New to forum, new to "real" drones, looking to increase range.

V

Vikingimike01

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone, I know this is really generic, but I am new to this forum. I know how it works, because I am on forums that use the same formatting.

So, a couple of days ago, my old drone that my uncle gave to me from Spain broke. It was a nincoair evo cam

I had this for 3 years, it had a 650mah 3.7v battery, that was also 3 years old. Long story short it was so old i had 2 minutes of flight time. This was the kind of drone where you fiddle with the thrust to make it level, it has no FPV, it has a few meters of range, but can do a flip and has a 640*480p camera that vibrates so much any footage is useless. Anyways, so i was flying this maybe 3 meters high, when the power cut off, and it randomly dropped. My controller started beeping like crazy, and the props would not stop spinning, I think i read somewhere its the cheap transistors. So I tried using a 2200mah 18650 cell to no luck. This is the kind of drone you buy for little kids by the way, it had foam around for protection.

So 3 days ago I ordered a Holy Stone HS120D, on Ebay, i read its a good drone for starters, it was 110 eurs from Germany. Was it a good deal? It was 130 originally.
It's supposed to have GPS, 1080P FPV, orbit, follow, return home and 300 meters of range. I don't know how accurate the 300 meters is, its 2.4ghz.

Its supposed to arrive on May 7th, so in 5 days. I am looking to have a better range to fly over the trees, and the Danube river is close, it would be pretty nice to see how it looks from up top. Theres really nice forests and hills. So, how would I go about upgrading the range? I have a drill, dremel, wire.. I have a solder, and i know how to weld, so I think I could solder stuff. Because I live in the outback, i would not really worry about the "legal" transmission and power range. I watched some videos, and if I'm right the antenna and the reciever lenght both have a role.
 
Within legal limits you still have plenty of power to work with in the US you can use a transmitter up to .5W or 500mW without any special licensing assuming the intentionally radiator/radio is FCC certified. Anyway though if you have clear line of sight to the quadcopter then the range isn't likely to be a big issue 300m is totally reasonable to get with a 2.4GHz radio and 500mW or so transmission power even at 25mW you could probably get that range but would recommend running at 200mW to 400mW for the 5.8GHz video transmission. Higher frequency generally penetrates things less and will have a lower range. The size of the antenna is directly related to the resonant frequency it's designed to tune into. If you take the speed of light (how fast the wave moves) and divide the frequency by the speed of light then you get the length of the antenna needed to be "tuned" for a particular frequency or to have it's electrons resonate with a particular frequency. So a higher frequency is going to have a shorter antenna people who are doing "long range" going for 10km+ distance flights will get lower frequency gear with larger antenna but for your average person this is way overkill. Crossfire from team black sheep (TBS) is known to have very good range for control signal but the video will be separate. The frequency of the signal also dictates to some degree the bandwidth of the signal sent "on top of" the carrier signal, buy that's above my pay grade.

Regarding the deal it sounds okay, if you want longer flight times than the smaller quads give you the only option really is to go bigger. It is a weight to thrust issue and more weight in batteries means need more thrust (similar to rocket equation more fuel you bring more fuel you need to lift the fuel, except lithium instead of methalox or other rocket fuel). At some point need bigger props to increase efficiency, working on a big hexacopter here and get about 8 minutes hover time on 1 4S 5Ah battery it should be able to lift about 4lbs per motor/prop I have and 6 on here so 24lbs of lift in theory so could put another one of these 4S batteries in parallel and double my capacity/Ah but the extra weight means will be less agile/fast to adjust altitude/direction and would likely get something like 12-14 minute hover time but with less authority/control. Plan to add gps on here soon and have it fly waypoints for similar cinematography type flights.
 
Oh, nice. I live in Hungary though. I'm not sure what the legal limit is. If it's broadband then its 100mW. 100mW for modell controllers? I don't know, its really confusing. Also its 100mW limit for the 6ghz video transmitter.

So, anyways, how would I go about upgrading it? And again, doesn't have to be legal, i'm in the outback. No one would care, theres no police stations or anything. As I said i would be flying over trees and forests as well. Probably not a clear sight to it always.

Could I increase transmission power on the transmitter, would that be enough? How would I do that? Do I need some kind of signal booster?
 
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In general boosters or repeaters are not ideal for this kind of thing, you want low latency and so don't want extra things that need to capture then re-emit or otherwise boost the signal, it's better really to just have a transmitter that allows you to adjust the power output level (most video transmitters or VTX boards will have the ability to change channels and adjust the power output level usually between 3 or 4 preset options, generally 25mW 200mW 400mW 600mW but might see other values or ranges depending on the exact VTX). The VTX is for your video feed and is typically going to be shorter range than the control link feed since your VTX feed is usually on 5.8GHz and the control link feed is typically on 2.4GHz.

The only way to change frequencies is to have a new transmitter and receiver pair that work at the new frequency and the receiver for control link needs to send the "right" signal to the flight controller (one it is programmed/configured to expect).

