OMG Josua I figured this out 6months ago and actually messaged you asking about it. I messaged you back when I figured it out! Telemetry!!! I messaged you on Facebook messenger! Lol I remember I started it, "Hey JB, long time listener, first time caller". I had no idea the video wire was acting as an antenna though! Thats such an awesome find!
Always twist your wires. This was common practice for everyone in the early days of fpv and was one of the first things suggested when someone had a problem. I guess some people never learned why haha.
Agreed 1000000% I've been twisting fpv wires since 2015 and twisting speaker wire and other wire hookups since the 90's lol. Solves issues before that start in some cases. 👍
Welcome to EMC coupling and it's behaviours :) Twisting a wire is actually the strongest weapon against EM interference and it has nothing to do with twisting it around a ground wire at all. Twisted wires actively compensate for the EM-current induced in the wire since those current directions change with the twist and eliminate themselves out. This effect is by tons stronger than a correctly shielded wire, that means the shield is connected to ground on only 1 side. All other shield options like both sides connected or no side connected actually make EM-Interference worse than no shield at all! My company's academy actually does a course on EMC, the 3 different coupling effects and how to get rid of them and measure even the smallest electrical signals correctly. It's ultra fascinating and teaching! Long story short: Twisting those wires in a drone is all we need and therefore also rightfully the best practise. So just keep those wires as short as possible while having them twisted all the way - and you're good. And ignore that "around the GND wire" thing. While this has a tiny effect in theory, in reality it's completely neglegible. It's the twist itself that fixes the EM-Interference issue.
I must admit... this is why I'm here and weirding out since there was no flight video. OBVIOUSLY we're still watching to learn... most of us. Thank you to infinity Joshua Bardwell, loyal and humble servant. HAT'S OFF from Jackson MS, good neighbor.
CVBS video (like we use between cameras and VTXes) is generally 1V peak-to-peak. That's not a whole lot of deviation, so subtle millivolt-level disturbances coupled in by a wire resonant with the telemetry frequency being used create a lot of video mess! Twisting video and ground will help by creating a poor man's coaxial cable, as would choosing a wire length not resonant with the frequency in use. Keep in mind this can occur with 2.4GHz systems too, only the wire length would be shorter.
the Wavelength of crossfire is about 33cm (12inch) so a cable that has this length (span in the air) or to a division/multiplicator of it (eg 16.5cm / 66cm (6.4 / 26 in) will pick it up that's just how waves work ;) in some countries the frequencies are actually labeled by the band .. so instead of 900Mhz they say "33cm band" the higher the frequency, the shorter the wave, but with higher frequencies the interference becomes less likely. electrical engineering101 ;)
I remember having this problem when I still ran CRSF on my kwads - only that stripe was travelling slowly from top to bottom.... Another thing I don't have to worry about after switching to ELRS...
As an Electronic tech as well as an RF tech, I have been telling friends in the hobby that twisting the wires (all signal wires with a ground wire) is the best option in reducing not only video noise but all electronic noise that can affect the performance of the quad. By twisting the wires it acts as a Ferrite Core without adding the weight of a Ferrite Core. The other part in reducing noise is adding a capacitor between the FC and the ESC. Having the capacitor between the battery and the ESC helps but doesn't filter on the other side of the ESC to the FC.
IFlight A65 Christmas edition BNF comes with a crossfire nano recover. Horrible interference out of the box but sweet tiny woop! I now know what to do to fix it! Thanks JB!
I have always twisted my wires. And thought I knew why my reasons for doing it. but ive never heard this. Totally makes sense!! duh... thank you Bardwell, for still showing content new for us old analog piolts!
i tried twisting them and still ran into the same issue soo i decided to lengthen the video wire like you said and it worked like a charm!!!!!! thank you JB you the man!!!!
Did you read my mind... I just ran across this when I swapped out a failed flightone fc to a hobbywing.. coming from flightone I never ran the telemetry wire from the nano rx to the FC so I always had crystal clear video. I was really scratching my head on this one. Looks like I'm gonna have to get in there and give em some good twists🤞. Thanks for everything you do🤙
Papa Bardwell with the save!! Also, thanks to the random tipster. Turning off telemetry immediately cleared up the interference on my flywoo Firefly 1s.. 🙌
had same issue with meteor 65 analog, and thank you i turned of telemetry and only this helped. Other methods you mentioned on whoop did not work. Life saver!
I experienced this same interference using a HDZero Sharkbyte VTX and my CSFR diversity nano RX. It manifested sparkles and pixels in the fpv feed similar to your analog example. Re routing wires and twisting helped as did moving the csfr rx further away from the VTX. But only by turning off telemetry did it totally clear up. The SBYTE does not have a yellow vtx wire like analog. Perhaps the power ground lead leads or the mipi cable lengths are a cause. Thanks for sharing your findings.
As an alternative to twisting you can use thin coax cable with jacket connected to ground (negative usually). Maybe even old frsky wiskars antennas will do (it is just a thin coax).
