Loving the new mini descriptions & definitions through the videos JB! With so much different terminology, it really helps me to confirm I'm following along correctly. Nice one 🙏
the new info pop ups are a game changer. keeps me locked in as a viewer and interested as a pilot. thanks to your editor for taking the time making them. thanks to you Joshua for being groundbreaking.
JB's background in radio electronics shines through. This is a much-needed video. To that, I would add that many quad pilots don't pay enough attention to antenna placement and making sure that both video and receiver antennas are well-away from carbon fibre, battery leads and other electronics in general. I remember back 20 years ago (I'm talking RC aircraft in general), when 2.4 GHz and carbon fibre were coming into the mainstream, few realized that carbon fibre was conductive and many of us lost planes due to bad antenna placement. Finally, I would do a pre-flight range check for any new quad, and, after a crash. Many RC clubs have mandatory range checks as a preflight obligation before flying at their field.
@@JoshuaBardwell I'm not sure about the Open TX radios that are 90% prevalent here and especially the newer stuff running Express LRS, but all mid to high-end (aeroplane) radios with protocols such as Spektrum have a special function that explicitly tests range by (significantly) cutting transmitter power to simulate distance. It works well at about 30 meters and these manufacturers have figured the percentage of output power to cut needed for each of their respective and proprietary protocols. Though this is just one of many differences between fixed-wing and quad "best practices" (and I have admittedly not tried this with one a Spektrum running Crossfire -- ix12 and ix 20 have optional Crossfire modules), some of the top-line Jeti radios now run dual 2.4 GHz and 900 MHz with 5+ mile range and they too have a "range check" function. Is this all moot with full telemetry at good latency? Maybe. But even if you have a high-range protocol, if your antenna becomes blocked by carbon fibre, you could suddenly lose signal. Seen it at the field too many times. And a "range check" at cut transmitter powers before you fly may uncover such problems.
It could actually be a flight controller. I had an issue with signal drop every 3-10 seconds to zero (RSSI and LQ both) with my Crossfire Nano RX. After deep research I found, that my UART2 was corrupted somehow (not wires, not pads, but processor). I re-soldered receiver to UART1 and everything work fine now.
I guess we have to clarify whether the source of the RSSI/LQ is the FC or the receiver module. If the FC is providing LQ and RSSI in the OSD, then you're 100% right. In my case, I was getting RSSI/LQ directly from the module telemetry, which side-steps the FC. Good catch.
@@RCRitterFPV Yeah, exactly, flaky uart. But I really had failsafe just in 15-20 meters from me and after that I found problem with zero rssi. Maybe that was just a coincidence...
This can actually happen, i beleive the newer 20x20 f411 matek wse boards on the manual states that you should only ever use uart2 for crossfire style receivers, so maybe they have run into a problem with this in testing?
Thank you for everything you do. I'm building my first drone next weekend and I have been using your videos to figure out this very complicated hobby! You rock
Heck yeah, stick with it. You are probably gonna make some mistakes, everyone does. Just be patient and try to be sure (through research) that you are doing the right thing. Good luck! Jb is an amazing resource, and a cool guy too.
These things are super important. I'm thankful that you're making videos about things like this. Basics are always super important. "Meters" ehh? I'm proud of ya man...I'll take back all the bad things I said about you. 😉
Mr. BARDWELL, I would like to talk to you about your cars extended warranty. We've been trying to get ahold of you for months! Actually, I'd like to say thank you. You have helped me build my son an fpv drone. It flies so well. Thank you sir.
I also want to share my experience with crossfire. I had a failsafe lately. If for some reason within 100 feet and LQ decrements so quickly, check antenna. Great video!
This was really useful, i have fail-safe 2 time at 20 mts. But the signal close is strong so no hardware damage, but I am flying at about 1200 mts altitude in the mountains knows to have lots of minerals so I guess that may also interfiere i guess or some other noise in the area.
I had a failsafe this week with tracer 20m in front of me nothing in-between it hasn't happened again but I dont know why it happened at all. another how to at the right time for beginner me thanks jb
I have a FRSky XM+ and it failsefe randomly at any like 30 meters or even closer. I did the RF fine-tune but no help (I have a Radiomaster TX16S). Put the antennas in better positions but failsafe randomly and just after 2 secondsthe signal is back and I can fly again. I can fly around my grandma's house no problem but sometime even in line of sight it failsafe. Antennas are not touching the frame don't know what could be.
Very nice touch there with the explanation tabs popping up! :) and great video as per usuall 👌 There is a spot local to me in the middle of nowhere with cell tower nearby where my freind keeps failsafing on all his crossfire receivers but anywhere else they fly fine, be interesting to record the osd next time we're up there to get an idea of what background noise can do... if it is that causing it...
Thanks for the awesome video. I'm about to get into CRSF and I'm happy to learn about troubleshooting in general and what to look for. You're reading everybodys minds Josh lol
As silly as it sounds also check to make sure your transmitter’s antenna is attached, too. I had a failsafe at 50 feet and it took me way too long researching what could have caused it to realize I simply forgot to attach my crossfire antenna on my transmitter module (I need to take it off to store it without bending or damaging it).
