Keeping a Log of Your Flights on the Drone Logbook Website

LarryF · Jan 13, 2016

Here's a short video showing how I keep a record of all my flights, and other data, at DroneLogbook I use the free, hobbyist plan. Most of the flight log is automatically completed by uploading my converted dataflash log file. While I use a 3DR Solo, the process is the same for all APM/Pixhawk copters. Currently, it's just a little more difficult to get the dataflash (.bin) log files from Solo.

fowtom · Jan 28, 2016

Thanks for the intro to the web portal. Do you have instructions on how to retrieve the log information in order to upload?

PdxSteve · Jan 28, 2016

fowtom said:
Thanks for the intro to the web portal. Do you have instructions on how to retrieve the log information in order to upload?

Jubalr · Jan 28, 2016

LarryF said:
Here's a short video showing how I keep a record of all my flights, and other data, at DroneLogbook I use the free, hobbyist plan. Most of the flight log is automatically completed by uploading my converted dataflash log file. While I use a 3DR Solo, the process is the same for all APM/Pixhawk copters. Currently, it's just a little more difficult to get the dataflash (.bin) log files from Solo.

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Great news guys & calls, I've been working with the engineer at Drone Logbook on the ability to read Tlogs in addition to the DF logs. They emailed me yesterday to let me know that they are now able to import flights from Tlogs. No more trying to pull the Bin files. If you are on Android, most of your Tlogs from quite a while will be on your tablet/phone. I went with the Pro plan for the reports and my 333 exemption.
Enjoy!

PdxSteve · Jan 28, 2016

The site looks very useful, especially for tracking batteries, etc. Personally, I'd also want features to track motor pods and hours/pod and things of that nature, with the ability to tell it "I changed motor 3 on this flight" and have it be able to naively track all of that in some sort of report. It looks like that could be done manually using that site. I've only checked the site and haven't created an account to see if the above is possible thought... It might be.

Jubalr · Jan 28, 2016

PdxSteve said:
The site looks very useful, especially for tracking batteries, etc. Personally, I'd also want features to track motor pods and hours/pod and things of that nature, with the ability to tell it "I changed motor 3 on this flight" and have it be able to naively track all of that in some sort of report. It looks like that could be done manually using that site. I've only checked the site and haven't created an account to see if the above is possible thought... It might be.

Sure, that makes sense. Of course since pods aren't serialized and tracked internally anyway you would just have to add it manually in the Equipment Section.

PdxSteve · Jan 28, 2016

When you add equipment, does it track the flight time on that equipment?

fowtom · Jan 28, 2016

Jubalr said:
Great news guys & calls, I've been working with the engineer at Drone Logbook on the ability to read Tlogs in addition to the DF logs. They emailed me yesterday to let me know that they are now able to import flights from Tlogs. No more trying to pull the Bin files. If you are on Android, most of your Tlogs from quite a while will be on your tablet/phone. I went with the Pro plan for the reports and my 333 exemption.
Enjoy!

I just tried the .tlog upload, but get an error message. I submitted ticket to support at DroneLogbook.

I will update once its figured out.

Jubalr · Jan 28, 2016

fowtom said:
I just tried the .tlog upload, but get an error message. I submitted ticket to support at DroneLogbook.

I will update once its figured out.

I just uploaded 2 flights and they went through fine.

fowtom · Jan 28, 2016

Jubalr said:
I just uploaded 2 flights and they went through fine.

I found my issue. Need to select log type to upload. I thought it could detect automatically by extension.

fowtom · Jan 28, 2016

I see that there is no "Traveled Distance" being displayed from upload? Are you seeing this information Jubair?

Jubalr · Jan 29, 2016

fowtom said:
I see that there is no "Traveled Distance" being displayed from upload? Are you seeing this information Jubair?

I'll check with them and see if they are still tweaking it. Didn't see voltages either.

fowtom · Jan 29, 2016

Jubalr said:
I'll check with them and see if they are still tweaking it. Didn't see voltages either.

Heard from support, they indicate this information is not in the Solo 3DR log so it cannot be extracted.

fowtom · Jan 29, 2016

How does one find out the battery information for Solo 3DR to populate into the charge form?

LarryF · Jan 29, 2016

I tried the recently added PX4.BIN option at DroneLogbook - didn't work for me on 6 different native .bin files.
I also tried the new .TLOG option and it worked fine, except (as previously noted), there's no battery voltage records, since the .tlog doesn't record this info.

For now, I'll stick with converting the BIN file to a LOG file and using it. There's still no "Distance Traveled", as this info isn't recorded in any of the logs. Wish it was.

For recording motor pod replacement and other maintenance performed, you'll need to manually enter that data.

For battery charges, I create the charge record while "editing" a flight log. The starting and ending voltages are in the flight log (since I use a bin/log file). Create your flight log (by importing your Solo log), and save it. Then "edit" that same log and click on the "Create Battery Charge" button. When I create the battery charge from the flight log, this info is automatically carried over to the battery charge record. I just need to enter the time it took to charge, the ending voltage (16.80) and any notes I want.

PdxSteve · Jan 29, 2016

Distance should be able to be calculated by adding up the distance between all of the waypoints though, which it does record.

Jubalr · Feb 10, 2016

Did some more tests with support, batt voltages and distance are now read from the Tlog files. Just uploaded several flights and worked perfect.

fowtom · Feb 10, 2016

Just reloaded my test files, GPS, Speed, and Current now import. How is "Battery Capacity" determined?

LarryF · Feb 11, 2016

Jubalr said:
Did some more tests with support, batt voltages and distance are now read from the Tlog files. Just uploaded several flights and worked perfect.

Thanks! The TLOG files work great and include all the info. I just wish there was an easier way to get more than the latest 10 TLOG files (sometimes, I have more than 10 to log).

The BIN->LOG format still doesn't calculate the "flight distance", but they (DroneLogbook) said they are working on it. Also, they found out why the .BIN file from Solo isn't recognized as a good file format. They accept "PX4.BIN" files, but Solo creates "APM.BIN" files. They said they will also work on getting the APM.BIN file format supported.