Great! I had the exact same issue a few days ago with the iFlight Alpha A65 (yes the one with the weak propeller but it seems they fixed that issue) when I added a CRSF Nano RX with Minimortal Antenna. I fixed it though by moving the Minimortal more away from the VTX antenna but your finding (lambda of antenna length) makes far more sense! Note that also the half or quarter of the length of an antenna may have a higher gain for specific frequencies (lambda/2 and lambda/4).
Thank you! I past through Tennessee last week going through Driving to Ohio, and was like man I could be flying with the famous JB !!!! Lol I have 3 of your runcam cameras on my drones.
I am going to try this. Thank you... I recently switched my Geparc TinyGo to Crossfire and have noticed some video noise as well. Thank you again, Mr. Bardwell.
This is a very good tip, video is now clear a crisp! Who needs digital now? I'm pretty sure that I seen your build videos where you twist wires to keep everything tidy. I have picked up on that habit. Thx JB and to the anonymous tipper!
I got this problem plenty of times! I was thinking that it was the crossfire rx touching the FC. Just changing the rx to a different position, most of the times, fixed the video. My definitive fix was adding more capacitor, a second cap if needed, and that always has fixed the issue.
Resonance can be a pain in the *** when working with radio gear. I deal with this with my ham radios. If the speaker wire on my home entertainment system is at the "wrong length", my speakers will act as receivers.. even without power.
Data cables having an Wire Mech under the skin. I dont know if you seen this. The wire Mech Protects the Wire from interferences around the cable. This Wire mech is boundet with ground and the Metallic shell of the Connectors. When you twist the Ground wire around the Signal wire, it will generate this kind of protective mech. In LAN Cables there the Signal cables also Twisted with the Ground wire. (4Signal Wires are pared with its own ground wire) this Twisted wire pairs are twisted never paralel and differend number of round's/ turns to prowide some Noise. The Twisted ground wire Brakes the Antenna length of Video wire and generate an protective shield.
This is driven me nuts with two of my drones so I can't wait to try this it looked beautiful on the 69 until I armed and then everything turned to crap so I can't wait to clean that up.
I always turned off telemetry on my smaller quads to avoid the lines in my video, but didn't think about twisting the video wires! so easy! will also try using small coax cable from receiver antennas to connect the camera and VTX to FC to get the video line fully protected!
I was getting this all the time back on analog using TBS tracer, and it would cut in and out when I would do something like a flip... tried everything related to power but never thought it would be this. Thanks for the explenation!
This makes a lot of sense to me! I have had this recently on my s800 reptile wing and now you've said this im gunna look to see what length my video wires are 🤗👌
Joshua, RF getting into other electronic equipment is a problem in the ham radio hobby. As you found, when a wire is at, or near, the resonant wavelength of a nearby transmitted signal then that wire resonates at the encroaching signals freq. Wallah...interference. May I suggest a final approach to solving RF getting into the video signal? The use of either a torroid, or a clip-on ferrite choke, almost always alleviates RF on a wire. Assortments of clip-on ferrites are available on Amazon for ~$10. Pass the wires through the choke as many times as possible. That should squelch any RF getting on to the wiring.
I hate it when inconspicuous problems like that sho up and have you stumped for days, even months. And you reach out only to find out that most have never had the issue before (those are always the first to respond) or tell you to buy something else. Leaving you to head scatch an figure it out, most of the time by accident by fixing something else unrelated. Now you don't know what solved it only because it was not part of your plan of action. Good Job JB, put one in the win column
LOL! I spent all that time trying to fix the interference on this one model and I never even came close to considering the legth of the video wire and antenna. So many little things to keep in mind.
You know I never even thought about this but have the same exact issue on my of my quads. Now I got something to try when I finally get back to fpv. 👍🙂🙃🙂
As frequencies go higher, people will need to start using coaxial cables. Twisting ground and signal cable around themselves basically makes them coaxial and rejects common mode interference. You are basically making UTP (unshielded twisted pair) ethernet cable. One could theoretically take a piece of cat5 UTP (which can be used for freqs. up to 100MHz) laying around, cut it, use solid colors for ground and use white/color wires as signal, and you got yourself 4 free signal wires in a kind of UTP bus :).
I've used a micro coax for the video and ground to help with noise. I forget now what size number I have now, but its about as thin as the coax they use for receiver antennas for R-XSR receivers. I picked up this tip from Pawel Spychalski. EDIT: I'll try to find his video and post the link. Here it is: th-cam.com/video/vuVYJ5uqtYQ/w-d-xo.html
@Joshua Bardwell, are you an amateur radio guy too? A "ham"? This is the kind of stuff that having to study a little bit of technician class materials covers nicely. Shielding, baluns, twisting, grounding, etc. Great lesson for everyone experiencing interference issues throughout their quads.