Lately i've been having failsafes on my TBS Tracer and i broken one arm because of that. Really helpfull video. Btw i am using a receiver that has aged almost 1 year.....
Hey JB I had a problem with a failsafe after random flight times. After looking at your videos on using blackbox to check out what the failsafe was ended up being Runaway takeoff which doesn't make sense because that should go away after a successful takeoff. So at the same time one of my motors would sometimes not arm. So you would think that could be a faulty motor or esc.Being a 4 in 1 esc and f80 pros I just about had a cry. Finally after a big Goggle read something about one of the motor wires from the FC to the ESC causeing dramas. My stack came with an extra plug swapped them over and wham bang back in business.It was a shitty plug all along.so what I learnt was watch your videos triple check all wires including plugs and Loctite all bolts because about a week later a bolt came out of one of my arms stripping the wires out of a motor and breaking my frame the gift that kept on giving any way will just have to wait for you video on repairing stripped motor wires. Keep up the good work JB thanks again mate
Runaway can happen after takeoff if your throttle has not exceeded the threshold for long enough. If you have a bad motor it would cause runaway when the motor failed.
@@JoshuaBardwell Thanks for the reply mate,I was still getting runaway takeoff even after full throttle punchers was strange. Problem ended up being the harness between the fc and ESC might of had a break in a wire somewhere just swaped it out for another. No more runaway
I am more of an RF guy being a radio ham etc. I would get more information from the RSSI signal than the SQ signal for the following reason. Any decent telemetry system will have parity checking and on a duplex system, it will acknowledge (Ack) correct reception of each package of data, if the last packet failed the parity check, the ground station would simply request a re-transmission. Usually, the system would ignore the odd corrupted packet, but when these corrupted packets become too regular, you would then get a bad SQ reading. Its at this point where you have really reached the point of no return, you are now about to lose your telemetry link. However, the RSSI signal would tell you before this happened by the actual signal strength. If we simplified the RSSI from 0 to 10, if the SQ warning kicked in at say RSSI 2, you would see know this from the declining RSSI value and you could act at say RSSI 3 before the actual edge of your range. Aerials are the ultimate things to concentrate on for the maximum range.
You're making assumptions about RC control links that aren't true. They don't ack. Paying attention to RSSI doesn't take into account interference. You can't know the noise floor that the receiver is experiencing.
I fly only fixed wing. I'm using a tx16s and my signal does well with my spektrum stuff but I did notice that when I fly my elrs stuff with my radiomaster module I'm definitely dropping in the 85% range for link quality and I'm really not going far away. 300 yards max. Thoughts on what may be going on?
@joshuabardwell what is that oscillating sound coming from the quad?. My kiss g4 does the same thing when I give it alot of throttle. I thought something was wrong with mine until I heard yours.
Got a 4inch quad recently... Flew today for the 2nd time, took off, lost video and controls after like 3 seconds, no buzzer, battery got ejected, it started raining right after that... Spent 30min looking for it in a field in the rain
My brand new foxwhoop with FRsky rx and my brand new Jumper T pro keep randomly fail-safing.. It happens to all quads i pair to the T Pro so I think it was broken on arrival. It's so hard to prove especially because I had to switch the TX to mode 1 when I got it. Now after the last RXLOSS crash my FC on the foxwhoop Doesn't register pitch...it like regiesters 10deg pitch and 2deg roll :(
As I walk out to the runway I get "Telemetry Lost" followed immediately by "Telemetry Recovered" which I've assumed was because I have the transmitter in one hand and the model in the other so they are too close. Once I fly the model Ive no issues. Why the telemetry lost warning? Thanks for the advise E
I fly DJI (digital) in all my FPV drones. In Betaflight, Configuration tab, right hand column - RSSI (Signal Strength) [RSSI_ADC] has the note "Analog RSSI input." Is there an RSSI equivalent I should monitor for digital goggles/air units?
I hope someone can help me.. I just started fpv but my drone sometimes has random failsafes.. sometimes when I plug the batterie the two peep sounds are not coming and it’s not connecting.. what could be the problem??
Hi Joshua Hope you help me I have a radiomaster tx16 ,,, I,m truning to link a futaba Recever R3106GF T-FHSS,, in to a ranger plane 1800.as I can not found the link in the radio HELP ME Cheers Robbie
SO, link quality data is better than RSSI, but there are some very popular radios that cannot provide that measure. True? Please identify whiich radio does what?
1st Thank you for all your knowledge, as an apprentice pilot im learning lots. Since I switched to Edge TX I'm not getting any RSSI. Any suggestions? Maybe go back to open TX?
just curious if this is a common issue but ive had multiple ghost antennas come unsoldered inside the plastic t, there is a small pcb and the t ends hardly get enough solder on them from irc. the plastic t does split apart with care maybe check that out too? but also i have had a receiver die as well crashed into a pile of wet leaves. lol
6:16 you should try being British, we use a mash of imperial and metric and use literally every every measurement format there is and which we use depends on what its being used for, our impetric system is mental lol. When i say depending on what its being used for i dont mean like we would use say metric for weighing something and imperial for another use, we use metric to weigh some things and imperial to weigh others, the same goes for distance, volume, liquids ect ect psml
@@Artikats I generally use metric because it's easier and makes more sense in most cases but wouldn't have a clue how much I weigh in kg as I use stones and lbs but then weigh everything else in grams and kg lol
I have perfect lq and rssi of -15. I get failsafe after 10 minutes on the desk. Telemetry and lq still coming in perfectly. Failsafe wont allow it to arm.
