Important safety note regarding flying out of radio range

[GAntonjo]

Maybe most of you guys are aware of this, and when thinking of it, it is quite obvoious, but I will anyway share this information so that you are not unintentionally crashing your tricopters outside radio range.

When reading up on the RCGroups.com forum regarding the SToRM32 Brushless Gimbal Controller, I ended up in a hefty discussion between OlliW (creator of SToRM32) and R_Lefebvre (Arducopter Developer) regarding ArduCopter’s TX Fail-safe behavior. The important information came in post at RCHeliAddict.co.uk regarding Spectrum Fail-safe.

To make the story short: Any RC Receiver (in the aircraft) that can be programmed to pull throttle down below normal “zero” throttle, will cause your multirotor to fall like a stone to the ground if enabled, AND you do not have a Throttle Fail-safe mode in your flight controller that will either return to launch or land automatically, when you fly out of radio range!

However, if you do NOT enable Throttle Fail-safe in your receiver, your multirotor will fly on with “last known” attitude, which may be even worse. Think of it as it may fly on for 10-15 minutes at full speed before it fall out of the sky over a populated area – not a nice thought!

So, my multirotor friends! PLEASE make sure your have 110% control over your radio range and NEVER fly out of radio range unless you have a trusted radio fail-safe in your flight controller that will land/RTL the multirotor in a safe way!

[Terje]

Using a Naze32 board, you must also make sure that the Rx and the flight controller agree on what to do on signal loss.

The behavior can be tested by removing the propellers and running the aircrafts motors at half throttle – then at a distance shut off your Tx.

Some radios (like the Taranis) have RSSI that allows you to get at radio signal strength reading real-time, and a audio warning when a pre-defined threshold is reached.

[Robert C]

I must admit that I don’t know how my current setup reacts in case of a signal loss. I never fly more than 200 meters away from me, but I will check my settings before I go out to fly again.

Thanks for the reminder.

[schlagbohrer]

I’m now glad I’ve tested it early. Without props in my living room. I was too scared of hinting anybody or anything else and loosing my Tri.

Setup: A stock Trunigy 9x and a KK2mini.
Result: Trottle will be reduced to zero after 1-2 second signal loss (in my case, I turned the receiver off)

[Agent CAL]

Scary thought… Also though the tricopter falls out of the sky when that happens, but it’s better than flying away forever

[Aaron]

kk mini turnigy 9x
This is what happened to me when I lost signal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dESQ-Iz3WW0

Now that I have been testing the reaction of the board to loss of signal it cuts all motors and when signal is re-established it guns the motors.

I cannot set the turnigy 9x failsafe

THIS IS NOT GOOD, need help

[GAntonjo]

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2418883

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