Flywoo Explorer LR Got Issues to Work Out - GPS Interferences and VTX Failures 

Love your channel ! You cover everything that's of concern. Stay safe! Thanks for showing this video as I heard all kinds of issues. i will build one myself. They do sell a copper tape and it does help! You need a plastic canopy to house the GPS up higher than the other electronics. Then copper tape under the GPS unit. It does work. Or you can use an old lollypop type housing from an old antenna to get the GPS unit up high with copper tape on the bottom.

Ended up with this recommended again. I ended up shielding wires. help a decent amount then switched to GPS v2 and it works great now.

Tarsier is a crappy camera. Put it on an rf analizer and you will see that is broadcasting a lot of noise covering the gps spectrum. The solution is the following: Mount the board on plastic spacers, so no ground will come from the board to the frame. Then, remove the radiator from the board and also the wifi antenna. It will not burn. They both act as an antenna amplifier, but in our case of rf noise. After than you will get the link, just give him some time to make first connection.

Hi! This video is very helpful! Liked & subbed the channel. I just got my analog BNF LF Explorer with Goku HM850 VTX. It worked well inside my house, but after the 1st flight and after some snow (very little snow) got into the elctronics, the VTX emitted magic smoke. After drying the drone up and replugging a battery there was more smoke. The VTX is fried, some components even repositioned themselves on the board. I reached out to support, we'll see what they say. I am afraid I will have to replace the VTX anyways...

What an excellent video. i am really enjoying your series on these quads.....

I have the analog version, swapped the camera out with a runcam split3 nano, mine has the panda rc vtx as well, I had wondered why the .json file wasn't working to get vtx data in BF. Thanks for all the after the fact r&d you're doing. Had wondered about your gps data as well, loved your mountain flight videos. Following. 👊🤘

You're having better luck than me. I can't even pick up a signal from the vtx out of the box.

I got mine a week ago now, but with the Goku VTX not a Panda and with the tarsier. The gps rests on the battery - mounted with he strap. Took the stack apart and checked all the soldered equipment, knowing of problems . Everything fine with mine, no mistakes. Before initial flight and start up I isolated the cable coming from the gps with a kaptontape and additional with 3m temflex. At the first powerup it took about 9min to find any satellites - ended with 4 > cause of that I turned down the power of vtx to 25mw. Surprising it got 10 sats within 30sec, I did nothing with the tarsier board (running full power ) Today in the afternoon I did the first flights with VTX on MAX (600mw) and always got at least 10-14 (cloudy sky and highpowercables within 30m and the whole area around me) satts`. I think the first time with initial start it takes so long - finding the satts` it has to save all the infos and data for upcoming use Cause I have seen the problems in your video I decided to change settings in Betaflight with gps rescue to - only failsafe - also arming without minimum / and in the mods added a switch to turn on/off switch for gps rescue. - In the cli check: get gps > check if gps_set_home_point_once is OFF/ON. changed it to ON, cause if i crash out in the field - if set to OFF this will be your RTH, which I don`t want. Change this to ON > so everytime you plug in a battery and you start taking off THIS will be youre homedestination... changed also minimum distance to 50m for activation of automated or switch for RTH > 100m is too far for me

I am new to gps modules on quads- just got got my first one in my new recon 5 hd. I have read somewhere that it is useful to plug into a USB battery pack on your way to fly so the GPS will have a lock by the time you get to the flying site. Then you aren't using any of your lipo voltage to acquire the satellites.

Quick question I see that you added soMething to the antena conector to the vtx in the analog version, what is it? And what for?

I maidened my tarsier explorer LR last week and yes, I was getting worried after 10 minutes of not getting any satellites. What I did was turn off the tarsier board by long-pressing the front button, until you see all the LEDs in it go out. I immediately got 8-10 satellites, which remained after turning the board on and recording footage

Any kind of electronics, especially split camera recorders are noisy in gps frequency, and yes, Caddx electronics belong to noisiest but are not alone. The issue is that most of the quads are not gps equipped so most of the manufacturers do not care about noise isolation. The issue is usually not with wireing, the issue is with environment around your gps unit. The simplest way to deal with it is to isolate your gps from the noise. I use hvac aluminum tape , the sticky one ( not duct tape), sandwiched with captan tape to not to cause any shorts. First you cut a piece of aluminum tape, than you cover the not sticky side with captan tape than you cut what you need from it. Cover the underside of your gps housing including sides ( not the top) with your sandwiched tape, make a “firewall” between your electronics and gps on the last standoffs separating above from the same sandwiched tape. You can even fold the edges of the tape in to make sure you will not short anything, before plugging in triple check visually if nothing is shorting, use smoke stopper when you plug in battery for a first time. Finally, plug the full battery, arm, switch to air mode before arming( motors run slower but fast enough to cool everything), switch your vex to pit or 25 power( minimum heat), and let it seat for whatever battery handles. Gps will cash the satellites in your location. Next time you plug in you will have all the seats you need after a minute or two depending on off time. Trust me, last time I did all of that was today, and I did learn all of that from tearing down a Walkera drone I think 6 years ago. Drone was crappy, the noise insulation was perfect. And it really does not matter much if your insulation is copper foil or aluminum. Good luck, happy flying.

Interesting. I use this LR4 v2's f745 nano flight controller with my 250 sized helicopter because f745 has a S5 signal for the tail motor. I see many videos talking about GPS problem, but my GPS is mounted up high at the rotor swash plate level on top of my cyclic servos. My GPS always locks in a few seconds. Spacing is my advantage.

