"Don't fly close to power lines" ...

Why not / what happens !?

Could the props cut the lines if the bird flew in to them?

How close is close !?
(There are power lines frekin everywhere arround here!!!)

Is it "more safe" to fly over them then under ... Or is the "danger" in getting them in between the transmitter and the reciever !?

This is driving me crazy ... I want to know !!!

I have found a scenery I want to shoot but there are power lines there ...
My plan is to go high above them ... But I need to know what I risk by doing this ... !

Please advice (if you know) ...

I believe that the risk is that the electromagnetic radiation from the lines will cause control issues for the transmitter, receiver or compass. Now that I am flying the Inspire 1 I am noticing that in the US there are power lines everywhere.

Will I lose control or will I only lose the GPS / compass ... ( I am fully competent to fly manually ) ...

There are two types of fields present around power lines (or any wire that carries current): An electric field that correlates to the voltage level and a magnetic field due to current flow. Both fields get weaker very quickly over distance.

In general you don't need to be scared - if you get too close you might get some compass errors but it will typically not affect the reception of your 2,4 GHz sender/receiver or GPS signal. I'd probably stay away (> 20m) from high power lines (>110 kV) but definitly don't mind typical power lines found everywhere in urban areas. The electro magnetic field spreads out circular around the wire so there is no difference below or above the wire - only distance matters.

Power line wires are made out of differnt types of metal (eg. copper, aluminium, steel) and you will most definitly not damage them with your "plastic" props

marco Posted at 2015-3-25 01:54
There are two types of fields present around power lines (or any wire that carries current): An elec ...

Excellent answer ... Thank you soooooo much !!!

Yep he's dead on there about the transmission lines don't fly behind or around them. Regular power lines including the insulated ones will definitely win in a fight so don't hit them. The worst part about third person flying is depth of perception. You may have noticed that our eyes are about 2 inches apart. We see using binocular vision the further away an object is the less effective our distance perception becomes. This why hover flies fly side to side to increase acuracy of distance because the greater the distance between the eyes, the more accurate the assessment. Dead ground or a large piece of open ground with few objects in it can also act as an illusion for depth of perception. Try going out to a pasture and estimating distance 50-100-400meters etc. you may notice that ground with trees and things make it easier, but open ground gets way harder. The sky behaves in a similar way, the power line may be imposed in front of a featureless sky and that can fool the eye into making bad guesses.

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-25 02:40
Yep he's dead on there about the transmission lines don't fly behind or around them. Regular power l ...

Next upgrade for the I1 ... "parking scensors" !!!

Marco is spot on !!!

Here is a copy/paste of a post I just finished writing on another thread ......

as far as 2.4 interference .....

Naw, those are made up interference stories that were true back in the day of 72MHz.
My belief is that 2.4 interference stories are similar to fish stories in that it makes the teller feel better.
With a good quality 2.4 receiver, (not a hobbyking special) I can fly loops with a plank around high tension wires til the pack runs dry without a hiccup, land on a water tower loaded with HP transmitters with a fpv trex450 like is was a grass field, use my 3d aj slick's wing tip to caress the side of that turbine building ur talking about without a hitch. Now a lot of you guys might say, "well, that's because you're great", (and that may be true), but the fact is if you have a good 2.4 lock with quality equipment, it's a pretty solid/reliable connection that I'm comfortable with. (I know there's a couple exceptions out there, no need to :@ ),

A really good example of what happened to you that we can all relate to is the "near miss lane change".
We have all changed lanes a thousand times but this time you are distracted by an address your looking for,
(or a hot chick in my case), and there is a near miss lane change that REALLY gets your heart pumping.
It has happened to all of us at least once, and boy howdie, aren't we careful after that, (at least for a little while).

I'm really glad everything worked out for you.
I hope I never read on this forum about a guy who has lost control and has injured someone.

Bob



HONK if you like my avatar -

I fly by power lines all the time, but they are not the super high voltage type.   I just fly to miss them, that's it.

i fly OVER power lines and try to keep away by 100-200 feet...no problems but i noticed they reduce the video transmission distance somewhat to only 2500 feet as opposed to the 4500 feet advertized but than there are some trees in between.....

geox Posted at 2015-3-25 08:25
Go close to power lines (high voltage only) and your drone will become plastic soup. It will melt do ...

