I understand and have tried switching my Q500 to home. Works fine. Question I have, and from reading somewhere, will the Q500 fly back to home if it looses contact with the ST-10+? If so, has anyone had this happen to them? What are the pros and cons? Obviously, this is to prevent fly aways when the Q500 looses contact with the ST-10+. Thank you.
Fly to Home
- Thread starter stedgar
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Losing contact might mean two things:
1) Losing Video Link
2) Losing Control and Telemetry
Which one are you referring to?
Higher frequency signals tend to travel less distance than low frequency signals. That means that you will first lose your 5.8 gigahertz video frequency and and still have control and telemetry off the aircraft because your controller will still be able to communicate using the 2.4 gigahertz frequency. When you lose your video link the aircraft does not return to home because it thinks you're still controlling it using the control frequency so what you have to do when that happens is switch to return to home. However if you fly really far away where you will lose both frequencies I bet the aircraft is programmed to return to home. Although I wouldn't really want to try that.
What happened to me the other day was that I lost video connectivity so I quickly switched the mode button to return to home and a few seconds later I had the aircraft hovering during over my house. I switched back to Angle and regained control.
1) Losing Video Link
2) Losing Control and Telemetry
Which one are you referring to?
Higher frequency signals tend to travel less distance than low frequency signals. That means that you will first lose your 5.8 gigahertz video frequency and and still have control and telemetry off the aircraft because your controller will still be able to communicate using the 2.4 gigahertz frequency. When you lose your video link the aircraft does not return to home because it thinks you're still controlling it using the control frequency so what you have to do when that happens is switch to return to home. However if you fly really far away where you will lose both frequencies I bet the aircraft is programmed to return to home. Although I wouldn't really want to try that.
What happened to me the other day was that I lost video connectivity so I quickly switched the mode button to return to home and a few seconds later I had the aircraft hovering during over my house. I switched back to Angle and regained control.
My Q has worked as advertised.
I've done more than a few RTH tests.
One of my first tests was to send the Q out about 700' until I lost video. Then I turned the transmitter completely off. Soon the Q was back and hovering near the take off spot. I turned the Transmitter back on and switched to Angle mode and landed myself. Happy in seeing it return by itself.
It's said that when you lose radio contact the Q will stop and hover for a minute and try to regain contact. If no contact is regained, the Q comes back on it's own. Mine does just that.
It's also said that in a loss of signal scenario the Q will return home and hover, trying to regain contact and if no contact is made the Q will remain in a hover until the battery level drops to about 10.7 at which time the Q will land itself where ever it is. Hopefully near home. Mine does this as well.
I've written in the past "Don't trust your Q will go come back to the exact spot it took off from.It most likely won't. Close but not exactly".
I make a big X on the ground and take off from the center of the X and see how close it comes in RTH. It's never dead on.
There are no real Cons to having RTH when you need it.
Good luck and happy flying,
Jafo
I've done more than a few RTH tests.
One of my first tests was to send the Q out about 700' until I lost video. Then I turned the transmitter completely off. Soon the Q was back and hovering near the take off spot. I turned the Transmitter back on and switched to Angle mode and landed myself. Happy in seeing it return by itself.
It's said that when you lose radio contact the Q will stop and hover for a minute and try to regain contact. If no contact is regained, the Q comes back on it's own. Mine does just that.
It's also said that in a loss of signal scenario the Q will return home and hover, trying to regain contact and if no contact is made the Q will remain in a hover until the battery level drops to about 10.7 at which time the Q will land itself where ever it is. Hopefully near home. Mine does this as well.
I've written in the past "Don't trust your Q will go come back to the exact spot it took off from.It most likely won't. Close but not exactly".
I make a big X on the ground and take off from the center of the X and see how close it comes in RTH. It's never dead on.
There are no real Cons to having RTH when you need it.
Good luck and happy flying,
Jafo
There is a good reason for that. It does not fly back to the launch point. It flies back to the ST10 and will land about 12-15' from the ST10 IN THE LINE OF FLIGHT. So if you take off and fly behind you and hit RTH, the Q will fly back and land 15' behind you. That is why you don't let it autoland if you are standing on a pier or the shoreline or in a boat.