Wire lengh matters :) To fine tune an antenna you shell cut small pieces off the feeder wire until you get the best link. All the wires and even PCB tracks should be checked if their length is not multiple of the transmitter wavelength. It's good that 5.8 wavelength is a half of 2.4 wavelength so if you cut a wire to not interfere 5.8 it will not interfere 2.4 Also to get the best vtx performance it's feeder from the pcb to the antenna connector has to be multiple of 5.8 wavelength long. Maybe it's an idea for your next video :)
This has been driving me crazy on my 6" for the last 6 months. It started happening around the time I switched my Foxeer Predator Cam to a T-Rex, so I thought that was the issue, but it was annoying me so much! I'll now try to twist or shorten the wires and that'll hopefully fix it. Thank you!!
I had the same when video wire was going close to ESC. Analog video wire from camera to FC and from FC to VTX are the most sensitive to EM interference. Next build I would use wire with screening. Changing length will make worst match with CF frequency, but it will still work as antenna, but not matched antenna. Analog path must be as short as possible and you might use wire with screen. Remember to connect screen to GND pad only at one end.
@@kdeclinetostatendeclinetos6707 I have a 4 strand, braided metal shielded wire that wraps around it then insulated. But I don't get what you mean by connecting it up going on one end? What do I connect to ground on one end?
@@kdeclinetostatendeclinetos6707 I think the shielded wire that I'm thinking of may not be the same kind that you are. I don't think you can reply with a link but maybe u can try so I can see what kind of shielded wire you're referring to. Thanks for your help. Right now in the middle of a build so this is timed great
also to add, with my toothpicks, when I get these lines, I find running a ground wire to the lens shell also fixed this problem, to note I run 41mm that was cut from the 2.4G with an ipex, the way i ran it was to strip the wire and rap this around the screw on the side of the camera, take the hoop off, put solder on the hoop, put the screw back in this hoop and the other side of the wire, just solder to a ground pad of the FC, also to add make sure that your screw is electrically conductive or the shell will not be grounded, hope this helps someone
Twisting wires solved problem because of something called ground loop. Basicly current that goes in need a path back. In video you had video wire far from gnd wire. Those Both wires make an anthenna (strictly speaking noise get in through "inside" of that loop made by two wires)
I found this could also interfere with DJI video bitrates in extreme cases, especially when using 500mW+ crossfire, get at least 4 inches of separation between your vtx antenna (the elements themselves, not the wires) and crossfire immortal tee as well when you are using telemetry.
I have the had this problem. But the thing is the interference from the crossfire TX to the goggles happens even when the quad is unplugged. I can see the interference from the crossfire even in the static of the goggles. How is this possible when the frequencies are completely different. And the most surprising thing is it started all of a sudden. If I move the crsf tx away from the goggles the interference goes away. And now I have problems while flying the quad as I can't put the tx on a neck strap as I have to keep it all the way down below my waist to maintain distance from the goggles on the my head to avoid the interference.
For anyone coming to this video and wire twisting or making wires longer/shorter don't seem to work, try physically moving the crossfire RX as far away from the camera itself as possible. Just did a compact build (AIO, then Sixty9, then camera mounted on top on a lightweight BetaFPV X-Knight frame) and could not figure out why the horizontal lines were present, no matter how much twisting or shortening of my wires I did. Looks like the RX itself causes issues with some cameras if it's too close.
Josh thanks for this. I’ve been struggling with this Issue on a 2S Babytooth build obviously all the electronics are very close together. I noticed it got worse when I armed I thought maybe it was a bad VTX or noise 5v on the pad and I needed to run an external 5v regulator from the battery pads. I’m using a TrueRC RHCP antenna so no chance of shortening it, but maybe I can try modifying a whip antenna.
I picked up a tip a couple years ago from Pawel Spychalski to use micro coax, the kind used for making R-XSR antennnas to use as a shielded cable for the VTX. It definitely works. I've got like 40 feet of it, it will last me a life time. Twisting does definitely help, but a coax works way better. EDIT: It is 1.13mm 50ohm coax. His video is here. Stripping it properly is a pain, but its worth the hassle. And here is Pawel's video on it: th-cam.com/video/vuVYJ5uqtYQ/w-d-xo.html
@@housinit if you use this always try and ground the shielding to the opposite side of the signal path ie ground the noise to the FC end of the video wire and just the positive to the camera
@@mikej8940 Ah-ha! Thank you! I had wondered about that, but never did that, thinking that I HAD to ground both sides. Makes a lot of sense now. I just started making my own antenna's for SDR dongles and was confused at first about how to ground coax properly and when and where to ground it. Still confuses me a bit, but its all starting to make more sense to me.
It sounds like you probably have to also consider the length To make sure that it is not the same as a mini immortal tea as well as logic would happen to suggest that would also cause interference
This kinda happened to me on my first build (tyro 79) except it was with flysky and the interference was much more severe. Mostly fixed when I twisted better and moved my receiver around.. and fixed even better when I swapped components to a bigger frame
and folks thats why the wires are twisted when you buy any old cam when you twist the wire the exposed wire or humps of the wire are far less than that of a straight wire you can probnably also use a micro collet magnetic one
resonating frequency lengths, if shielded with ground will not happen, you can fold wire to give it a shorten resonance , rf choke it. Don't loop wires, that will cause inductance .
