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No signal issues out of nowhere causing me to pull my hair out!!

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Jul 27, 2015
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A few weeks ago i got the advanced antenna upgrade kit from fpvlr and did the install myself. Everything worked perfectly and was achieving ranges of over 20k ft without lag or any issues at all. About 2 days ago I noticed that the connecters that I installed in the remote that attaches to the upgraded antennas were just slightly loose. Not a big deal really, but just wanted to be on the safe side so I opened up the controller and tightened down the connections, and put everything back together as it should be. After doing that, I could not get any signal at all whether it be control or video. It didn't matter if I was a mile away or 2 inches away from the quad, the red bar at the top of the screen that said no signal never went away.

After many many hours of double and triple checking every single plug, connection, wire, or anything on the inside of the controller that could come loose I finally made a little progress. Oh by the way I forgot to mention that even when I reconnected the stock antennas in the controller no happened. So like I said the progress that I made was now I do get video and control on my tablet but the bars at the top oft he screen that show how good your rc and video connections are show no bars which would usually result in it saying no signal.

I am able to run the remote in dual opperator setup as master but not as slave also. I really hope someone can tell me how to fix this or at least what is causing it so I can maybe replace the part.

Thanks Everyone
Sam
 

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Do you think at any point you might have had the RC powered on without having the antennas properly connected, even for brief moment?

What you're describing sounds like that might have happened and, in which case, the lack of antennas causes all of the radiated radio frequency power normally going to the antennas to reflect back into the transmitter and burn out the output stage of the transmitter.

It's a bit like hitting a tennis ball with a racquet where you really miss the "sweet spot" and all the force comes back down the racquet into your arm.

Andy.
 
Do you think at any point you might have had the RC powered on without having the antennas properly connected, even for brief moment?

What you're describing sounds like that might have happened and, in which case, the lack of antennas causes all of the radiated radio frequency power normally going to the antennas to reflect back into the transmitter and burn out the output stage of the transmitter.

It's a bit like hitting a tennis ball with a racquet where you really miss the "sweet spot" and all the force comes back down the racquet into your arm.

Andy.

That's what I'm thinking also! Burned out the transmitter..
 
Hmmmm interesting theory... I'm 99% positive it was never powered up without at least something being connected to the 2 inputs for antennas on the board inside the controller. It is slightly more possible that the controller was at some point powered on without new antennas being connected to the 2 SMA connectors which were custom mounted on the outside of the controller.
page13image608


Would the Second possibility I just mentioned created that issue? However, I want to be clear that unlike the problem at first, now I DO get video and control from the remote, but without the bars indicating so at the top of the screen. I also don't get any flight telemetry and I can't get to the controller to work in slave mode or show up on the other controllers list of possible slaves.

If the problem is in fact what both of you suggested, then what? Can I replace that part or am I completely SOL and half to drop 650 for a new controller?

This problem is making me nuts and any more ideas are GREATLY appreciated
 
What did you change to make the progress?
By this time I was extremely frustrated and completely out of ideas, so I didn't do anything other than just checking every cable and plug that I could find inside the controller and doing my best to make sure nothing was loose or damaged. Nothing seemed askew so I was very surprised when all of a sudden picture came back.
 
Hmmmm interesting theory... I'm 99% positive it was never powered up without at least something being connected to the 2 inputs for antennas on the board inside the controller. It is slightly more possible that the controller was at some point powered on without new antennas being connected to the 2 SMA connectors which were custom mounted on the outside of the controller.
page13image608


Would the Second possibility I just mentioned created that issue? However, I want to be clear that unlike the problem at first, now I DO get video and control from the remote, but without the bars indicating so at the top of the screen. I also don't get any flight telemetry and I can't get to the controller to work in slave mode or show up on the other controllers list of possible slaves.

If the problem is in fact what both of you suggested, then what? Can I replace that part or am I completely SOL and half to drop 650 for a new controller?

This problem is making me nuts and any more ideas are GREATLY appreciated

If I understand you correctly, you are receiving video from the I1, and you can transmit command and control signals to the I1, for example, you can control the camera tilt (but you're not getting the signal strength bars at the top of the screen)?

It still sounds like you might have damaged the output stage of the transmitter but not to the point where it has stopped working entirely -- can you beg/borrow/steal a second RC unit, link it up, and see if that makes a difference?

Andy.
 
If I understand you correctly, you are receiving video from the I1, and you can transmit command and control signals to the I1, for example, you can control the camera tilt (but you're not getting the signal strength bars at the top of the screen)?

It still sounds like you might have damaged the output stage of the transmitter but not to the point where it has stopped working entirely -- can you beg/borrow/steal a second RC unit, link it up, and see if that makes a difference?

Andy.
My other remote works perfectly and I'm even able to use dual opperator mode but only with the faulty one being the master. If the faulty one could be the slave I'd just the screw it and use it how it is. I just wouldn't feel comfortable flying more than a 10-20 ft away using a controller that gives me no telemetry or signal indicators.

I'm thinking that maybe it could be a firmware issue of some kind. Like maybe when I got my new remote and after I did the firmware update, maybe I accidently connected the sd card to my original controller (the faulty one) with the upgrade file still on the sd card and somehow damaged the software with my glorious noobery.

I've been reading some older threads about dead or simi dead controllers being fixed with the help of a file called gs_ofdm.bin. The few links I can find to download this file no longer are active, so if anyone has that file or knows where to get it please feel free to holler at ones boyee.

Oh yes, totally off topic yet quick though... The signal boosters on the antenna upgrade package that I have booster the I beleive 2.5 watts each. I've seen them online for I think around $80-100 dollars each. I also have seen similar boosters on sale on ebay which appear similar in size have the same ports at the ones I currently own but they claim to boost the signal to 5 watts each and are about half the price. Does anyone have any experience with these? It would seem to be a too good to be true situation considering I've gotten just a hair shy of 21,000ft out over a city with a lot of radio interference with full control and video with very little lag under my current setup, so any more than that would be pretty much pointless and just for the purpose of some sort of bragging rights.
 
[QUOTE
It still sounds like you might have damaged the output stage of the transmitter but not to the point where it has stopped working entirely
Andy.[/QUOTE]


If you had the transmitter turned on during the time you had the internal wires disconnected from the transmitter main board, or after reassembly, but before you reconnected the SMA wires between the transmitter and the new antenna, you may have damaged one of the transmitter outputs. This would explain your transmitters symptoms.
 
[QUOTE
It still sounds like you might have damaged the output stage of the transmitter but not to the point where it has stopped working entirely
Andy.


If you had the transmitter turned on during the time you had the internal wires disconnected from the transmitter main board, or after reassembly, but before you reconnected the SMA wires between the transmitter and the new antenna, you may have damaged one of the transmitter outputs. This would explain your transmitters symptoms.[/QUOTE]
Exactly how easily does that output get damaged? If I for example had the antennas hooked up properly and powered on the controller but had forgot to turn on the boosters, what that do the same thing? I actually had been wondering the whole time about the boosters if controller operates as if it has no boosters if they are hooked up but powered off or if it wont operate properly at all. Or now if it will not only fail to work but also destroy the output.

Also, it seems strange to me that a damaged output would cause the symptoms that I'm having. I have control, I have video, I just don't have any telemetry or signal bars. Are people not able to see my attached photo at the top? I'm not a big forum poster so I don't know. I'm starting to think it might be software related and I/m trying to find a copy of the file gs_ofdm.bin to download but am having trouble.
 

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