Generally speaking the way to go here is get gear that lets you adjust power output on the transmission side and or get better antennas for your transmitter or receiver (polarized antenna can help a lot to filter out noise but if already in a remote area probably not a big issue). A few trees on the ground between you and the quad won't be a control link issue but might make your video a little fuzzy, if you are flying up in the air and are up on a hill then there is not much between you and the quad so the signal strength can be pretty low and still good for a distance, if you have a hill or a large concrete building or a lot of trees around the transmitter or receiver then the signal is going to basically be crap... Guess my point is get out there in a clear field and see what the range is do some testing rotating your antenna around if they are directional and or check out what kind of range you can already get (flying somewhere safe where you can find your quad when you do lose signal). No matter what number is written on the box you're going to get more or less depending on environmental factors when it comes to RF transmission.

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Generally speaking the output levels on control link transmitters (controllers) is fixed but you may be able to find specs if you dig, ultimately it depends on other factors like post signal processing and error correction and using spread spectrum technology (like DSM DSMX) or other ways of mitigating the general noisiness of the 2.4GHz frequency. FCC mandates certain frequencies require a license for say NBC or CBS to broadcast over the air on that frequency but 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz are in more free to use regions which makes them fairly congested bits of the RF spectrum

en.wikipedia.org

Frequency allocation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Realize you aren't in the US but a lot of products are made to be compliant with FCC and EU's CE regulations for getting a mark on their product as safe to sell/use.
 
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If you youtube for "long range FPV" or "long range quadcopter" you'll see most people will be using the lower frequency gear but that may or may not cause legal issues depending on your location etc. here I'm smack dab in the middle of civilization so try to generally follow the rules to not interfere with local safety and security people and don't have any fields really big enough to get out of radio range.
 
Yes, thank you, according to UPS it should be here tomorrow. What range should I be expecting when I am on a clear field, no trees no objects, in a clear day?

The drone has GPS and can come home, if I lose the signal, so losing it won't be an issue.

Also, how do I check, if I can increase the transmission power on the RC controller? What should I look for? Again, its a HolyStone HS120D
www.ebay.com

Holy Stone HS120D RC GPS Drohne mit 1080P WIFI HD Kamera Quadrocopter Drohne | eBay

Dadurch wird sie zur idealen Selfie-Drohne. Headless Modus : die Flugrichtung der Drohne ist abhängig von der Ausrichtung des Piloten. Die Ausrichtung der Drohne spielt in diesem Modus keine Rolle.
www.ebay.com
 
I found this on ebay, would you think this would work? I have normal antenna when doing close flights, and this when doing a bit more far away fligts?

www.ebay.com

2.4G Radio Signal Amplifier Signal Booster for RC Model Quadcopter Multicopter | eBay

2.4G Radio Signal Amplifier / Signal Booster. - With the increasing on-board wireless electronic devices like FPV application, the interference between different devices also getting more and more severe, and the radio system range and reliability also greatly affected, this amplifier is just...
www.ebay.com

I don't know if its truly 2w, but if it is, i can just undervolt it, right? Just asking if this would do what its supposed to by boosting range.
 
Can't say for sure either since not sure on the power output of vtx or transmitter with that kit (specs might be somewhere but would take digging) in general the $20-40 transmitter modules you can fly at least a football/soccer field or two baseball fields when using a directional antenna on the receiver (my setup is fatshark hdo goggles with a omnidirectional rhcp antenna and a directional patch antenna). Higher up I generally get better signal with the trees and train tracks around me there's a lot of things for signals to bounce off of and interfere.

There's some good tests of 25mW power range testing on YouTube with 5.8GHz video too so can see worst case scenario what the vid feed should look like, in general vid link is weaker and shorter than control link range since control link is lower frequency but generally I turn back once my video is going bad since I can't fly if I can't see :D
 
Regarding the booster/amplifier I think it should work and is better than repeater or other things I've seen suggested or asked about on the forum but yah here anything above .5W basically requires general HAM license (not that hard to get but probably most people don't have it and would have to study to pass). I made an Alexa skill called "HAM Study" that will quiz you and correct you on the HAM Study questions (maybe not useful since outside the US, but good info about how antenna and transmitters/receivers work in there too)
 
Vikingimike01 said:
Thank you. I guess, undervolting it would help? Because its 0.5w here too from what I've seen on government websites.
Click to expand...
I'd really go with get better antenna and or diversity receivers with multiple antenna to pick up signals and it switches to the correct one over just trying to amplify the signal.

This way staying in legal limits and really can get pretty good range, I only come back because I hit a road I don't want to be flying over (now that I have good goggles with a good receiver, using laforge v4 module, also hear rapid fire makes good diversity module) but again in a relatively dense area here so the room to go fly is somewhat limited (couple rc fields around are pretty big but I still stay in an area where recovery is pretty much guaranteed unless I crash into the occasional tree)

So yah would see when you get the quad and transmitter and can look at parts start trying to see if you can swap out the transmitter and receiver (if it is using some third party receiver or if you can otherwise identify it). For the FPV video transmission from the quad you can always basically just tack that on to any vehicle it's just a camera and video transmitter so doesn't need to interface with existing flight controller necessarily but the receiver for the control link does need to send along control signals to the FC so that part would require either finding a compatible RX for a new transmitter in the long run or a new FC as well (basically you could use the frame motors props probably esc and replace the brains or Flight controller FC, RX and VTX with ones that are made for longer range). Essentially you are rebuilding most of a quad from scratch at that point though so it is as easy or easier to just do a from scratch build (if a bit more expensive) at that point.

