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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here is a screenshot showing the route. it launched to 95M and was set to land in the same place it took off.
Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 8.36.43 PM.png
Oh man this changes everything, I use water buoys for water, and yes make it short like David says
Look at the pic, the 2 water activated gas buoys are in front legs under props, each can pull up 1kg (total 2kg, aka over 4lbs), so this can pull up the craft to safety and will blink to help me find it in the water. The GPS tracker I use is also water proof so if floating on top it will still send signal for the boat. I have actually had to use it once on a hex and it would have been in the bottom of the lake without them.
Read here
http://www.water-buoy.com
Didn't know about these, ordering some immediately!
Fnoop, they are very hard to find right now. If you go to their form they will give you an ETA on the new designs, maybe the more people that request it the faster they will make the new ones.
very cool, Ed....but he's over salt water....all electronics are dead upon immersion...plus a small puff of smoke when the battery shorts
Ed, sorry to tell you , but those boys take forever to inflate and they do not inflate at depth more than about 9 feet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ_UG7IxIJM
Thanks Artem,
Yes there is a delay, but they saved my UAV, well one out of 2 did. I don't know the depth of my lake but I would guess 8-15 foot.
Anyhow after the crash only 1 of the 2 buoys went off and did float my F550 to the surface after a few seconds. I ran back to the house, got a raft and recovered it. Only the battery was lost in the water, I assume in crash the battery flung off or the strap broke before the crash, so thats probably why only one was able to pull it up. Either way it worked the light were blinking on the buoy and it did float up. The other one never activated, maybe battery was dead.
Yes there was a delay but after a few days in a garbage bag full of rice I had 100% everything worked and I completely recovered my UAV less a battery. No its not a guarantee but it sure did save me a lot of money. I also heard they are redesigning them so hopefully the new design will be even better, if you email them from the form on their site they will reply.
I would recommend them as better than nothing, even if it did not float up it would be blinking LED under water that could also help to recover.
I would still recommend having them on if you fly over water for sure, but yes I hope they get even better.
Yeah, well salt is bad. I'm in Florida so I know how bad salt is, if he got it out quick some parts "may" be okay if he gets it rinsed off and into rice within reasonable amount of time. Battery sure would be dead.
A cheap option is Bluetooth LE, it wont pinpoint it but may help you find in the woods if you get within a few hundred feet, some BLE have alarms that you can set off too.
For me I use Tracker + Gas Buoys for my insurance.
Ah geez...flying over water/reef in Tobago? Did you calculate the distance the Iris was to cover on this mission? It looks to be well over 6-8 MILES.
Secondly, ditch the MAC and use Mission Planner in a Windows machine. Now this won't help you now but DO THIS WITH YOUR NEXT IRIS...
1) Calculate the mission duration, minus about 15% for wind strength down there. ALWAYS use a 1.5 mile MAXIMUM map width when planning a mission...this will keep you from getting too adventurous with a quadcopter...it ain't no airplane MC! Its slow and will go about 3 miles before battery is low...you HAD to have known this.
2) Keep the sucker in LOS....you MUST HAVE backup command and control in case it has a software problem.
3) Have a boat or kayak handy when flying over water.....you might be able to retrieve the Iris...but it will be toast if it hits salt water.
4) Excursions over water need to be DAMN SHORT. I've done these in Galveston, TX....but was over water about 2 min MAX per leg.
5) Never fly within 5 miles of an airport. You are 3 KM from that airport....c'mon.
There's nothing wrong with Mac/APM Planner, just because it's not what you use doesn't mean everybody else should ditch it.
Otherwise, yes, he seems to be a bit ambitious for an Iris :) Your points are good.
I fly over water quite a lot for research, but I test an awful lot to be confident and just accept that if it ditches, it's lost. I do have someone in a boat where possible to retrieve, and a bucket of fresh water to immerse the electronics into. Apparently if the electronics don't short/blow immediately and you can get them into fresh water, then dry them out, there's a reasonable chance of recovery.
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