Video recording energy consumption?

[afarkas]

I saw some videos people posted about how they lost their Mavic on RTH due to empty battery... Often the craft fails only some few dozen meters from home...
It came to my mind - would be stopping the video recording maybe the saver for that extra 3% of battery needed to reach home in situations like this?
How much energy the video recordings uses?
Any ideas?

 

[Point Zero]

I think that would only save battery power on your RC and connected device. The AC would still be transmitting the video signal regardless. That's just my best guess at it. Its a good idea though.

 

[afarkas]

I think that would only save battery power on your RC and connected device. The AC would still be transmitting the video signal regardless. That's just my best guess at it. Its a good idea though.

well... no, no... the video recording (im talking about RECORDING which means processing the image twice (first to send it in low quality to RC and second to save it in HQ on the drones SD card) is done on the drone and the drones battery is used...)
The question is how significatnt thi consumption (to process the image a second time and save it on SD card) is ...

 

[kilomikebravo]

afarkas: Frankly, I'll leave the level of electricity consumption to the experts but basic electrical knowledge would seem to indicate that all of the processing in the aircraft uses far less current than the motors and in all likelihood, would not extend range significantly.

 

[tcope]

As mentioned above, the motors would probably account for 99.99% of battery use.

 

[afarkas]

And the radio broadcast... It is a strong radio, must use some juice.

And what about slowly descending on return?
Could that extend the range of those desperate 3%?
(you know, often the wind is less strong at ground level and i suggest that at descending the motors has less rpm, so they must consume less juice)

 

[Kilrah]

Additional use for recording is negligible. The whole system and encoders run at all times, recording just either dumps the result to storage or not.
Going to a height with less wind is good of course.

 

[kilomikebravo]

afarkas: Descending would certainly save some current. However, the wind is a much larger factor and headwinds can be disastrous. That said, I understand your goal but, I would never "tease the animals" just to get three percent.

 

[afarkas]

Well, me neither... I talk about cases where people did lost they drone very close to Home on RTH (many videos out there)...
Im trying to see what they could probably do for the bird to make it...

afarkas: Descending would certainly save some current. However, the wind is a much larger factor and headwinds can be disastrous. That said, I understand your goal but, I would never "tease the animals" just to get three percent.

 

[BigAl07]

I can tell you from first hand experience that video broadcast and recording to the SD take very little power in the big picture.

For Public Safety we have flown a drone into a HOT (not heat hot but action hot) area and landed it with the camera on the subject. This gives us a LIVE video feed back to our Comms trailer. We have done this for over 2 hours (short flight on a full battery) and flew back to the Comms trailer with ~15% battery left. Our only concern was heating of the internal components. Even though there is some form of cooling fan inside I think the aircraft and camera are designed with aircraft movement being the primary cooling factor. When we landed the aircraft underside was VERY hot to the touch but everything worked fine and our task was a HUGE success.

 

[FoxhallGH]

And the radio broadcast... It is a strong radio, must use some juice.

And what about slowly descending on return?
Could that extend the range of those desperate 3%?
(you know, often the wind is less strong at ground level and i suggest that at descending the motors has less rpm, so they must consume less juice)

This is something that deserves a lot of thought, because what we often hear about on this forum, is Pilots who have had drones struggling to get back from down-wind, due to high wind-speeds, and they have selected Return to Home and lost the drone ... Simply because it ascends to RTH configured height, where the winds are typically higher, and then despite being pointed in the right direction, gets blown further away!
A slow descent into landing is a common aircraft strategy when fuel levels are critical. It does extend range a lot ... However, in the case of your Mavic, and unless you have a good tail-wind to get you home - you are probably better off getting down as low as you can, as soon as you can, because that's the best way to reduce the effect of the wind.

 

[Elude]

What is the most efficient speed to fly the drone at ?

Example: this topic, battery is low, what would be optimal speed for efficiency to return home? Full speed? 20 mph ? 10 mph?

 

[lolo780]

What is the most efficient speed to fly the drone at ?

Example: this topic, battery is low, what would be optimal speed for efficiency to return home? Full speed? 20 mph ? 10 mph?

Around 30mph air speed and this doesn't really change with battery level