Hey Joshua, I have a little problem with a tiny whoop board that just does not turn on the esc. it does not read them in the motors tab and the motors don't make the second beat. they also don't arm and everything in Betaflight is good configured. I just tried flashing the firmware with the video you made about this and still won't work :/
So basically my qx7 need a better link aka external mod. I have a rm9 link on my chameleon and it's way better 🤔, well time to dig deep into the J.B. libraries to learn beata flight and the goodies 🤣🤣🤣 can't bind and fly forever🤣🤣🤣. Thanks bro you channel next to Chris are by far the best learning platforms
I had a 915mhz elrs failsafe 50 yards away yesterday. Never had a failsafe with this quad. The only new thing on this quad was that I did the WTFOS on the DJI v2 goggles and the Vista in this quad. My failsafe happened on the 3rd battery and in a place I had already flown several times. Diving a parking garage, about 7 stories up in the air, it failsafes and lands on the parking lot and breaks 2 arms. I never lost my video. The battery stayed connected but I never got my radio connection back. Also, when I power cycled the quad I only got the 3 beeps. Did not get the final 2 beeps that indicate the FC is talking to the ESC. Weird!. I get home and take the top off the quad, see no damage so I plug a battery in and get all 5 beeps. wtf? This is the worst thing. When something stops working, but when you go to look at it to find the problem, it starts working again, making it impossible to find the problem. And this is the worst kind of problem. Failsafes are unacceptable. I have a lot of money in the air when I'm flying. I only have maybe 50 packs on the new Speedybee F7 stack. The BetaFPV ELRS receiver is less than 2 years old and looks good. The BetaFPV module in my radio is and has always been on 200hz at 500mw power in my TX16S radio. I just bought an o3 air unit to put in this thing and now there is no way I'm risking losing a $250 o3 air unit on this quad now. Not until I know what the problem was.
I had an issue with all my crossfire quads and I went into the tbs agent lua script on the radio and changed some settings around and it started working lol. I forgot what I changed .. I think it was from dynamic to 150hz . Also if you have the wrong frequency/country selected it can mess with your LQ/ Rssi
Short of owning a sophisticated RadioMaster. Tx16S controller, what device can I get to measure the radio signal strength of my drone? I suspect drone receiver damage after a 5 mph collision with a stone wall, a sudden 20’ drop to a sidewalk and the drone failing to consistently respond to the forward joystick. Thank you.
Either the receiver reports signal strength or it doesn't. If it doesn't, I can't think how you would troubleshoot receiver damage, except to swap in a new receiver and cross your fingers.
BTW, although you didn't explicitly state it, it looked like you were heading there, SNR is not actually a ratio (in the non-log sense anyway). SNR is calculated simply by _adding_ signal value (RSSI) to noise value (which is not the same as noise floor).
Lord Bardwell, i need you guidance. The voltage in my dji osd is random swinging wildly back and forth from 10.0v to 25.0v on my 6s fettec g4 build. Im running a vista and have no other issues than the voltage readout. Please i beg for your wisdom.
SNR would a much better metric. Better than RSSI and LQ. But I guess in all the latency hype nobody wants a few ms being spent for noise measurements (which could be done only every n frames). Or skip some telemetry packets and do noise floor check instead.
Would an elrs 2.4g rx antenna and a DJI tx antenna can create noise if they are close together? I've been getting bad range for video and elrs signal. I have a bardpole 2.4g close to my DJI antenna.
I've been having an issue with my legacy KISS setup, I've done lots of troubleshooting, and also lot's of part swaps. New motor, new flight controller, new ESC, swapping the wires between the FC and ESC, monitoring Rx link quality, etc. Sometimes I think both of my 4in1 ESCs have the same issue, but then I think it's the flight controller, because both of them exhibit the issue too. The problem seems to be with ESC #4 on the KISS 25A 4in1. No dead shorts exist through the mosfets. in fact the ESC functions fine unless it's accelerating quickly. It can hover, and I can do maneuvers on any axis, but if I jam the sticks, the quad spins out and falls out of the sky, and won't re-arm. Does anyone have experience diagnosing the kiss 25A 4 in 1 or KISS in general?
I have the Johnnyfpv edition qav-s frame and the dji airunit sits on two foam rails in the back and the intended receiver position is kind of sits under it so that's where I initially had put it. I was flying on a particularly hot day last summer and after a few packs my rx (elrs ep1) just quit. It could have just been a coincidence but since replacing the rx and moving it to a different position I've never had an issue.
I've been having failsafes too. But they only happen when I am less than 1 foot away from the ground. Cant figure out why. Guess I am using flysky thats why.
Failsafe only at close range like 1-3 feet is likely because the radio transmission overwhelms the front-end amplifier on the receiver, causing it to lower its gain. Basically, totally normal. Solution: don't be so close.