TLDR;
1. Replace antenna is the cheap quick fix that will get better range.

2. A better receiver hooked to a display or goggles will help a lot but is more work and expense.

3. Gut it and use the frame motors etc but add new brains and control input and VTX pretty expensive but can get long range transmitter and receiver with diversity and or different frequency and power output. Fairly expensive also requires lots of disassembly and reassembly

4. Fly this one as is when it breaks or you get beyond range limits build from scratch with what you've learned :D

Last path is basically one I took use cheap gear till I hit the limits of it and slowly upgrade then eventually build from scratch when I know what I want and what is what.
 
Thanks. I'll also take path 4, I guess. Thanks for all your help!

After all, flight time is only 18 minutes, so I'm not so sure if having such long range would be even worth it.
 
I was out in a field to test it. I went up 60 meter high as max altitude, and at 30 meter high, i could go 297 meters away, before the video feed fully cut out and the app said lost connection with drone. I could still press the GPS home button, came back, landed only about 10 centimeters away from where i launched it. It flew for about 14 mins (18 stated) The video quality is supposed to be and is 1920*1080, but it looks like 480p.

I am planning to get an SJRC F11 Pro, 2k camera. It has better range, better camera, better flight time. Is it a good idea? Any other drones with good quality recordings? Thanks!
 
I hear generally good things about SJRC but never had one myself so you know better than me at this point but if you search around some other threads here might have that model with some experienced quad pilots. Glad to hear everything pretty much sounds like it works as advertised. In general know for cinematography dji is the go to for a lot of people and mavic might be affordable enough especially if you can find lightly used (with ability to return if not so lightly used).
 
Haha, okay, thanks. By the way, is there any way, to improve the FPV camera's distance/strenght? 1 tree had my FPV completely blocked out, had to navigate around it without seeing any footage where I'm going.
Do you know any good recievers and transmitters designed for drones in mind?
Also, theres a small antenna poking out of my camera, but it's almost in a C shape (Just the bare metal wire with the plastic tubing around it)
Is there a way i can increase transmission power on that thing alone, if i can take the board out easily?
 
Yah there are circular polarized antenna for the video transmission and receiver that if matched (both right hand or both left hand circular polarized) then they will get better range typically basically because there will be less noise since the antenna are basically emitting and receiving only signals polarized the same way. Aside from polarized antenna you can also get a "patch" or directional antenna typically looks like a small flat square that basically gets far better "range" in one direction (the way the antenna is facing) but no range behind it. This is where "diversity" comes in that's having two antenna on the receiver so one can be circular polarized and the other is patch. Can see my goggles here with laforge module and diversity receiver antenna:
IMG_20200508_231914_copy_2016x1512.jpg
IMG_20200508_231903_copy_2016x1512.jpg

Check out racedayquads.com or getfpv.com to see reviews and generally good gear then shop around for prices if they are too much to stomach there :D

PS the little wire antenna is likely a "dipole" basically just a wire of the right length and with correct impedance to work well as an antenna but isn't polarized so can get lots of noise from itself or other near 5.8GHz sources (maybe your phone or people's wifi if anyone around more likely other fpv pilots if at a flying field :) )
 
You'd have to get at the transmitter and receiver antenna connection though and determine what type it is and if it is replaceable first usually it is MMCX but a few other ones out there might take some guess and check ordering things that don't fit and needing to return or eat the loss.
 
I took it apart yesterday, the connection was soldered at some kind of black chip with maybe 4-6 prongs both side.

Thanks, but keep in mind, I can't order anything from the USA, shipping starts from 50$.

I found these:
www.ebay.com

FatShark 5.8GHz Circular Polarized Mushroom Antenna For FPV Aerial Inner Pin | eBay

1pcs Fatshark antenna. Right-hand circular polarization-Standard SMA male connector (NOT RP-SMA). Precision manufactured with very tight tolerances, each antenna is 100% tested on a professional antenna tester (Rhode & Schwartz) to ensure maximum range and performance.
www.ebay.com

www.ebay.com

Aomway 5.8G Circular Polarized Antenna Clover Leaf Blade FPV TX RX VTX Video RC | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Aomway 5.8G Circular Polarized Antenna Clover Leaf Blade FPV TX RX VTX Video RC at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

Which would be better for the video transmitter, and which would be better for the reciever?
Also, I just use my phone for FPV, and it's a Huawei P smart Z dual, so that may not have the best Wifi revieving capability. Is there any gizmo to plug in? I remember my old phone needed a pair of earbuds to get better GPS signal.
Or, if not, I guess I would have to buy some kind of screen specially for drones, that you can plug an antenna into? I'm not sure if I want to get goggles, just because they have to be on my head untill i take it off, i can't just look at it or not look at it.
 
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