially since you can set up your drone from the tablet) is a Microsoft surface Version one. You can pick one up on ebay for around $250 with a core I5 CPU....And again use your phone as hotspot or direct link. So as long as your still getting power and in range it will tell you exactly where it is. If not start walking...youll get a signal sooner or later. One tip I have is to wrap the power connector electrical or duct tape so in case of a crash you still have power.
Off topic, you should invest into a FlyTrex Live 3G unit. It will keep track of your quadcopter in real time.
If I had one of this units installed on my lost quad, I would still have it today.
Just a thought.
Francisco - I'm looking into purchasing one of these as well. I still don't see where the FlyTrex interfaces with Mission Planner....looks like only to the separate app (I downloaded it for the tablet I use for Tower)
I get a fair amount of occlusion on 915mhz telemetry radios whilst the signals punch through very tall (yup 90 footers) pine trees here in Galveston County, TX. But above the trees, the 3G/4G cell data network is booming out plenty of signal. (yes, I tested this atop my house roof a number of years ago...)
Worth a try...they have a Iris+ Pixhawk interface cable for it too.
Hi David,
I don't believe FlyTrex can interface with Mission Planner, may be their future version might be able to do that. The unit is connected directly to the Pixhawk FC via a cable. To track the flight progress of your quadcopter, you need to sign up with FlyTrex and log into your account.
Once logged in, you will be able to track it in real time, via the built in Google Map.
http://www.flytrex.com/shop/
First of all, I'm very sorry you lost your Iris. It looks like your mission is mostly over water so I can't really recommend anything other than doing a lot of snorkeling. You could mark off a grid on a map where each square of the grid is an area you could snorkel. You would need to bring a waterproof GPS unit with you. Like others have mentioned, your electronics would be fairly destroyed in salt water. Most microSD cards made these days are waterproof so it would be nice to at least find the Iris and have the footage.
I'm in South Florida as well, in the Fort Lauderdale area, and I fly over water quite a bit. Have any of you guys considered pontoons? You can go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a 4ft x 8ft x 2in sheet of styrofoam for around $25. After cutting some pontoons, you can wrap them with fiberglass mesh drywall joint tape, which is fairly indestructible. The fiberglass tape prevents the styrofoam from breaking apart on impact and only adds a couple of grams.
You can make the pontoons different shapes just as long as your total cubic inches of foam is enough to float the weight of your quad. For me, I'd rather recover my custom frame, the SD card and possibly some of the components, than nothing at all.
Finally, my SD card has a text file with my contact info on it.
Sort of OT but can you post a pic of your pontoons? I was thinking of using a water weasel but it's really fat and would cut into the pop wash a LOT.
I think I'm going to start a thread for pontoons and other floatation methods because I've done a bunch of research and I've tried a number of different things. But, here's my current setup:
What!!??? Dude. You just forgot to mention through this entire thread that just about your entire mission is OVER OPEN WATER?? You said you walked the entire mission path looking for it. Are you moses?? Dude, it's gone.
Don't normally do this on 'mature' forums, but.. LOL
A couple things I might add:
First, check out - https://www.cloud-surfer.net/2014/10/06/battery-failsafe-on-iris/ There you will find some very helpful info for setting failsafes on any Pixhawk powered vehicle. My auto missions that go beyond controller range are set to rtl at 10.8, with rally points set, and I mean SET where you know you have scouted a safe, appropriate landing site. I am familiar with my battery so I know how long it will fly, but rally points are spaced approx 0.5 -1km apart so iris will land at closest point in UNFORSEEN emergency battery situation.
Second, I have switched in auto several times only to have my iris fly in the opposite direction of the intended first waypoint. I would like to say I'm certain I clicked on "write WPs" just before takeoff each time this happened. However, each time it happened, I landed, uploaded waypoints "again", and mission always proceded correctly. So just to be clear, the iris was heading to the last waypoints uploaded (previous mission). If it would have been in the same general direction from launch as current mission, I wouldn't have know until it was too late. So check the previous mission (assuming you have it saved) and you might have an alternate path to search if searching the current mission location does not yeild results. The iris would head for the first WP, fly 13ish minutes in that direction and then 3-4 min back before dropping.
How much distance was covered in the mission? Was take off and landing set at same location?
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