*knock on wood* although I never fly further than probably 1-300 feet, I dont think I've ever failsafed(failsaved?) on my T-lite and Frsky Rx. Passing on some of the luck to the rest of you!
one thing i asked myself multiple times: would it make sense to have phase 1 of failsafe switch to ange mode so that the quad levels out before falling from the sky in phase 2? i assume that would reduce the fall damage significantly
So I have a tiny whoop meteor 65 and one thing that I noticed is that there is a hard red wire not connected to anything but the flight controller and I wonder if it goes to the receiver and that might be the problem : if any of you can help me that would be great
I fly every quad with R-XSR sice started 2017 and never had an Failsave since Flying maybe its luck. I always was interested in 900Mhz stuff, but since ELRS Tracer Ghost and Dji is outcomming and fuckin my mind I can not deserve Maybe a video with a short Range and latency Table in it will be cool.
And no dBm does not start at zero.... zero means 1mW but usually only a fraction of that goes into our receivers. That's why it is a negative number in the RSSI dBm. Total power output of the Sun is 296 dBm 😆
@@JoshuaBardwell Yes it sure is. I had to watch this again. I was getting Lq confused with Rssi dbm. Maybe it would be easier if Rssi dbm was on a scale from 0-100% as well ?
In 2.4 and 5 GHz It's typically somewhere around -95 to -115 dBm but it can really vary a lot of there is some kind of other transmitter. Remember, "noise" is just other transmissions that aren't you. So if you're near a wifi radio, you can get -55 dBm if "noise".
I think you would need at least an rf power meter ( impulseRC), or a spectrum analyzer to really tell what is out there an a site survey. You might be able to do it with a SDR setup, but how much equipment do you want to lug out to the field?
@@JoshuaBardwell ty, in my line of work I deal with rf. My normal noise floor is -50db and signals rage from -15 to +25. Just trying to get a grasp of rf with the links.
It's not a full troubleshoot unless you watch several UA-cam videos and ask on two discords... can you cover the best way to do that in your next video? :'"D
Even JB's failsafes are smooth af haha. That was just a loop + land!
Lol...that is about as smooth as you can get!
Loving the new mini descriptions & definitions through the videos JB! With so much different terminology, it really helps me to confirm I'm following along correctly. Nice one 🙏
the new info pop ups are a game changer. keeps me locked in as a viewer and interested as a pilot. thanks to your editor for taking the time making them. thanks to you Joshua for being groundbreaking.
Editor? You mean his son?
Crazy you dropped this video today. I am having failsafe issues with my tango 2 and a nano rx. This gives me some things to check
great video on trouble shooting it is easy to miss the forest for the trees thanks for keeping us looking at the right processes
JB's background in radio electronics shines through. This is a much-needed video.
To that, I would add that many quad pilots don't pay enough attention to antenna placement and making sure that both video and receiver antennas are well-away from carbon fibre, battery leads and other electronics in general. I remember back 20 years ago (I'm talking RC aircraft in general), when 2.4 GHz and carbon fibre were coming into the mainstream, few realized that carbon fibre was conductive and many of us lost planes due to bad antenna placement. Finally, I would do a pre-flight range check for any new quad, and, after a crash. Many RC clubs have mandatory range checks as a preflight obligation before flying at their field.
Range check is difficult with modern ping range systems which max out at tens of km. You can't just walk 30 paces away.
@@JoshuaBardwell I'm not sure about the Open TX radios that are 90% prevalent here and especially the newer stuff running Express LRS, but all mid to high-end (aeroplane) radios with protocols such as Spektrum have a special function that explicitly tests range by (significantly) cutting transmitter power to simulate distance. It works well at about 30 meters and these manufacturers have figured the percentage of output power to cut needed for each of their respective and proprietary protocols.
Though this is just one of many differences between fixed-wing and quad "best practices" (and I have admittedly not tried this with one a Spektrum running Crossfire -- ix12 and ix 20 have optional Crossfire modules), some of the top-line Jeti radios now run dual 2.4 GHz and 900 MHz with 5+ mile range and they too have a "range check" function.
Is this all moot with full telemetry at good latency? Maybe. But even if you have a high-range protocol, if your antenna becomes blocked by carbon fibre, you could suddenly lose signal. Seen it at the field too many times. And a "range check" at cut transmitter powers before you fly may uncover such problems.
It could actually be a flight controller. I had an issue with signal drop every 3-10 seconds to zero (RSSI and LQ both) with my Crossfire Nano RX. After deep research I found, that my UART2 was corrupted somehow (not wires, not pads, but processor). I re-soldered receiver to UART1 and everything work fine now.
I guess we have to clarify whether the source of the RSSI/LQ is the FC or the receiver module. If the FC is providing LQ and RSSI in the OSD, then you're 100% right. In my case, I was getting RSSI/LQ directly from the module telemetry, which side-steps the FC. Good catch.
@@JoshuaBardwell You're right, that was on OSD, but telemetry in my transmitter didn't show any drops. I didn't think from this point.
I had the same, a uart was flaky..
Wasn’t a proper fail safe though.
@@RCRitterFPV Yeah, exactly, flaky uart. But I really had failsafe just in 15-20 meters from me and after that I found problem with zero rssi. Maybe that was just a coincidence...