Another very important note: If you lose control signal, always flip to HOME and wait till you can see the Q before going to Angle mode. If you lose control signal the Q will start to return home until it regains the signal and then it will hover and wait for stick input. If you can't see it then it will just sit there until the battery runs down.
If you lose video you can use the Green Arrow to fly it back to you. Just push the right stick in the same direction the green arrow is pointing and it will fly back. When the green arrow is pointing straight up, the Q is facing you.
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Hello phernandez254. Thank you for your response. I was referring to losing control and telemetry. I have had the video link drop out several times. I am sure it is caused by interference.
Remember that Home is always the location of the ST10 (or the last know position). It is not the launch point.
Jafo, thank you for your detailed response. YES, this was exactly the answer I was looking for. And to boot, you have actually tried it! Right on! I made it a point to update the firmware on the Q500, CG03 and the ST10+. So I am hoping that all of the latest updates still have the RTH default programmed in the event the Q500 and the ST10+ fail to communicate. Thank you again.
Thank you Steve! Several great and important points to note! Thank you for your valuable input. Although, I am a little confused. If the Q cannot make contact the ST10+, will it still land from the general area it took off from? Jafo seems to indicate it will. I am too chicken to test it and find out....lol
The Q and the ST10 both have GPS and they communicate their locations to each other. If the control signal is lost the Q will begin to fly back to where the ST10 was located prior to losing the signal. If you never moved from where you took off then the Q is going to come back and land in that area. The great thing about this design is this: if you take off and then start hiking or riding while flying and you lose signal where do you want it to fly back to? Where you are located now or 3/4 mile back to where you took off? It's a lot safer to fly back to where you are currently located.
Does this make sense?
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This happened just the other day. Flew out about 1100ft downrange and got the red warning that the camera disconnected and was trying to reconnect. Still had complete Control of the bird. Activated RTH and the bird started for home. One interesting observation that, even when the bird got almost back home the camera never "reset". The picture on the controller was one from when the bird was farthest away and it just froze on the screen until I landed and turned everything off and then back on again. The video itself kept on recording to the SD card.
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Lucky you that could fly 1100ft away. My video signal drops after 500 ft or so. But i have a lot of trees which are Q's worst enemies. Regarding your camera not regaining connection. That is for sure a software glitch. It happened to me couple weeks ago, I flew out, lost connection about 200 ft, brought it back and camera wouldnt connect back. What I did was I reset both the camera itself and the camera settings in the ST10+. The camera has a reset button right above the SD Card that you can pinch in with a paper clip while the Q is ON and has booted up completely. Try that and let us know...
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I live on high ground with the land sloping away from me so clear sky in front.
Now should I first reset camera in settings on the box and then reset camera by pushing on the small opening above the card? Is that the best order to do it in? IS there any downside to resetting the camera to default settings? Thanks again.
Now should I first reset camera in settings on the box and then reset camera by pushing on the small opening above the card? Is that the best order to do it in? IS there any downside to resetting the camera to default settings? Thanks again.
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No downside by doing so. Do the Tx first and then do the camera by pressing the reset button with a paper clip for more than 10 secs. Let everything boot up. Turn off everything to make sure the data is saved. Turn back on and test of the signal drops.
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Ok. I will be doing a 1000 ft downrange flight tonight. IF the video drops out which it will most likely do I will see if it resets itself on the RTH. Will let you know results.
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I reset both then powered down. Booted up and flew a few minutes to check camera out. All ok. On another note what is the best frame rate for a 1080P camera setting. Just normal video. I am set a 50fps now.
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I'm glad the reset fixed your problem.
For me, the best video setting is 1080p@60. The more frames per second you have the smoother it will run. I woud have loved to run all of my videos at 120fps, but then you need to have an screen that refreshes more than 120 times per second and most PC Monitors and TVs run at 60hz. Otherwise the video chops when playing...
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If im not mistaken, I believe those are 700kv motors, arent they? I dont have the Q right now with me, you can check any of your motors to see what they say. Kv means rpm/volt. So, 700rpm times 11. 1v = 7770rpm.