RF chokes ARE inductors! They only pass low frequency! Even twist are inductors! The thing to do is put in a 75 ohm shielded wire with ground on the shield. The cameras output is a 75 ohm shielded wire. You can get shielded wire down to 20 gauge with both shield and the wire!
I had the same issue.. Did not knew that it could have to do with the length if the cable. What I did and what I'm doing from that on.. Im twisting the ground cable around the videocable. Never had that issue again. Saw that on fpv24..
The first thing is to disable the RX telemetry. The thing that receives signal also gives out signal. Sounds like the speaker-mic feedback high pitch loud sound, doesn't it?
I just got a Johnny FPV 6S, which I love and I have the nazgul v5 4S. what do you recommend I should get as a 3rd drone that’s durable, handling and good for freestyle??? Please let me know
Ha! Would have saved me several hours about a week ago. Had this issue with R9, Dom V2's, and original Jumper T16... I'm old and sub-optimal so I like my gear to be the same.
Yo! This is a keeper video! I will be saving this in a soon to be public playlist. PS. @ Joshua Bardwell regarding your previous blunty live stream, we could look back in the comments from last month, but I am pretty sure I said "who is winning races and what are they flying? It's Tracer."; and not "most racers fly tracer."; that's a bad paraphrase. With all that said, I love love my Tracer, but I've also purchased CF, not ELRS. With my current TBS products, as a consumer, I can email with issues and get immediate replies, free replacements with full eval, or free fixes (paying in only shipping cost and time), but I will not get this with ELRS. Tracer for the racer, freestyler, professional. CF for the going the extra mile. It's not competition if you cannot provide the same level of service that company xyz provides; it's just another aaabc, wrapped in various brandings, and then you're on your own. If you're going to promo ERLS why not also promo... we'll... I'll email the news on that and few more topics. Seriously, this release was top notch, repeatable, and covers other frequencies (intrinsically). Thinking about coming down to Dollywood... again, I'll be in touch. #slowvoltage
I do alot of my adjustments and tuning in my Livingroom and it knocks off my TV when I have it plugged into my Computer and power up the Tx and pwr up the quad with a battery
OMG Josua I figured this out 6months ago and actually messaged you asking about it. I messaged you back when I figured it out! Telemetry!!! I messaged you on Facebook messenger! Lol I remember I started it, "Hey JB, long time listener, first time caller". I had no idea the video wire was acting as an antenna though! Thats such an awesome find!
YOU'RE THE GUY!!!! THANK YOU MATTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!
@@JoshuaBardwell You've helped me countless times, I feel lucky I was able to be helpful to you for once! Thank you Joshua!
This comment deserves to be pinned out.
@@MCsCreations Agreed! And stay with your family, MC's Creations!!
@@npcfpv9542 You as well, my friend! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Always twist your wires. This was common practice for everyone in the early days of fpv and was one of the first things suggested when someone had a problem. I guess some people never learned why haha.
^^^ THIS
Agreed 1000000% I've been twisting fpv wires since 2015 and twisting speaker wire and other wire hookups since the 90's lol. Solves issues before that start in some cases. 👍
Also twisting them to simply get them out the way makes them a tad tougher for something to catch on them and rip them out.
Every video Bardwell says "You are going to learn something today". He has over 2000 videos and not once has been wrong about that 👏
wanna bet :D telemetry interference has been a common issue with crossfire and has been known for years :D
Welcome to EMC coupling and it's behaviours :) Twisting a wire is actually the strongest weapon against EM interference and it has nothing to do with twisting it around a ground wire at all. Twisted wires actively compensate for the EM-current induced in the wire since those current directions change with the twist and eliminate themselves out. This effect is by tons stronger than a correctly shielded wire, that means the shield is connected to ground on only 1 side. All other shield options like both sides connected or no side connected actually make EM-Interference worse than no shield at all!
My company's academy actually does a course on EMC, the 3 different coupling effects and how to get rid of them and measure even the smallest electrical signals correctly. It's ultra fascinating and teaching!
Long story short: Twisting those wires in a drone is all we need and therefore also rightfully the best practise. So just keep those wires as short as possible while having them twisted all the way - and you're good. And ignore that "around the GND wire" thing. While this has a tiny effect in theory, in reality it's completely neglegible. It's the twist itself that fixes the EM-Interference issue.
This^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Learned this back in my electricity and electronics classes in school 20 years ago. Always twist em up!
I must admit... this is why I'm here and weirding out since there was no flight video.
OBVIOUSLY we're still watching to learn... most of us.
Thank you to infinity Joshua Bardwell, loyal and humble servant.
HAT'S OFF from Jackson MS, good neighbor.
CVBS video (like we use between cameras and VTXes) is generally 1V peak-to-peak.