Could you please enlighten me - I am extremely curious as to why my I-1 would melt if it gets "too close" to power lines? (pick any voltage you like)
(btw. even if the I-1 would touch a wire it is way to small to create a short circuit with an adjacent wire)

geox Posted at 2015-3-25 08:25
Go close to power lines (high voltage only) and your drone will become plastic soup. It will melt do ...

Wrong! So not correct. Not even 100 kv lines will melt down your copter. In order for that to happen the copter would need to find a ground. This why birds don't get cooked. Also why a guy sitting in a helicopter can wrap a wire around a damaged cable while it's still hot, this is called bonding. And if you want to see heli piloting at its finest check it out on YouTube im sure you will find something. It helps if your gonna teach someone to get your facts straight  especially if there are safety concerns.

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-25 08:52
Wrong! So not correct. Not even 100 kv lines will melt down your copter. In order for that to happ ...

We are shooting a power line improvement project right now, and I have been flying over, under, through, you name it and my bird is just fine.  These are 500kv main transmission lines and I have experienced no problems.  Don't believe everything you read here!

Told you guys -

(and why didn't anyone comment on my two hilarious blurbs I inserted into my long post?)

lynxskyshots Posted at 2015-3-25 11:16
We are shooting a power line improvement project right now, and I have been flying over, under, th ...

pssst - don't tell geox - I'd love to hear the physics magic going on around his power lines

I just love when people, who actually know things, answer questions and also explain "why" !!!

My fear of power lines is now cured

Thank you, thank you and thank you !!!

w1der Posted at 2015-3-25 18:46
I just love when people, who actually know things, answer questions and also explain "why" !!!

My  ...

Nothing will melt. there is no heat from power transmission lines. Any noise that is present would be in the form of an AM signal. We live in an FM signal world with our Quads and probably all of the RC world. If you were very close, actually to close for comfort you could get a little compass error but nothing to worry about. I fly Cell Tower Inspections with several active (power on) and get within inches of the RF out put and have never had an issue. DJI did have an issue with this in the early Phantoms. DJI came up with a fix for it and made the issue go away. The short of it is not to worry and don't fly into the line itself, that could hurt.

You would have to get pretty close to a High voltage power line to be affected by it's magnetic field because the field follows the inverse square law.  This states that the magnetic flux lines are inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source.  In other words, the flux density falls away very rapidly as you move away from the source.
That said, it wouldn't be advisable to get too close to test this fact.
Cheers.

Jason

geox Posted at 2015-3-25 20:33
W1der, go on have a test. Do the filming with your 3000€ inspire, if something goes wrong ask the q ...

geox, if you'd only have a very basic understanding of physics you'd realize just how ridiculous your melting statement was. But hey, you are the smart guy so what do we know

My major concern was ... How close is "close" ... And if I would risk to lose control over the bird cause of any interference ...
I am sure it wont "melt", that is just stupid!  

Tried to post a reply to this thread but my text started m
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I get what geox is saying. Although it may not affect the bird ... just in case, stay away from them. If you have to / want to - fly next to power lines and antennas be really careful and watch the bird for any weirdness. I fly in the middle of a large city full (really full) of al sorts of antennas and never had even a glitch but I fly with a high pucker factor all the time. Having said that I use a Phantom 1 mostly - i1 is grounded with a bad compass. boooooo

^^^  here's the problem friend. When you post garbage, mis-information posts, (like urs) it messes up a bunch of noobs who have no idea that you are an idiot.  U post crap like that and then it take 2 pages to disprove your "joke". No one wins.

Here's the FACT - Hitting a single powerline with your rc craft is exactly like hitting a cloths line, nothing different.
You will experience the same electrical interference from the cloths line as the power line, NONE.
Whichever one you hit - You will most likely break a prop and tumble out of the sky.
There will be no fires or Bermuda Triangle type electrical failures.

Now run fast Chicken Little, the sky is falling -

I wonder if the EMF radiating from a 300kv line wouldnt seriously damage the sensitive electronic components if the aircraft was to actually get close enough to swack a prop? There is a lot of energy bleeding off them,  you can hear it and feel it too. You can hold a four foot fluorescent tube near them and get them to light up. In fact when I used to climb tower for a telecommunications company we had to take days off to protect from over exposure to EMF and on the microwave towers we replaced hypolon covers, you know the ones with the red Lightning bolt printed on it, while they were live and transmitting. Highly recommended that no part of your body goes in front of the dish unless you don't mind radiation sickness and potentially Cancer. This is non disputable fact you will be in grave personal danger if you get too close to a transmitting microwave dish.

