I apologize if I'm resurrecting an old or well-known discussion, but I have not been able to find a lot of detailed information about this question. Has anyone experienced extreme RF signal degradation while using carbon fiber props? We have now done quite a bit of testing in this area, and I'm surprised how little information there is on this topic in any drone-related forum.
We have seen significant degradation in just about all transmitters/receivers we have tested when using carbon fiber propellers. This includes normal RC transmitters (FrSky, TBS, Spektrum) for flight control, various video transmitters for FPV, and even some high-cost data radios (Microhard, Picoradio, among others). We've actually run some iperf tests on the data radios while spinning props on our test stand and see a dramatic drop in data rate and an increase in packet loss. As soon as we switch from carbon fiber props to plastic or wood, the problem is resolved. Based on our testing (both on the test stand and in the air), I just can't believe how little information there is online about this. And I'm also surprised at how popular carbon fiber propellers are.
I would love to hear from anyone with a similar experience, or anyone who can point me to more information on this. I'm assuming the carbon fiber props are actually acting as some type of passive repeater, but is modulating the signal in a weird way? This is not my area of experience, so please don't laugh at me! Thank you!
We have seen significant degradation in just about all transmitters/receivers we have tested when using carbon fiber propellers. This includes normal RC transmitters (FrSky, TBS, Spektrum) for flight control, various video transmitters for FPV, and even some high-cost data radios (Microhard, Picoradio, among others). We've actually run some iperf tests on the data radios while spinning props on our test stand and see a dramatic drop in data rate and an increase in packet loss. As soon as we switch from carbon fiber props to plastic or wood, the problem is resolved. Based on our testing (both on the test stand and in the air), I just can't believe how little information there is online about this. And I'm also surprised at how popular carbon fiber propellers are.
I would love to hear from anyone with a similar experience, or anyone who can point me to more information on this. I'm assuming the carbon fiber props are actually acting as some type of passive repeater, but is modulating the signal in a weird way? This is not my area of experience, so please don't laugh at me! Thank you!