That's not a whole lot of deviation, so subtle millivolt-level disturbances coupled in by a wire resonant with the telemetry frequency being used create a lot of video mess!
Twisting video and ground will help by creating a poor man's coaxial cable, as would choosing a wire length not resonant with the frequency in use. Keep in mind this can occur with 2.4GHz systems too, only the wire length would be shorter.
And avoid cable length at the harmonic frequencies.
the Wavelength of crossfire is about 33cm (12inch) so a cable that has this length (span in the air) or to a division/multiplicator of it (eg 16.5cm / 66cm (6.4 / 26 in) will pick it up
that's just how waves work ;) in some countries the frequencies are actually labeled by the band .. so instead of 900Mhz they say "33cm band"
the higher the frequency, the shorter the wave, but with higher frequencies the interference becomes less likely. electrical engineering101 ;)
JB I can’t say enough how happy I am that you made a video about this. Thank you so much
Twisted pairs reject common-mode interference (consider network cables). Filtering power to the camera and VTX can also help in some circumstances.
I remember having this problem when I still ran CRSF on my kwads - only that stripe was travelling slowly from top to bottom.... Another thing I don't have to worry about after switching to ELRS...
I started using RFI shielded wire for the last few years and have had great success.
Twisting wires and moving the receiver itself has helped me.
This deserves a medal for next level troubleshooting. Just when I though I'd graduated the master teaches me again!
As an Electronic tech as well as an RF tech, I have been telling friends in the hobby that twisting the wires (all signal wires with a ground wire) is the best option in reducing not only video noise but all electronic noise that can affect the performance of the quad. By twisting the wires it acts as a Ferrite Core without adding the weight of a Ferrite Core. The other part in reducing noise is adding a capacitor between the FC and the ESC. Having the capacitor between the battery and the ESC helps but doesn't filter on the other side of the ESC to the FC.
IFlight A65 Christmas edition BNF comes with a crossfire nano recover. Horrible interference out of the box but sweet tiny woop! I now know what to do to fix it! Thanks JB!
I have always twisted my wires. And thought I knew why my reasons for doing it. but ive never heard this. Totally makes sense!! duh... thank you Bardwell, for still showing content new for us old analog piolts!
i tried twisting them and still ran into the same issue soo i decided to lengthen the video wire like you said and it worked like a charm!!!!!! thank you JB you the man!!!!
Did you read my mind... I just ran across this when I swapped out a failed flightone fc to a hobbywing.. coming from flightone I never ran the telemetry wire from the nano rx to the FC so I always had crystal clear video. I was really scratching my head on this one. Looks like I'm gonna have to get in there and give em some good twists🤞. Thanks for everything you do🤙
Papa Bardwell with the save!! Also, thanks to the random tipster. Turning off telemetry immediately cleared up the interference on my flywoo Firefly 1s.. 🙌
Same quad, same problem, about to go see if I have the same solution!!
Thanks JB.
had same issue with meteor 65 analog, and thank you i turned of telemetry and only this helped. Other methods you mentioned on whoop did not work. Life saver!
I experienced this same interference using a HDZero Sharkbyte VTX and my CSFR diversity nano RX. It manifested sparkles and pixels in the fpv feed similar to your analog example. Re routing wires and twisting helped as did moving the csfr rx further away from the VTX. But only by turning off telemetry did it totally clear up. The SBYTE does not have a yellow vtx wire like analog. Perhaps the power ground lead leads or the mipi cable lengths are a cause. Thanks for sharing your findings.
I have a build of mine get lines on the video feed every time you turn on the motors. This explains so much
As an alternative to twisting you can use thin coax cable with jacket connected to ground (negative usually). Maybe even old frsky wiskars antennas will do (it is just a thin coax).
That's why analogue signal wires are usually shielded or twisted.
I think I might of fixed this problem for myself in the past and didn't know it lol.
Thanks as always sir.👍
Great! I had the exact same issue a few days ago with the iFlight Alpha A65 (yes the one with the weak propeller but it seems they fixed that issue) when I added a CRSF Nano RX with Minimortal Antenna. I fixed it though by moving the Minimortal more away from the VTX antenna but your finding (lambda of antenna length) makes far more sense! Note that also the half or quarter of the length of an antenna may have a higher gain for specific frequencies (lambda/2 and lambda/4).
Thank you! I past through Tennessee last week going through Driving to Ohio, and was like man I could be flying with the famous JB !!!! Lol I have 3 of your runcam cameras on my drones.
I have 2-3 quads with this issue and I had all but given up... THANKS!!!!! Now to go see if this is my issue...
I am going to try this. Thank you... I recently switched my Geparc TinyGo to Crossfire and have noticed some video noise as well. Thank you again, Mr. Bardwell.
Thank You ! Shortened my video wire no lines in Cidora, no lines on Apex Diatone mamba build . !
I have only one Micro that does exactly the same pattern of interference, was about to swap for ELRS. thanks JB!