Dangair, U should change ur username to "Chicken Little 2" - lol

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-26 02:38
I wonder if the EMF radiating from a 300kv line wouldnt seriously damage the sensitive electronic co ...

Dangair, your mention of microwave dishes reminds me of the story I heard way back when I began my high-tech career with Raytheon, the inventor of the microwave oven. I remember they told me they discovered the microwave oven when one of their engineers noticed that a candy bar in his pocket melted while he was doing maintenance on a microwave radar system.

I have never been bold enough to try exposing myself to that level of stupidity but I suppose there is likely some truth to something like that. I often wondered if the safety board just wanted to scare us? As if hanging upside down several hundred feet in the air doing up nuts and bolts in high winds isn't spooky enough! It really sucked in the rain. You know they always tend to put those towers in the highest spot with the most exposure. On the plus side, when the weather was good you got the best views on earth! Truly stunning. The towers on Saltspring Island had a real nice panorama.

Bob Marley Posted at 2015-3-26 03:14
Dangair, U should change ur username to "Chicken Little 2" - lol

Bob, not sure where you're going with that but I suppose I've been called worse!

Hey guys
A picture is worth a thousand words.  Our client wanted the project to remain anonymous, just dramatic music and footage.  The first sequence was flown under 230kv main transmission lines.  We had trouble calibrating the compass and would loose video signal while simultaneously getting a warning the "return to home" function would be activated.  The next two sequences were flown through one set of 460kv lines and and an additional set of 130 kv lines on wood poles.
video

Pretty much all power transmission asset inspections here in Oz are performed by UAV now.
No issues navigating near/around power lines, unless you make contact of course!

Only issue I've heard directly about was a mob inspecting an induction furnace at an aluminium smelter.
The UAV lost control and failed due to the EXTREME magnetic fields in the induction coils. The UAV's magnetometer was corrupted and it had no directional guidance.

Amazing what 4volts at 200,000 Amps can do! (so I was told by one of the site engineers!) no loose metal objects allowed anywhere near the thing!

lynxskyshots Posted at 2015-3-25 11:16
We are shooting a power line improvement project right now, and I have been flying over, under, th ...

Agreed , don't believe everything you read here ...overthinking it ...

To add to this discution, I bought the I1 to do cell tower/ radio tower inspections. Fly upclose to them to inspect coax lines and antennas all this while the site is powered and never had an issue... So far

A utility company wants me to do pole inspections for them by taking pictures of the top of the pole. Is this something I should pursue when comericialization is legal? Because I am wondering how close I can get without affecting flight. I really wish we had a zoom lens so I could maintain a safer distance and just zoom in on the top of the pole.

Bob Marley Posted at 2015-3-25 04:59
Marco is spot on !!!

Here is a copy/paste of a post I just finished writing on another thread ..... ...

Bob. You are a legend! Love your sense of humour. Take up writing. You'll make a killing

I have them in areas too on our land. I fly above them and I have not had an incident. It is much easier to fly above than to maneuver under. It also depends on what type of power lines you have. Some are higher than others and lower than others.

lynxskyshots Posted at 2015-3-24 22:16
We are shooting a power line improvement project right now, and I have been flying over, under, th ...

Yes, I agree 100%.

Abe Posted at 2015-3-25 22:39
Tried to post a reply to this thread but my text started m
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Now that's funny....

TagTracking Posted at 2015-4-20 09:06
To add to this discution, I bought the I1 to do cell tower/ radio tower inspections. Fly upclose to  ...

Tag TRacking,  need your inputs on the power lines. I am planning to bid for some inspections of 400KV and 765 KV power lines. Will Inspire Raw be good enough to see the nuts and bolts in still photos or I need to buy the S1000 and the Canon D5 along to do this work. Can we magnify these images to see the bolts , conductors etc. Easily? Appreciate your inputs.

This is warning that all RC aircraft get in their manuals. Align, Eflite, etc etc all state this to stop you from flying into them and causing issues with service. To a point all power lines can cause interfernce to a extent but normal power lines in a neighborhood will not affect it. High tension or transformers have a higher chance thou. I fly large scale air planes and my Spektrum gear never shows a frame drop or error where I fly and there is high tension with in 300 feet of me.

I setup and flew directly under a power pole this evening. Shortly after take off I got a battery damaged error. Could the power line cause this?