Troubleshooting Triggering Issues

This article will offer possible causes and troubleshooting tips that may help determine and solve triggering issues that can occur during your flights.

Triggering issues can be broken down into three scenarios:

1. No images were captured on the SD card

2. The camera stopped capturing mid-flight

3. Inconsistent triggering leading to data gaps.

We separate these scenarios below and outline possible causes and ways to avoid and/or troubleshoot them. 

1. No Images were Captured 

• Check cable connections, are they secure?
• Was the triggering method set up via the WiFi interface before flying?
  • Were you using overlap mode? (If using Atlas flight, the camera is automatically set in Overlap Mode) 
    • Double-check your target altitude. The camera starts capturing 50 m below the target altitude and stops capturing if the altitude goes 50 m below the target altitude.
    • Did the camera have adequate GPS reception before the flight (shown on the WiFi interface)? 
      • Overlap mode requires adequate GPS reception to begin capturing.
  • If flying in timer mode, test your power supply and make sure it provides the necessary voltage, even under load.
  • External trigger
    • Is the trigger cable connected to the triggering source?

2. Camera Stopped Capturing Mid-Flight

• It could be a power issue
  • Test your power supply under load: Without an SD card installed, does the camera operate properly set to 1-second timer mode? It should run in this mode indefinitely at room temperature, and the user should see a blue blink approximately once per second as the camera captures. This will help to verify that the power supply is sufficient. If connected to the WiFi capture page, the image should update each time the camera takes a picture (there is no need to press the capture button on the web interface).
  • Test an alternative power source
    • RedEdge 3
    • RedEdge-M/MX
    • Altum
    • Altum-PT
    • RedEdge-P
• Ensure you have ample space available on the SD card or storage device before flying.
• If you are using Overlap or Timer mode, it's possible you flew below your Target Altitude parameters. This is common when capturing over varying terrain. When your camera gets a 3D GPS lock, the current Mean Sea Level elevation is used to "latch" the camera to 0 meters above ground level (AGL). This AGL figure is what the Target Altitude is based on. However, if your area of interest includes areas lower than your 0 AGL latched altitude, it's possible you won't capture data, depending on your Overlap/Timer settings. In the following example, the camera was flown over varying terrain with a Target Altitude of 120 meters and a Target Altitude Tolerance of 50 meters, which means it will capture above 70 meters. Once the camera descended below 70 meters of the starting point, it stopped capturing. This problem can be solved by ensuring the lowest point in your scene falls within your Target Altitude Tolerance. 
• 

3. Inconsistent Capturing (gaps in data)

• Possible SD card issues
  • Test your SD card's performance
    
    • If this test results in a capture rate lower than expected, you may need to replace the SD card with the one we recommend. What SD cards are recommended for use with RedEdge?
• The capture rate may be too fast.
  • MicaSense cameras cannot sustain triggering at a rate faster than 1 image per second. Trying to capture faster than this will likely result in missed captures and consequently poor overlap and map output.
  • Check whether the camera is going to be able to your flight speed with our flight calculator: https://ageagle.com/calculator/.
• Ensure Streaming Mode is disabled before data collection

Post-Flight Check

Check the coverage estimator after your flight to ensure that you captured the expected amount of captures during your flight. This can help you to determine whether your flight was successful or not before heading out of the field.

If you are still experiencing triggering issues, please send a description of the issues, as well as log files (paramlog.dat and diag.dat) from an affected flight to support@micasense.com.