You should just swap anyways elrs is so much better
This is a very good tip, video is now clear a crisp! Who needs digital now? I'm pretty sure that I seen your build videos where you twist wires to keep everything tidy. I have picked up on that habit. Thx JB and to the anonymous tipper!
I got this problem plenty of times! I was thinking that it was the crossfire rx touching the FC. Just changing the rx to a different position, most of the times, fixed the video. My definitive fix was adding more capacitor, a second cap if needed, and that always has fixed the issue.
I will learn something today
i have that issue on my 3" babytooth! its running crsfr with the mini mortal T. ill have to revisit that issue, thanks JB!
Resonance can be a pain in the *** when working with radio gear. I deal with this with my ham radios. If the speaker wire on my home entertainment system is at the "wrong length", my speakers will act as receivers.. even without power.
If your trasmitter is powerful enough you can hear a teapot talking in the kitchen. 😆
DONT FORGET..... the same thing applies to the video cable going TO the VTX as well :D
I think that’s where my lines are coming from, I have a glide w/FC in front, esc middle, and vtx back. The FC and VTX are about 900mHz apart 🤔😁
Data cables having an Wire Mech under the skin. I dont know if you seen this.
The wire Mech Protects the Wire from interferences around the cable.
This Wire mech is boundet with ground and the Metallic shell of the Connectors. When you twist the Ground wire around the Signal wire, it will generate this kind of protective mech. In LAN Cables there the Signal cables also Twisted with the Ground wire. (4Signal Wires are pared with its own ground wire) this Twisted wire pairs are twisted never paralel and differend number of round's/ turns to prowide some Noise.
The Twisted ground wire Brakes the Antenna length of Video wire and generate an protective shield.
you can also use aluminum tape wrap the wire and isolate it that way or use wire for vtx as your wire its sheilded
They started doing the twist 96yrs ago at bell telephone laboratories.
This is driven me nuts with two of my drones so I can't wait to try this it looked beautiful on the 69 until I armed and then everything turned to crap so I can't wait to clean that up.
I always turned off telemetry on my smaller quads to avoid the lines in my video, but didn't think about twisting the video wires! so easy! will also try using small coax cable from receiver antennas to connect the camera and VTX to FC to get the video line fully protected!
I was getting this all the time back on analog using TBS tracer, and it would cut in and out when I would do something like a flip... tried everything related to power but never thought it would be this. Thanks for the explenation!
This was driving me F-ing CRAZY on my latest build. Sharkbyte build w/ the 120mm MIPI cable.
Thanks JB!!
This makes a lot of sense to me! I have had this recently on my s800 reptile wing and now you've said this im gunna look to see what length my video wires are 🤗👌
Joshua, RF getting into other electronic equipment is a problem in the ham radio hobby. As you found, when a wire is at, or near, the resonant wavelength of a nearby transmitted signal then that wire resonates at the encroaching signals freq. Wallah...interference. May I suggest a final approach to solving RF getting into the video signal? The use of either a torroid, or a clip-on ferrite choke, almost always alleviates RF on a wire. Assortments of clip-on ferrites are available on Amazon for ~$10. Pass the wires through the choke as many times as possible. That should squelch any RF getting on to the wiring.
I had this random video problems with FrSky and crossfire telemetry for years... Thank you!
I hate it when inconspicuous problems like that sho up and have you stumped for days, even months. And you reach out only to find out that most have never had the issue before (those are always the first to respond) or tell you to buy something else. Leaving you to head scatch an figure it out, most of the time by accident by fixing something else unrelated. Now you don't know what solved it only because it was not part of your plan of action. Good Job JB, put one in the win column
LOL! I spent all that time trying to fix the interference on this one model and I never even came close to considering the legth of the video wire and antenna. So many little things to keep in mind.
Awesome!!! And I was looking for the cause of the interference so much after switching to Minimortal T. Now I love this tiny antenna again.
You know I never even thought about this but have the same exact issue on my of my quads. Now I got something to try when I finally get back to fpv. 👍🙂🙃🙂
As frequencies go higher, people will need to start using coaxial cables. Twisting ground and signal cable around themselves basically makes them coaxial and rejects common mode interference. You are basically making UTP (unshielded twisted pair) ethernet cable. One could theoretically take a piece of cat5 UTP (which can be used for freqs. up to 100MHz) laying around, cut it, use solid colors for ground and use white/color wires as signal, and you got yourself 4 free signal wires in a kind of UTP bus :).
This problem can even cause failsafes if you use minimortals. My 3" quad had the same issue.
I've used a micro coax for the video and ground to help with noise. I forget now what size number I have now, but its about as thin as the coax they use for receiver antennas for R-XSR receivers. I picked up this tip from Pawel Spychalski. EDIT: I'll try to find his video and post the link. Here it is: th-cam.com/video/vuVYJ5uqtYQ/w-d-xo.html
Finally!!!! Lol I’ve been checking for this same issue until I just gave up Thanks bro
@Joshua Bardwell, are you an amateur radio guy too? A "ham"? This is the kind of stuff that having to study a little bit of technician class materials covers nicely. Shielding, baluns, twisting, grounding, etc. Great lesson for everyone experiencing interference issues throughout their quads.
