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Bluetooth Trackers


Ashley Hunt
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Has anyone tried using a Bluetooth tracker in a model ? I recently lost a model in an area of gorse and bracken and in theory a tracker would have given me a much better chance of finding it. The Tile Mate has an advertised range of 200ft and weighs 6 grams and it’s slightly bigger brother the Tile Pro 400ft and 12grams. On the face of it either of these would be suitable for fitting in a model but has anyone tried it ?

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Whilst not in a model, a club mate has one on his whippet dog's collar who, as you may well imagine, can run away very quickly into the woods etc.

By all accounts, seems to work extremely well at tracking him, (the dog!), down and showing the dogs track visually on the phone display. Will try and ascertain which device he uses and how long its batteries last, range, cost etc.

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No reason it wouldn’t work, but many of us now use telemetry RXs with signal strength built in so these kind of devices are becoming less necessary. The main advantage of telemetry is it uses the main power supply so should always be operating when you need it, whereas a separate device needs to have its battery checked regularly - Sod’s law says the one time you need it the pack will have gone flat…

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I have experimented with a Tile token, they have the advantage of being self powered by its own battery.  Effective range is 30 -50 m at most depending on terrain.  You could boost a search area if other people have the tile app loaded as they will detect and notify on lost tiles.   It has a value but my opinion is they are of limited value at £12 a go.  I have had notifications from other Tile users when driving through a local town, it triggered an alert when detected by another tile user showing me the location, I had forgotten to turn of the ‘lost’ on the app after experiments!!!  So they do work.

 

I find more effective are the lost model beepers, a couple of quid a go, you will probably hear it at a 100m, but they do rely on the model battery, if that comes detached in the crash you loose the beep.

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16 hours ago, Outrunner said:

But if you lost your model as a result of loosing main battery power, no telemetry........

 

If you lost your model to that then a) you didn’t prepare and pre-flight it properly, and b) its pretty unlikely given any system with signal strength telemetry will also have battery RX supply voltage telemetry too. I have that in all my models with alarms setup accordingly; combined with the proper checks at the time of charging my packs pack failures kind are a thing of the past, haven’t had one for >20 years….

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We are talking about finding lost models, so the model was obviously not under control when it "landed" and became lost. The chances of the battery becoming disconnected on impact are very high under these circumstances. No amount of preparation or pre-flight checking could prevent this. No amount of stick wiggling to hear the servos moving would help find the model either. This is where the lost model finders with built in battery really come into their own.

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I lost a quad in a very large, tussocky field earlier in the year.  I was getting no radio signal & no video so the LiPo had clearly disconnected itself.  fortunately it had a GPS on it & I was logging the telemetry to my Taranis.  I took the last logged position & put it in my phone & walked to the location where I found ... a broken battery strap ... and 5 yards on a LiPo ... & then another 5 yards on ... the quad.  ?

 

I have the battery-backed buzzers on all my quads now too

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Ashley,

My club mate has a 'Tractive' GPS tracker for use with tracking his wayward whippet dog.

See link for details:

https://tractive.com/en/

He gets 3 days 1 hour dog-walks out of the unit attached to the dog. It does require a subscription though.

Also of note:

You can set up a virtual ringed zone e.g. your flying field (or home garden in case of a pet!). If the plane/pet goes outside that area you receive an alert.

Feedback on your phone is slightly delayed, (appox.2-3secs). 

 

Like others have mentioned, in most out of sight/off flying field unscheduled arrivals, the flight pack is often ejected and disconnects with the Rx and power is lost.

Using miniature 'Lost Model Alarms' which come with their own mini LiPo, (this is charged when plugged into a spare Rx socket), is a cheap and very worthwhile investment I always use.

Example:

ViFly Finder V2

https://www.unmannedtechshop.co.uk/product/vifly-finder-v2-lost-model-buzzer-alarm/

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We’ve had quite a few suggestions now on possible solutions to the lost model problem and yes I agree totally with the view that anything powered by the receiver battery is probably not going to be of any use because of the potential for the battery to become separated from the model on impact.

The Tile Pro Bluetooth Tracker has its own user changeable battery, battery lasts about a year, has a Bluetooth range of 400ft, has a 128 decibel sounder, weighs 12 grams and is 42mm x 42mm x 6.5mm. If you check around they cost about £20. 

To be honest I reckon it sounds as good as any other suggestion and therefore worth a try. 

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