I just grabbed a bn180, swapped the positive and negative. Changed BF to Ublox, and baudrate to 57600, gps works perfectly fine now. No other changes to the wiring, gps lock within 30-45sec on a cold start. Those GPS with SR03 on the chip are horrible, I've tried a TBS gps because it had the same wiring. It didnt work well either. Also had SR03 on the chip. Any of the bn180 with the 18-a bt on the chip work perfectly. I believe the others are not tuned. My original flywoo gps had no tuning marks on it at all, and wouldnt even work good out of the quad, on the porch, with nothing around. Using u-center, the flywoo gps wouldnt get a fix. It would see maybe one o two, then loose them. I plug in a bn180, 3d lock within 1min. Its not 100% a issue with interference. I have no problem getting a lock on the analog within 45 seconds.

i have a tarsier on a 2 inch and installed TBS Gps when I removed the camera reception came quick, after plugging back the tarsier nothing no lock... Just got my analog Explorer and love it. any update on the tarsier / gps issue?

Also ran out of R9mm apparently.. been waiting 2 months. Told me Sept 20th waiting on R9mm.. I said I'd wait cause they said a few days but now been almost another month

I have the caddx HD version my gps was slow to pick up satellites so I switched it out with a beitian bn-220 using ublox much better now

Hehehehe....some things are forever :) Remember Blade 350? the were even shipping it with foil so you can wrap your GoPro and minimize interference...ah, these were the days....

haven't even set mine up with gps, living in Florida everything is pretty flat...and not very interesting. But I trust my rushfpv mini tank and my crossfire as far as I need to go and explore some of the springs and intercoastal beaches and forests. I have the Tarsier version of the explorer to just kind of cruise around when I need a break from my freestyle monsters. And it's pretty sweet for some flowy freestyle cruising around trees. I don't know how much I trust the gps with the interference from the Tarsier, so I limit myself to approx. A mile or so

Will 5he Runcam Hybrid fit???

Hey M2k, what's going on my friend? I just purchased the Flywoo Explorer LR Anolog, and I would like to know what receivers are you using in these models? I want to use something other than the crossfire...Thank you so much in advance and keep these builds, replacements and repair videos coming. Great content with easy and to the point info! 🖐️😎👍🌍

I just received my flywoo explorer lr and my vtx was replaced. Also I’ve heard that the wiring is incorrect. Planning on replacing with original Vtx. Maybe you could do a tutorial.

Very nice videos. I am waiting for mine but because of backorders it is taking months already.

Great video, thankfully at the last moment i changed my order and i got the explorer analog not tarisier, based on your findings it was the right call, quick question which vtx will you recommend to replace the panda one? My explorer came with that one as well Thank you Greetings from colombia

Flywoo released a v2 that claims upgraded GPS and VTX units. The analog variant also only includes a Caddx Baby Ratel when direct from Flywoo, you can't get it with a split camera stock. Are these worth considering or should I stay very far away unless I really don't like money? I'm seeing comments that claim these may be miswired and blow up on first power if you don't go over them carefully. I don't have a DJI goggles and cannot afford one, so am only interested in the analog variant.

My GPS rescue does not highlight in BF on the modes page when I hit the assigned button, is it suppose to?

I heard about those issues and i think if i'll get the Explorer ill try the "Turning off Tarsier until it finds Sattelites" method and see how it goes. Does it still fly well with a Gopro attached or is that too much weight ?

If everything works well for me out of the box, do you recommend changing the vtx power supply?

@M2K FPV I'm waiting on my analogue version still but now you've put me in 2 minds of whether to cancel it and order the chimera4 or the croc baby instead???

I’m a bit lost on this. You’re talking about shielding, but using kapton tape? Kapton is an electrical isolator and doesn’t do anything in terms of EMI shielding, you’d need to use something like tinfoil or copper tape for that. Please elaborate. I’m also curious about the results.

Can't remember who. But someone told me to shield the gopro cause it interferes with gps

My alternate vtx also died. It seems they were wired wrong from the factory. My research suggests the 5V pad should only be 5V out, but was wired as 5V in from the factory. This should be the cause of the panda Rc problems. I put in a rush tiny tank and it works well. I have similar slow gps locks, but have seen the gps search with only USB power, so I may leave it plugged into usb for a while before a flight.

It seems the DJI goggles show 14 satellites at start up as you say. If I disconnect the goggles battery and reconnect them the actual satellite count is correct.

I finally got my analog version back from Flywoo. They said there was bad soldering on one of the boards. To my surprise they installed the newer v2 vtx so it has 600 mw now. I flew it los and it flies fine. The issue I'm having now is I don't have telemetry on my osd. It's ruining the 4.1.1 betaflight w soft serial. I've tried researching getting the rssi to show up and learned that I don't have to use an aux channel newer than 4.1 but I tried it anyway n got the osd but no video. Frustrating. I get the video workout but again no osd. I'm back to square one w no telemetry on my osd.

I have the same problem with TARSIER I have back GPS, it is vtx problem?

Tarsier emitting 433mhz noise, which is what GPS recievers use...It's a well known issue....Put your GPS up on a stalk to move it away from the camera..or even extend its holder.

Same BS thing happens to my Chimera4 HD. Says 14 satellites with no lock.

Dave C teamed up with the wrong company. Flywoo is all about the dollar, not customer service. Build your own, your way!! They are sending out Explorers wired wrong too with poor soldering jobs and the RX just floating inside unattached.

flywoo has done a sloppy job and can't deliver they will loose because the competition has already moved in. I had planned to get a explorer but changed my mind and wait