Wire lengh matters :) To fine tune an antenna you shell cut small pieces off the feeder wire until you get the best link. All the wires and even PCB tracks should be checked if their length is not multiple of the transmitter wavelength. It's good that 5.8 wavelength is a half of 2.4 wavelength so if you cut a wire to not interfere 5.8 it will not interfere 2.4
Also to get the best vtx performance it's feeder from the pcb to the antenna connector has to be multiple of 5.8 wavelength long. Maybe it's an idea for your next video :)
2.4 times two is 4.8...
A wire that’s half or a quarter of the antenna length could also be a problem, right? That seems more likely given the distance from FC to camera.
Yeah for sure. Good point.
Thanks for this and all you do, without you I'd still be be be at the bench scratching my head or have given up by now.
This has been driving me crazy on my 6" for the last 6 months. It started happening around the time I switched my Foxeer Predator Cam to a T-Rex, so I thought that was the issue, but it was annoying me so much! I'll now try to twist or shorten the wires and that'll hopefully fix it. Thank you!!
You could give a try using coaxial wire, connect outer part to gnd and inner to video.
I had this issue last week on a whoop. The issue was proximity or RX to my VTX u.fl
I had the same when video wire was going close to ESC. Analog video wire from camera to FC and from FC to VTX are the most sensitive to EM interference. Next build I would use wire with screening.
Changing length will make worst match with CF frequency, but it will still work as antenna, but not matched antenna. Analog path must be as short as possible and you might use wire with screen. Remember to connect screen to GND pad only at one end.
what do you mean by use wire with screening? Like shielding?
@@docmalc47 Yes. Shielding connected to the GND at one end only or not connected at all. I am not sure what will work better.
@@kdeclinetostatendeclinetos6707 I have a 4 strand, braided metal shielded wire that wraps around it then insulated. But I don't get what you mean by connecting it up going on one end? What do I connect to ground on one end?
@@docmalc47 shielding you may connect to the ground GND, battery minus in this case.
@@kdeclinetostatendeclinetos6707 I think the shielded wire that I'm thinking of may not be the same kind that you are. I don't think you can reply with a link but maybe u can try so I can see what kind of shielded wire you're referring to. Thanks for your help. Right now in the middle of a build so this is timed great
maybe we should be using shielded wires for some things. would add weight though
also to add, with my toothpicks, when I get these lines, I find running a ground wire to the lens shell also fixed this problem, to note I run 41mm that was cut from the 2.4G with an ipex, the way i ran it was to strip the wire and rap this around the screw on the side of the camera, take the hoop off, put solder on the hoop, put the screw back in this hoop and the other side of the wire, just solder to a ground pad of the FC, also to add make sure that your screw is electrically conductive or the shell will not be grounded, hope this helps someone
Issue solved. Thanks again JB.
I have the exact problem on my mobula7 from the beginning... Thanks!
Twisting wires solved problem because of something called ground loop. Basicly current that goes in need a path back. In video you had video wire far from gnd wire. Those Both wires make an anthenna (strictly speaking noise get in through "inside" of that loop made by two wires)
Thank you for sharing this problem. I know what to do now!
I found this could also interfere with DJI video bitrates in extreme cases, especially when using 500mW+ crossfire, get at least 4 inches of separation between your vtx antenna (the elements themselves, not the wires) and crossfire immortal tee as well when you are using telemetry.
I have the had this problem. But the thing is the interference from the crossfire TX to the goggles happens even when the quad is unplugged. I can see the interference from the crossfire even in the static of the goggles. How is this possible when the frequencies are completely different. And the most surprising thing is it started all of a sudden. If I move the crsf tx away from the goggles the interference goes away. And now I have problems while flying the quad as I can't put the tx on a neck strap as I have to keep it all the way down below my waist to maintain distance from the goggles on the my head to avoid the interference.
For anyone coming to this video and wire twisting or making wires longer/shorter don't seem to work, try physically moving the crossfire RX as far away from the camera itself as possible. Just did a compact build (AIO, then Sixty9, then camera mounted on top on a lightweight BetaFPV X-Knight frame) and could not figure out why the horizontal lines were present, no matter how much twisting or shortening of my wires I did. Looks like the RX itself causes issues with some cameras if it's too close.
Thanks! Just helped my crossfire whoop!
Hey Bardwell ! ... Do a Show on the $85,000,000 Mars Lander Drone ... It could go Viral !
one other idea is to change out your video wire with a shielded wire like coax and ground the shield. shielding is the key close to an RF source.
