Taranis plus antenna warning - caused crash

[stharvey1975]

I recently took off a 30% 30cc extra with my Taranis plus. Soon after I got an radio antenna warning followed by telemetry lost followed by no radio control followed by a 2000$ airplane buried underground. I can't risk this ever again without understanding what happened. I replaced all my Spektrum gear for the advertised reliability of frsky. I am at a loss now literally. Please help if you know what may have happened here.

[jhsa]

Sorry for your loss
Did you range check the equipment on the ground prior to your flight?
Also what is your model made of, what receiver, and where did you place the antennas? Type and capacity of battery used, etc.. Pictures would be nice. People will need more details about the installation so they can help you better to understand what might have happened.

João
EDIT: Was the radio gear working when you got to the plane after the crash?

[daneel]

Hi all,

this reminds me that a friend of mine recently got his Taranis Plus and let me set-up it for him. During set-up I checked the firmware (there is an "about" screen) and suddenly I got this "Radio Antenna Defective" as well. I first thought it might have to do with me checking the about screen, but I never got it again thereafter.

Never got it again. But I'm not sure what that was about.

All the best,
Michael

[stharvey1975]

I did the range check. It was a balsa model 25% giant scale extra with a 30cc engine. I oriented my antennas in the standard "y" configuration. It was the x8r that comes with the Taranis plus combo pack. I set the fail safe but the fail safe did not engage when telemetry was lost. Batteries were two (1 reciever and 1 ignition) life 2 cell with a fresh charge. These are 6.6 V and had very few cycles through them maybe 10 each. I was running the latest firmware but the stock bootloader. After the crash all was destroyed. Toothpicks, shards, and all I recovered were screws. Even the DLE 35 gas engine was demolished. Plane went straight down at about 60 mph because fail safe did not engage.

[Kilrah]

How did you set your failsafe? The lack of failsafe response would suggest either bad failsafe configuration coupled with link loss, or complete failure either of the receiver or of its power supply but no loss of link per se.

Did you get any flights on the radio/receiver on another "cheap" model prior to using it with that plane?

I've learned not to trust any new equipment of any brand on an expensive machine until tested for a few flights on a throwaway model... That's not only for the radio and every single receiver I purchase since a nice and new $800 Graupner radio failed on me causing $3000 of damage on a professional multicopter on the radio's 3rd flight - diagnostic early failure of the radio's RF section - but also includes things like nice redundant power supplies that are supposed to be a safety element as I've had that fail too.

Hobby grade electronics are only tested for a few minutes at the factory, and as the well-known failure curve suggests this tends to let some percentage of components through that may fail early due to manufacturing or component defect.

[jhsa]

If failsafe didn't engage, as kilrah says, or wasn't correctly set, the receiver died (which would be worrying) or there was a power issue somewhere. I had once a bullet connector dying on me. But it was an electric plane and the motor obviously stopped.. But lost all control and no failsafe as well..

Is the receiver PCB still in one piece? could you post good pictures of it, both sides please?

João

[BootsyLee]

Hi all,

this reminds me that a friend of mine recently got his Taranis Plus and let me set-up it for him. During set-up I checked the firmware (there is an "about" screen) and suddenly I got this "Radio Antenna Defective" as well. I first thought it might have to do with me checking the about screen, but I never got it again thereafter.

Never got it again. But I'm not sure what that was about.

All the best,
Michael

Daneel,
I would find this TX and have it thoroughly checked out. Open the case and look at the antenna wire for twisting or damage. The "Radio Antenna Defective " has nothing to do with a failsafe or logs. Sure they can tell you what happened when but this is a static issue. You can get this warning on the bench with only the radio on. The problem there is people don't heed the warning because they didn't crash a model.

I own the original X9D and only wanted the Plus for the better screen. But seeing people mention this I'm going to wait till this problem is properly identified and fixed. Harvey I hope this gets solved, seeing that picture would send me over the edge. I've crashed enough planes, quads, helis and I've learned from everyone of them but haven't experienced a manufacturing failure yet that I can prove. We are lucky this TX has a warning very few do, we just need to listen to those warnings.

[seancull]

I had this issue. The hinge pin in the antenna had fallen out and the thin antenna wire became damaged. I have had two pins fail so far.

[bertrand35]

There was an "antenna warning" message bug fixed (it happened when choosing Reset Flight on the main view). But it was a wrong alarm, no problem on RF side!
Waiting for more infos about this crash.

