Recent content by PatR

Some might find Marylynn Monroe's involvement in drones a little interesting, too.

Not much really. Stirring the pot in some things, keeping my head down in others. Haven't had much to say about drone stuff lately, but keeping up with things in the back ground. The guy that wrote that article is directly responsible for the foundation of our autopilots. Because of him and...

I've been using FMA Direct products since the year they were first hitting the market, and Ace R/C products well before that. The owner of FMA Direct is Fred Marks, and his history in the development of our hobby is something to hold in awe. In the linked article he provides a lot of...

If your 520 is doing what you need/want to do with no problems, leave the software alone. If something goes wring with the update that screws up your 520 you have little or nothing to fall back on to fix it. Do not break something that was not broken by trying to “fix” it. If it works great...

It also acts as a ground plane for the GPS system.

GPS off it does about 50mph. It won’t do flips or rolls but it becomes quite spritely. The faster you fly it the faster the battery drains. If the battery is old and marginal the current loading of higher speeds could cause the battery to fail. Watch your battery voltage. Know the condition of...

AeroJ, If the system was still sending telemetry when it went down the last known position of the drone will be displayed as coordinates on the ST-16. Those thinking about it won’t turn off the ST-16 until after writing those coordinates down. Those that don’t think about it and shut down the...

Good call Doom. A lot of chargers won’t perform a charge on batteries with cell voltage deltas of 1/10v or more. You can storage discharge those batteries to attempt balancing the cells for charging. If your lucky the weaker cells may recover.

I’m really partial to being able to buy a correct voltage battery with dimensions that fit the hole from anywhere and using it straight out of the box. The thought of spending more money than necessary or more time and labor than necessary to maintain cosmetics does nothing for me.

Regardless of battery size, flight time is user and weather dependent. Comparing your flight time to that of someone else hoping to match is an exercise in futility.

Depending on how the defaults are set up, you might not. That’s one of the benefits of Pixhawk and Px systems. Losing link does not equate to a lost drone or scrubbed mission, it will self complete and autoRTB afterwards. Check your failsafe settings. I don’t have a 520 but I do have Pixhawk...

They no longer let anyone carry tools onto the flight line that weren’t first checked out from a tool cage. Leaving the flight line each tool has to be checked back in again. Far too many Leatherman type tools kept being found inside aircraft and on the flight line. Tool contamination is a...

The combined weight of your 2 batteries will be >700 grams more than a stock 3 battery installation. The aircraft can certainly handle the weight without issue but there will be a small flight time penalty. However, having 16,000 total mA instead of 12,000 may offset any flight time penalty...

If you have the juice to power it and the weight of the tether is very small the motors and ESC’s will handle the duration, no problem. If the weight of the tether increases total aircraft weight above that which it would weigh for normal flight the system will pull more amps than normal...

“Bureaucratese” is the same in every language; use as many words as possible to say very little and to render every effort to follow instructions effectively useless. Every government employee spends more time covering their a$$ than is spent in productive activity. If what they need to do...