This can actually happen, i beleive the newer 20x20 f411 matek wse boards on the manual states that you should only ever use uart2 for crossfire style receivers, so maybe they have run into a problem with this in testing?
That was the smoothest, most perfect and graceful failsafe I've ever seen lmao
For a failsafe, that was a really smooth landing :)
It was most likely not "cut" in failsafe stage 2 (in betaflight), but "land".
Thank you for everything you do. I'm building my first drone next weekend and I have been using your videos to figure out this very complicated hobby! You rock
Welcome!
Heck yeah, stick with it. You are probably gonna make some mistakes, everyone does. Just be patient and try to be sure (through research) that you are doing the right thing. Good luck! Jb is an amazing resource, and a cool guy too.
These things are super important. I'm thankful that you're making videos about things like this. Basics are always super important.
"Meters" ehh? I'm proud of ya man...I'll take back all the bad things I said about you. 😉
I have a good buddy that needed this video. Thank you!
You really need to check the expiration date on those containers! The outro is great, you have class JB.
Exactly what I need , haha since two days my crsf failsafes always at about 50m. Perfect it comes now. Thanks therefore , joshua
gah RIP that quad.
Mr. BARDWELL, I would like to talk to you about your cars extended warranty. We've been trying to get ahold of you for months!
Actually, I'd like to say thank you. You have helped me build my son an fpv drone. It flies so well. Thank you sir.
I also want to share my experience with crossfire. I had a failsafe lately. If for some reason within 100 feet and LQ decrements so quickly, check antenna. Great video!
Josh, you are the BEST!!! Greetings from Matthias in 🇨🇭
Lots of great information in this video! Thanks JB.
This was really useful, i have fail-safe 2 time at 20 mts. But the signal close is strong so no hardware damage, but I am flying at about 1200 mts altitude in the mountains knows to have lots of minerals so I guess that may also interfiere i guess or some other noise in the area.
I had a failsafe this week with tracer 20m in front of me nothing in-between it hasn't happened again but I dont know why it happened at all. another how to at the right time for beginner me thanks jb
I have a FRSky XM+ and it failsefe randomly at any like 30 meters or even closer. I did the RF fine-tune but no help (I have a Radiomaster TX16S). Put the antennas in better positions but failsafe randomly and just after 2 secondsthe signal is back and I can fly again.
I can fly around my grandma's house no problem but sometime even in line of sight it failsafe.
Antennas are not touching the frame don't know what could be.
Really fantastic info, Joshua! Thanks a lot! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Huh, I had no idea that rssi was reported from the reciever not the FC. Appreciate it JB!
I always learn something everyday! Thx JB
Very nice touch there with the explanation tabs popping up! :) and great video as per usuall 👌
There is a spot local to me in the middle of nowhere with cell tower nearby where my freind keeps failsafing on all his crossfire receivers but anywhere else they fly fine, be interesting to record the osd next time we're up there to get an idea of what background noise can do... if it is that causing it...
Thanks for the awesome video. I'm about to get into CRSF and I'm happy to learn about troubleshooting in general and what to look for. You're reading everybodys minds Josh lol
I just wanted to say thank you! Due to your videos, I have an excellent super clean 5" quad! Thank you! See you in the next superchat
As silly as it sounds also check to make sure your transmitter’s antenna is attached, too. I had a failsafe at 50 feet and it took me way too long researching what could have caused it to realize I simply forgot to attach my crossfire antenna on my transmitter module (I need to take it off to store it without bending or damaging it).
Lately i've been having failsafes on my TBS Tracer and i broken one arm because of that. Really helpfull video. Btw i am using a receiver that has aged almost 1 year.....
Thanks!
Hey JB
I had a problem with a failsafe after random flight times. After looking at your videos on using blackbox to check out what the failsafe was ended up being Runaway takeoff which doesn't make sense because that should go away after a successful takeoff. So at the same time one of my motors would sometimes not arm. So you would think that could be a faulty motor or esc.Being a 4 in 1 esc and f80 pros I just about had a cry. Finally after a big Goggle read something about one of the motor wires from the FC to the ESC causeing dramas. My stack came with an extra plug swapped them over and wham bang back in business.It was a shitty plug all along.so what I learnt was watch your videos triple check all wires including plugs and Loctite all bolts because about a week later a bolt came out of one of my arms stripping the wires out of a motor and breaking my frame the gift that kept on giving any way will just have to wait for you video on repairing stripped motor wires. Keep up the good work JB thanks again mate
Runaway can happen after takeoff if your throttle has not exceeded the threshold for long enough. If you have a bad motor it would cause runaway when the motor failed.
@@JoshuaBardwell Thanks for the reply mate,I was still getting runaway takeoff even after full throttle punchers was strange. Problem ended up being the harness between the fc and ESC might of had a break in a wire somewhere just swaped it out for another. No more runaway
Great video and I did learn something today. Seriously it was a good video
brilliant explanation
I am more of an RF guy being a radio ham etc. I would get more information from the RSSI signal than the SQ signal for the following reason. Any decent telemetry system will have parity checking and on a duplex system, it will acknowledge (Ack) correct reception of each package of data, if the last packet failed the parity check, the ground station would simply request a re-transmission. Usually, the system would ignore the odd corrupted packet, but when these corrupted packets become too regular, you would then get a bad SQ reading. Its at this point where you have really reached the point of no return, you are now about to lose your telemetry link. However, the RSSI signal would tell you before this happened by the actual signal strength. If we simplified the RSSI from 0 to 10, if the SQ warning kicked in at say RSSI 2, you would see know this from the declining RSSI value and you could act at say RSSI 3 before the actual edge of your range. Aerials are the ultimate things to concentrate on for the maximum range.