I have always twisted my wires.... Never had this issue..... Almost willing to bet its high percentage to 100% effecting non twisted wires
Josh thanks for this. I’ve been struggling with this Issue on a 2S Babytooth build obviously all the electronics are very close together. I noticed it got worse when I armed I thought maybe it was a bad VTX or noise 5v on the pad and I needed to run an external 5v regulator from the battery pads. I’m using a TrueRC RHCP antenna so no chance of shortening it, but maybe I can try modifying a whip antenna.
Omg I've literally been pulling my hair out with this for sooo long. Thanks Mr bardwell
As an AV guy I know we should be using shielded video cables but there heavy you could also wrap it in the gold tape you use
As well as twist it
I picked up a tip a couple years ago from Pawel Spychalski to use micro coax, the kind used for making R-XSR antennnas to use as a shielded cable for the VTX. It definitely works. I've got like 40 feet of it, it will last me a life time. Twisting does definitely help, but a coax works way better. EDIT: It is 1.13mm 50ohm coax. His video is here. Stripping it properly is a pain, but its worth the hassle. And here is Pawel's video on it: th-cam.com/video/vuVYJ5uqtYQ/w-d-xo.html
@@housinit if you use this always try and ground the shielding to the opposite side of the signal path ie ground the noise to the FC end of the video wire and just the positive to the camera
@@mikej8940 Ah-ha! Thank you! I had wondered about that, but never did that, thinking that I HAD to ground both sides. Makes a lot of sense now. I just started making my own antenna's for SDR dongles and was confused at first about how to ground coax properly and when and where to ground it. Still confuses me a bit, but its all starting to make more sense to me.
It sounds like you probably have to also consider the length To make sure that it is not the same as a mini immortal tea as well as logic would happen to suggest that would also cause interference
Pretty interesting indeed, Joshua! 😃
Well... I always twist my wires. All of them. 😬
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
This kinda happened to me on my first build (tyro 79) except it was with flysky and the interference was much more severe. Mostly fixed when I twisted better and moved my receiver around.. and fixed even better when I swapped components to a bigger frame
Ferrite in wires helps too.
and folks thats why the wires are twisted when you buy any old cam when you twist the wire the exposed wire or humps of the wire are far less than that of a straight wire you can probnably also use a micro collet magnetic one
Yep this happened to me now I know why thanks. I owe you much $$$.
Fixed wing flyers swear by always twisting wires. Servo jitters are often cured the same way
resonating frequency lengths, if shielded with ground will not happen, you can fold wire to give it a shorten resonance , rf choke it. Don't loop wires, that will cause inductance .
RF chokes ARE inductors! They only pass low frequency! Even twist are inductors! The thing to do is put in a 75 ohm shielded wire with ground on the shield. The cameras output is a 75 ohm shielded wire. You can get shielded wire down to 20 gauge with both shield and the wire!
I had the same issue.. Did not knew that it could have to do with the length if the cable. What I did and what I'm doing from that on.. Im twisting the ground cable around the videocable. Never had that issue again. Saw that on fpv24..
The first thing is to disable the RX telemetry. The thing that receives signal also gives out signal. Sounds like the speaker-mic feedback high pitch loud sound, doesn't it?
Hey man, I love your creativity at the end of your video, haha, but I'm not sure if you are singing or you are rapping😆. U da Man!!
Interesting Joshua. Thanks buddy 👍🤘🏻
Great find! Thank you! 👍👌🙏
I just got a Johnny FPV 6S, which I love and I have the nazgul v5 4S. what do you recommend I should get as a 3rd drone that’s durable, handling and good for freestyle??? Please let me know
You’re awesome JB!
Analog is life!
Ha! Would have saved me several hours about a week ago. Had this issue with R9, Dom V2's, and original Jumper T16... I'm old and sub-optimal so I like my gear to be the same.
Yo! This is a keeper video! I will be saving this in a soon to be public playlist.
PS. @
Joshua Bardwell regarding your previous blunty live stream, we could look back in the comments from last month, but I am pretty sure I said "who is winning races and what are they flying? It's Tracer."; and not "most racers fly tracer."; that's a bad paraphrase. With all that said, I love love my Tracer, but I've also purchased CF, not ELRS. With my current TBS products, as a consumer, I can email with issues and get immediate replies, free replacements with full eval, or free fixes (paying in only shipping cost and time), but I will not get this with ELRS. Tracer for the racer, freestyler, professional. CF for the going the extra mile. It's not competition if you cannot provide the same level of service that company xyz provides; it's just another aaabc, wrapped in various brandings, and then you're on your own. If you're going to promo ERLS why not also promo... we'll... I'll email the news on that and few more topics. Seriously, this release was top notch, repeatable, and covers other frequencies (intrinsically). Thinking about coming down to Dollywood... again, I'll be in touch. #slowvoltage
Weird... I'm getting this with my radiolink at9. Fixed my issue with this video.
Changed the surface area shortening the loop
Does this issue go away if you wrap the video wire around a small ferrite ring?
I do alot of my adjustments and tuning in my Livingroom and it knocks off my TV when I have it plugged into my Computer and power up the Tx and pwr up the quad with a battery