21min Flight; 617 pics; Landed at 0%; Farm Scan...

[Mark szy]

Thanks Jubair for you informative post, keep up the good work

 

[Deleted member 5038]

Hi everyone,

Not to reopen the Pandora box, but I ran my own tests with Solo, Gimbal, Gopro Hero4 with battery, carbon props 11x4,5".
Sea level, 28°C, no wind.
Flying manually square loops at 100ft high, playing with yaw.
From 99% down to 8%. 2 sets of 5 batteries.
And I could never fly beyond 16'.

For safe operations, I will limit flights at 15', no matter if I am not N°1...

PPL since 1977, UAV license since 02/16.

 

[PdxSteve]

Hi everyone,

Not to reopen the Pandora box, but I ran my own tests with Solo, Gimbal, Gopro Hero4 with battery, carbon props 11x4,5".
Sea level, 28°C, no wind.
Flying manually square loops at 100ft high, playing with yaw.
From 99% down to 8%. 2 sets of 5 batteries.
And I could never fly beyond 16'.

For safe operations, I will limit flights at 15', no matter if I am not N°1...

PPL since 1977, UAV license since 02/16.

Yes, that's about as good as you will get with a gimbal. The 21 min flight time was achieved without the gimbal. Less weight and less power consumption.

 

[Jubalr]

Hi everyone,

Not to reopen the Pandora box, but I ran my own tests with Solo, Gimbal, Gopro Hero4 with battery, carbon props 11x4,5".
Sea level, 28°C, no wind.
Flying manually square loops at 100ft high, playing with yaw.
From 99% down to 8%. 2 sets of 5 batteries.
And I could never fly beyond 16'.

For safe operations, I will limit flights at 15', no matter if I am not N°1...

PPL since 1977, UAV license since 02/16.

16 sounds about right for that test. This was with no GP or gimbal to power or weight of a gimbal and flying to 0%. This was also flying pretty consistent at best cruise.

Edit.. Beat me to it Steve...

 

[Maxheadspace]

Wanted to pass along some info regarding a flight this morning of a soy bean field. Flight altitude was 320' and Solo was set to fly the mission at 15mph. Camera was the Mapir Survey 2 NDVI Red +NIR. Camera was taking pics every 2-3 seconds. Total flight time was 21.7 min and distance traveled was just under 8,000yds.

Was thinking of picking up a Mapir camera and found your post from a search. Great post! A few questions. Did you angle the camera at all, or did you shoot straight down at 90 degrees? Also, how did you add the GPS metadata to the photos? Did you use Mission Planner to do that? GeoSetter? You mentioned travel distance was 8000 yards, but what was the area covered in square feet or acres for your 21 minutes of flying time? Anything special to calculate the NDVI, or was it automatic coming out of the camera?

Sorry for all the questions, but you seemed to have a home run on your first attempt.

Thanks!

Max

 

[yt lee]

If solo is used in the survey, most likely mp log is used for the geotag. Here is the tutorial for mp.
Tutorial 19: HOW TO GEOTAG IMAGES IN MISSION PLANNER / 3Dsurvey

 

[Maxheadspace]

If solo is used in the survey, most likely mp log is used for the geotag. Here is the tutorial for mp.
Tutorial 19: HOW TO GEOTAG IMAGES IN MISSION PLANNER / 3Dsurvey

Yes, telemetry log is used to obtain the GPS coordinates, but integrating them into the metadata can be accomplished by numerous programs. Mission Planner will do it, but I've seen videos that indicated MP was a bit finicky and required more validation than other solutions. If Jubalr used MP for his geotagging that would help validate MP as a good solution. At least for me.

 

[yt lee]

Yes, telemetry log is used to obtain the GPS coordinates, but integrating them into the metadata can be accomplished by numerous programs. Mission Planner will do it, but I've seen videos that indicated MP was a bit finicky and required more validation than other solutions. If Jubalr used MP for his geotagging that would help validate MP as a good solution. At least for me.

I have used it before 3dsurvey video, so far I haven't found any issues as long as the folder has nothing except the pictures from the camera plus the log file and enough disk spaces. That said, I always visually inspect log file and check the flight path to endure no glitches in the survey.

 

[Jubalr]

Was thinking of picking up a Mapir camera and found your post from a search. Great post! A few questions. Did you angle the camera at all, or did you shoot straight down at 90 degrees? Also, how did you add the GPS metadata to the photos? Did you use Mission Planner to do that? GeoSetter? You mentioned travel distance was 8000 yards, but what was the area covered in square feet or acres for your 21 minutes of flying time? Anything special to calculate the NDVI, or was it automatic coming out of the camera?

Sorry for all the questions, but you seemed to have a home run on your first attempt.

Thanks!

Max

Hey Yt,
The 8000yds was the actual distance reported by MP. Geo tagging was done with Geosetter, as it is more precise. Camera was pointed slightly forward to roughly estimate the pitch at about 15mph.

 

[Maxheadspace]

Hey Yt,
The 8000yds was the actual distance reported by MP. Geo tagging was done with Geosetter, as it is more precise. Camera was pointed slightly forward to roughly estimate the pitch at about 15mph.

Thanks Jubal. That helps.

 

[Sid nguyen]

Nice job Jubair!

Allow me to add a comment on this battery voltage discussion- it is correct that you harm the battery if you go below 3V/cell under load. Result is an irreversible loss in capacity. Unfortunately you cannot measure that with Solo. Just dividing the voltage you read in the logs by 4 will not do it, since lipo cells drift, especially towards the end of capacity. So while one cell is still at 3.2V, the other one may be at 2.8V and already damaged.

In case you run a battery to the very end charge it immediately after landing. The faster you bring it back to healthy voltage levels it can help you to prevent further capacity loss.

I read that charging a hot battery is a bad idea. A lot of charges don't allow hot batteries charging because it could leak or explode. I usually land at 25% and even then the battery is pretty warm.

 

[pulsar110]

Yes, telemetry log is used to obtain the GPS coordinates, but integrating them into the metadata can be accomplished by numerous programs. Mission Planner will do it, but I've seen videos that indicated MP was a bit finicky and required more validation than other solutions. If Jubalr used MP for his geotagging that would help validate MP as a good solution. At least for me.

I have used MP for geotagging for a couple years. Yes it works but the accuracy stinks at times. I now use Geosetter because I get far better results and can check the accuracy of the work. This video if you havent seen it is a great help in the process. Another thing that I discovered is if you have to fight Geosetter take your folder of photos and divide it into even and odd numbered photos. This creates a larger time difference between photos to line up. I often trigger a camera on 1 second intervals and have to split them out as they will not line up.

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