[Hance]

I did the range check. It was a balsa model 25% giant scale extra with a 30cc engine. I oriented my antennas in the standard "y" configuration. It was the x8r that comes with the Taranis plus combo pack. I set the fail safe but the fail safe did not engage when telemetry was lost. Batteries were two (1 reciever and 1 ignition) life 2 cell with a fresh charge. These are 6.6 V and had very few cycles through them maybe 10 each. I was running the latest firmware but the stock bootloader. After the crash all was destroyed. Toothpicks, shards, and all I recovered were screws. Even the DLE 35 gas engine was demolished. Plane went straight down at about 60 mph because fail safe did not engage.

Setting up failsafe through me for a loop the first time I did it. It would only work once in a row then I figured out you have to go into the model setup page and change a setting there. So from the main screen hit menu then page one time and scroll to failsafe and set it to receiver instead of hold. If you didn't change that setting and only tested the failsafe once it would have worked that one time but then reverted to hold. Not sure if thats a bug or by design but it took me the better part of half an hour to figure it out.



Now for the other part of my post. I had basically the same thing happen to me. I was flying a 20cc Yak Profile, it had been range tested and had multiple flights on it with no issues. I was coming in to land and the model was still about waste high when it was in front of me so I decided to go around. I added a little throttle and put in some right rudder to start a turn and got an RSSI critical warning. Once that happened the model flew on its for another 4-5 seconds before destroying itself.

The only carbon in the airframe is the wing tube, the receiver was mounted well behind it and the model was flying almost straight away from me at the time it locked out so there would have been nothing at all to shield the antennas. The engine kept running up until the point of impact so I know that it wasn't a power issue. If the RX lost power the optical kill on the ignition would have shut the engine off instantly.

[jhsa]

Did you ever find what caused it?

João

[stharvey1975]

Redwing Extra 30cc destroyed.

I did not know there was another fail safe setup step with the radio either. I set it up during bind. I hear you about using this setup on a plane this nice. Very dumb and all the advise to simply clear out the warning... Makes me feel dumb as well. I don't have pics of the now cracked reciever because I sent it to the distributor for evaluation yesterday.

[jhsa]

I asked for pictures because of this..

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost ... ount=13082

Guys, inspect your material closely before using it on your planes. Even disposable ones. Because they can go out of control and injure someone or destroy something.. I have to remember doing that myself.
Again, sorry about your plane. That s***s..

João

[Hance]

Mine had to be a radio issue of some kind, maybe a dud RX and I have seen a few people talking about there being a QC issue with a few of the Taranis Plus radios made in December, mine was made in December. I have tried to recreate the issue every way I can think of and simply can't do it. Crashing the plane doesn't bother me nearly as bad as not knowing why I crashed the plane.

[Hance]

I went to the sod farm where I fly today with the intent of doing a bunch of flying with the boys Taranis. I shipped mine back to Wayne at Aloft for repairs on Friday. I got a couple of flights in with no problem and was getting ready to go up again and got the "transmitter antenna defective" warning from the second transmitter. Needless to say I didn't fly. It was built 1/16/2015 and has the IPX connector on the RF module. The other transmitter was built about a month earlier and has the antenna soldered directly to the board.

Needless to say two transmitter and both defective is starting to really wear on my sense of humor.

[stharvey1975]

Any words from Aloft? My radio and receiver involved in my crash is also pending rework results.

[Hance]

I heard back from Aloft today. They are going to replace the backboard in both of my radios. They expect the parts to be in next week.

[Rob Thomson]

The 'antenna warning' message is sounded when the phisical antenna in the radio has a problem. Chances are it was soldered badly.. or the coax has a flaw.

So yes.. replacing the back board would work - but my guess is they could have gotten away with just replacing the antenna.

[jhsa]

Probably no one wants to take the responsibility to solder an antenna in case something goes wrong?
Replacing the entire board gives some peace of mind I would guess..

João

[genrlst]

Guys,

I replaced my B01 board with the B02 which has the IPX connector. I also added the 70mm pigtail plus the 5dbi all from Aloft hobbies. Now I have decreased range. The radio tells me "Rssi low" and "Signal critically low". Has anyone experienced this? I have received no antenna failure message.

Thanks

G

[Hance]

Probably no one wants to take the responsibility to solder an antenna in case something goes wrong?
Replacing the entire board gives some peace of mind I would guess..

João

If it turns out to just be a bad solder joint I could have fixed that myself. Soldering doesn't scare me in the least, I have soldered USB ports back on flight controllers for quad copters at the field, with a junk iron, under way less than ideal conditions. An antenna connector would be simple in comparison.

[Daedalus66]

Don't under estimate the job.


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