You're making assumptions about RC control links that aren't true. They don't ack.
Paying attention to RSSI doesn't take into account interference. You can't know the noise floor that the receiver is experiencing.
would flying behind a metal roof (outside) or within 0.25mi of a radio tower cause random losses in signal?
I fly only fixed wing. I'm using a tx16s and my signal does well with my spektrum stuff but I did notice that when I fly my elrs stuff with my radiomaster module I'm definitely dropping in the 85% range for link quality and I'm really not going far away. 300 yards max. Thoughts on what may be going on?
@joshuabardwell what is that oscillating sound coming from the quad?. My kiss g4 does the same thing when I give it alot of throttle. I thought something was wrong with mine until I heard yours.
Thanks, JB
Got a 4inch quad recently... Flew today for the 2nd time, took off, lost video and controls after like 3 seconds, no buzzer, battery got ejected, it started raining right after that... Spent 30min looking for it in a field in the rain
My brand new foxwhoop with FRsky rx and my brand new Jumper T pro keep randomly fail-safing.. It happens to all quads i pair to the T Pro so I think it was broken on arrival. It's so hard to prove especially because I had to switch the TX to mode 1 when I got it. Now after the last RXLOSS crash my FC on the foxwhoop Doesn't register pitch...it like regiesters 10deg pitch and 2deg roll :(
As I walk out to the runway I get "Telemetry Lost" followed immediately by "Telemetry Recovered" which I've assumed was because I have the transmitter in one hand and the model in the other so they are too close. Once I fly the model Ive no issues. Why the telemetry lost warning? Thanks for the advise E
With FrSky, it's because they're too close. You're right about that.
@@JoshuaBardwell Great, that was my understanding thanks Joshua
Um...where did you get the shirt?! I dig it!
@BOTGRINDER FPV needs to watch this video 🤣🤣🤣
I fly DJI (digital) in all my FPV drones. In Betaflight, Configuration tab, right hand column - RSSI (Signal Strength) [RSSI_ADC] has the note "Analog RSSI input." Is there an RSSI equivalent I should monitor for digital goggles/air units?
I hope someone can help me.. I just started fpv but my drone sometimes has random failsafes.. sometimes when I plug the batterie the two peep sounds are not coming and it’s not connecting.. what could be the problem??
i can't seem to find your video on anti vibration screws for the ESC/FC - maybe someone can redirect me? are they still a thing?
Great explanation! Thanks!
Hi Joshua Hope you help me I have a radiomaster tx16 ,,, I,m truning to link a futaba Recever R3106GF T-FHSS,, in to a ranger plane 1800.as I can not found the link in the radio HELP ME
Cheers Robbie
SO, link quality data is better than RSSI, but there are some very popular radios that cannot provide that measure. True? Please identify whiich radio does what?
1st Thank you for all your knowledge, as an apprentice pilot im learning lots.
Since I switched to Edge TX I'm not getting any RSSI.
Any suggestions?
Maybe go back to open TX?
Where did you get the Fly or Die t-shirt? Really cool!
It was made by a local guy as a one-off. I don't think it's available any more.
just curious if this is a common issue but ive had multiple ghost antennas come unsoldered inside the plastic t, there is a small pcb and the t ends hardly get enough solder on them from irc. the plastic t does split apart with care maybe check that out too? but also i have had a receiver die as well crashed into a pile of wet leaves. lol
Thanks Joshua. 👊🏻👊🏻you the man
6:16 you should try being British, we use a mash of imperial and metric and use literally every every measurement format there is and which we use depends on what its being used for, our impetric system is mental lol.
When i say depending on what its being used for i dont mean like we would use say metric for weighing something and imperial for another use, we use metric to weigh some things and imperial to weigh others, the same goes for distance, volume, liquids ect ect psml
Same here in Canada, all government is metric but most construction and trades still use inches and feet or yards.
Especially us old guys.lol
@@Artikats I generally use metric because it's easier and makes more sense in most cases but wouldn't have a clue how much I weigh in kg as I use stones and lbs but then weigh everything else in grams and kg lol
I have perfect lq and rssi of -15. I get failsafe after 10 minutes on the desk. Telemetry and lq still coming in perfectly. Failsafe wont allow it to arm.
Hello JB, is safe to mount the rx over the Caddx Vista or Airunit with double sided tape? And the heat not affect the rx performance?
Hey Joshua, I have a little problem with a tiny whoop board that just does not turn on the esc. it does not read them in the motors tab and the motors don't make the second beat. they also don't arm and everything in Betaflight is good configured. I just tried flashing the firmware with the video you made about this and still won't work :/
So basically my qx7 need a better link aka external mod. I have a rm9 link on my chameleon and it's way better 🤔, well time to dig deep into the J.B. libraries to learn beata flight and the goodies 🤣🤣🤣 can't bind and fly forever🤣🤣🤣. Thanks bro you channel next to Chris are by far the best learning platforms
I had a 915mhz elrs failsafe 50 yards away yesterday. Never had a failsafe with this quad. The only new thing on this quad was that I did the WTFOS on the DJI v2 goggles and the Vista in this quad. My failsafe happened on the 3rd battery and in a place I had already flown several times. Diving a parking garage, about 7 stories up in the air, it failsafes and lands on the parking lot and breaks 2 arms. I never lost my video. The battery stayed connected but I never got my radio connection back. Also, when I power cycled the quad I only got the 3 beeps. Did not get the final 2 beeps that indicate the FC is talking to the ESC. Weird!. I get home and take the top off the quad, see no damage so I plug a battery in and get all 5 beeps. wtf? This is the worst thing. When something stops working, but when you go to look at it to find the problem, it starts working again, making it impossible to find the problem. And this is the worst kind of problem. Failsafes are unacceptable. I have a lot of money in the air when I'm flying. I only have maybe 50 packs on the new Speedybee F7 stack. The BetaFPV ELRS receiver is less than 2 years old and looks good. The BetaFPV module in my radio is and has always been on 200hz at 500mw power in my TX16S radio. I just bought an o3 air unit to put in this thing and now there is no way I'm risking losing a $250 o3 air unit on this quad now. Not until I know what the problem was.
I had an issue with all my crossfire quads and I went into the tbs agent lua script on the radio and changed some settings around and it started working lol. I forgot what I changed .. I think it was from dynamic to 150hz . Also if you have the wrong frequency/country selected it can mess with your LQ/ Rssi
Short of owning a sophisticated RadioMaster. Tx16S controller, what device can I get to measure the radio signal strength of my drone? I suspect drone receiver damage after a 5 mph collision with a stone wall, a sudden 20’ drop to a sidewalk and the drone failing to consistently respond to the forward joystick. Thank you.
Either the receiver reports signal strength or it doesn't. If it doesn't, I can't think how you would troubleshoot receiver damage, except to swap in a new receiver and cross your fingers.
BTW, although you didn't explicitly state it, it looked like you were heading there, SNR is not actually a ratio (in the non-log sense anyway). SNR is calculated simply by _adding_ signal value (RSSI) to noise value (which is not the same as noise floor).
True, but the nature of dB means that adding or subtracting dB is the same as calculating a ratio of linear units.
@@JoshuaBardwell Of course.
As always, awesome !
My frsky goes to 9 goes down to 1 then fail safe happens never get negative anything so is my receiver faulty I didn't learn anything jb
Lord Bardwell, i need you guidance. The voltage in my dji osd is random swinging wildly back and forth from 10.0v to 25.0v on my 6s fettec g4 build. Im running a vista and have no other issues than the voltage readout. Please i beg for your wisdom.
I hate to say it but I don't see what could cause this other than an FC issue.
@@JoshuaBardwell i noticed something else last night, my caddx vista is making noise. Its quiet but it’s noticeable and none of my other vistas do it.
SNR would a much better metric. Better than RSSI and LQ. But I guess in all the latency hype nobody wants a few ms being spent for noise measurements (which could be done only every n frames). Or skip some telemetry packets and do noise floor check instead.
Would an elrs 2.4g rx antenna and a DJI tx antenna can create noise if they are close together? I've been getting bad range for video and elrs signal. I have a bardpole 2.4g close to my DJI antenna.
If they are within a few cm of each other, it's possible. Can you try separating them?
JB got an ultra 👍👍👍
I've been having an issue with my legacy KISS setup, I've done lots of troubleshooting, and also lot's of part swaps.
New motor, new flight controller, new ESC, swapping the wires between the FC and ESC, monitoring Rx link quality, etc. Sometimes I think both of my 4in1 ESCs have the same issue, but then I think it's the flight controller, because both of them exhibit the issue too. The problem seems to be with ESC #4 on the KISS 25A 4in1.
No dead shorts exist through the mosfets. in fact the ESC functions fine unless it's accelerating quickly. It can hover, and I can do maneuvers on any axis, but if I jam the sticks, the quad spins out and falls out of the sky, and won't re-arm.
Does anyone have experience diagnosing the kiss 25A 4 in 1 or KISS in general?
Could placing the Rx on the Vista cause damage to the Rx? Thinking specifically about the heat the Vista makes?
I have the Johnnyfpv edition qav-s frame and the dji airunit sits on two foam rails in the back and the intended receiver position is kind of sits under it so that's where I initially had put it. I was flying on a particularly hot day last summer and after a few packs my rx (elrs ep1) just quit. It could have just been a coincidence but since replacing the rx and moving it to a different position I've never had an issue.
@@skree_fpv436 Good info! Thanks
Where can i find this stickends?
i have a good one for any one to work out !! my quad disarms when my brother turn on his radio, very strange, we both have XM+
Perfect timing
I have seen part´s of this vid times ago, what´s new?
I have to wonder if putting the receiver on the vista is a little too hot?
Idk. I have one like that. Long Range quad. So far no issues flying for 40mins. This is diversity rx so many bigger size helps
Vistas can get pretty toastie, what power output are you running?
Try mounting it elsewhere and see if it continues..
I've been having failsafes too. But they only happen when I am less than 1 foot away from the ground. Cant figure out why. Guess I am using flysky thats why.
Failsafe only at close range like 1-3 feet is likely because the radio transmission overwhelms the front-end amplifier on the receiver, causing it to lower its gain. Basically, totally normal. Solution: don't be so close.
@@JoshuaBardwell Thanks!
*knock on wood* although I never fly further than probably 1-300 feet, I dont think I've ever failsafed(failsaved?) on my T-lite and Frsky Rx. Passing on some of the luck to the rest of you!
We made the same video haha, my solution was to just put a new rx in and it fixed the problem.
I did the same thing but with more talking.
I'm only having trouble after a firmware update. Think I'm going to downgrade and see if it fixes it.
one thing i asked myself multiple times:
would it make sense to have phase 1 of failsafe switch to ange mode so that the quad levels out before falling from the sky in phase 2? i assume that would reduce the fall damage significantly
You can do that by changing failsafe from "drop" to "land" and then setting the landing timout very short.
@@JoshuaBardwell thank you. That's a good Idea. Will absolutely try this. Will this disarm the quad once the time is up?
Yes it will.
Wondering why did u solder only 3 out of 4 connectors?
The 4th is for direct connection to Tramp vTX.
Unless you use analog RSSI input!
best failsafe i have ever seen 😂
Had my first failsafe the other night.
6’ away from me.
Elrs - spi mobula6
Random, completely fine every other time.
Is LQ a feature of my flight controller or my Receiver?
Receiver.
So I have a tiny whoop meteor 65 and one thing that I noticed is that there is a hard red wire not connected to anything but the flight controller and I wonder if it goes to the receiver and that might be the problem
: if any of you can help me that would be great
That wire is your receiver antenna.
Do you have any idea what part of the receiver it goes on?
So I can fix it
It's soldered directly to the antenna output pad on the FC.
So.. My receiver is bad on my Flywoo firefly 😭 (frsky)
Good thing i just ordered some elrs 😁
Is ghost still your choice?
I'm still on frysky and I'm over it.
I'm mostly using elrs now
@@JoshuaBardwell I love that you keep replying even now that you are famous. Lol
Thank you sir
I don't even have this issue. I'm still gonna watch though lol
Hi Does any one know what Gps Throttle Warning means get in my goggles OSD Help Guy's
I fly every quad with R-XSR sice started 2017 and never had an Failsave since Flying maybe its luck.
I always was interested in 900Mhz stuff, but since ELRS Tracer Ghost and Dji is outcomming and fuckin my mind I can not deserve Maybe a video with a short Range and latency Table in it will be cool.
Why did you not show any indications after replacing the receiver?
Rssi? I did. I showed that it was staying up in high numbers without dropping.
And no dBm does not start at zero.... zero means 1mW but usually only a fraction of that goes into our receivers. That's why it is a negative number in the RSSI dBm.
Total power output of the Sun is 296 dBm 😆
Interesting that bardwell and @botgrinder post failsafe videos so close.
I think for simplicity it would be an advantage if link quality could be measured from 0-100%
Isn't it?
It is.. (linear)
Btw: Elrs still flies with 1% (of the data)
@@JoshuaBardwell Yes it sure is. I had to watch this again. I was getting Lq confused with Rssi dbm. Maybe it would be easier if Rssi dbm was on a scale from 0-100% as well ?
@@Cre8ionz. I am flying Elrs. Are you saying even at 1% Lq elrs will not fail safe?
@@msky33 JB also did a video about it saying it (I have tested it before)
Gee - if only there was some way to _log_ what caused the firmware to failsafe, using some sort of _logging_ mechanism. Wouldn't that be amazing?
The Blackbox Log would show that the quad disarmed due to rxloss but would not contain much more useful info than that. Maybe rssi.
Tbs said ludicrous mode......
Edit what is the standard noise floor in general? I'm curious what most environments like a park is like.
In 2.4 and 5 GHz It's typically somewhere around -95 to -115 dBm but it can really vary a lot of there is some kind of other transmitter. Remember, "noise" is just other transmissions that aren't you. So if you're near a wifi radio, you can get -55 dBm if "noise".
I think you would need at least an rf power meter ( impulseRC), or a spectrum analyzer to really tell what is out there an a site survey. You might be able to do it with a SDR setup, but how much equipment do you want to lug out to the field?
A spectrum analyzer would be the right tool to measure the noise floor.
@@JoshuaBardwell ty, in my line of work I deal with rf. My normal noise floor is -50db and signals rage from -15 to +25. Just trying to get a grasp of rf with the links.
@@JoshuaBardwell the inbuild LUA Script one should be a good starting point ?
It's not a full troubleshoot unless you watch several UA-cam videos and ask on two discords... can you cover the best way to do that in your next video? :'"D
Only failsafes I've had with CRSF is when I fly stupid. Thank god for GPS.
It should be called, *Fail,shit stupid kwad fell out the air".