Bad Day

[Flingwing]

Well I had my first crash today. I have a P2V And a P2 with GoPro with all the bells & whistles. The P2V was my first quad but I had not flown it is a few months, opting for the other P2. I broke it out today and updated the firmware to the latest (3.3?) charged up the wi-fi extender and took her out. It took me a couple of times to finally get a good wi-fi connection but finally did . I did the compass calibration, had 7 satellites and good FPV. I cranked her up and went to about 5 feet where I always test the controls. I immediately knew something was wrong. GPS would not hold and the inputs seemed squirrelly. Before I knew it, I slammed into my house and the bird dropped about 5 feet onto concrete. The battery popped out but other than that no apparent damage to the outside. After a few choice words I tried to see if she would fly again. Initially i was able to get a wi-fi connection with my iPhone but kept getting a error message. I power cycled everything but now I get no wi-fi connection.

Things could certainly have been worse. So I'm lucky I did not loose the bird. Does anyone have any ideas as to the wi-fi connection issues. Anyone had any similar problems with the latest firmware update?

 

[Flingwing]

After 5 hours the light never went from yellow to green, so maybe not. But I did have a connection before the crash.

 

[Flingwing]

Update: after the crash, I did not check for the SD card in the camera. A couple of hours after the crash, my wife saw the tiny 32Gb micro chip in the driveway. Stuck it in and got a wi-fi link. Fired the vision up and she flew. However, the GPS lock seemed off. Normally, the GPS lock radius is 4-6 ft., particularly with the P2. With this vision, the radius seems to be around 20 ft. after the firmware update. Not cool around trees. My questions are 1) do you have to have a chip in the camera on a Vision to get a wi-fi connection and 2) is anyone else experiencing the large GPS lock radius?

 

[BigTulsa]

Update: after the crash, I did not check for the SD card in the camera. A couple of hours after the crash, my wife saw the tiny 32Gb micro chip in the driveway. Stuck it in and got a wi-fi link. Fired the vision up and she flew. However, the GPS lock seemed off. Normally, the GPS lock radius is 4-6 ft., particularly with the P2. With this vision, the radius seems to be around 20 ft. after the firmware update. Not cool around trees. My questions are 1) do you have to have a chip in the camera on a Vision to get a wi-fi connection and 2) is anyone else experiencing the large GPS lock radius?

That sounds like TBE right there. What area do you live in?

 

[Flingwing]

Atlanta, Ga

 

[John Shaw]

I agree it Sounds like TBE but Atlanta GA has a declination of -5 degrees and that doesn't usually result in significant declination issues. It's usually at 8 or 10 degrees or greater.

 

[Damon]

Out of curiosity did you calibrate RC and then calibrate with phantom , and run advanced IMU calibration after FW update? And again after the crash?

 

[J.James]

I would suggest running the advanced IMU calibration and doing a compass recalibration. and then just to be sure every thing is all good plugging in and seeing what your mod values are.

It it was sitting for a long time the gps boards tiny battery that is needed to save your last 30 days of gps data and some other things in the eprom might of died and wont hold any saved configurations. Tho it should still fly right and just take longer to get your gps lock.

 

[J.James]

Its "supposed" to recharge its self. But I have heard of them going dead and not taking a charge and many arriving Doa. Tho someone that tried to inquire with DJI about the battery and DJI was not even aware of the battery's being on the gps board ( they dont make the gps modules and I suspect they are made by Ublox) its not any thing there techs even check for when doing repairs. They should be between 1.8 to 3.5 volts if I am remembering correctly from the info i got from ublox data sheets. Tho I have not figured out a way to change it easily. Tho its just a tiny hearing aid battery any one should be able to find its spot welded in place. So it might be a tuff one to get the old one out with out breaking the battery holder.

 

[Flingwing]

I did a full calibration of both the P2V and it's RC plus the IMU prior to the crash. I have not done one since yet. On my P2, I did experience TBE when I first got it but after updating FW and doing several IMUs I got it fixed. This issue seems different to me. The TBE is when the bird begins to make increasingly larger circles in place. With my Vision, I had the quad stabilized in place, turned it 180 degrees and it wants to advance in a linear motion 20-25 ft before it gets a GPS lock. Turn it again and it does the same thing in another direction.

I was unaware of the GPS having its own battery. The Vision had not flown in 3+ months. The battery being drained sounds logical. Now how to you get it charged back up and how long will it stay charged without flying?

Thanks all for the input!

 

[J.James]

was unaware of the GPS having its own battery. The Vision had not flown in 3+ months. The battery being drained sounds logical. Now how to you get it charged back up and how long will it stay charged without flying?

From what I am understanding the battery and the eprom does tho is to just save the gps data so it can get a faster gps lock. by knowing were the gps sats are supposed to be at a giving time so it makes it easier for it to get a lock on them then if doing whats called a cold start. Were it has to find all the sats again plus down load all the info from there for there location, time,date. speed, directing and heading and what ever other info the gps sats send out. But not to sure even if its got to do a cold start if the flying chariristics are effected as that seems to be saved in the naza some place.

but I do know if my IMU or compass is not calibrated right mine will do the thing were it will hover in a wider margin and if I have it staying still and yaw it will turn and then move over like you described. I also notice if I do the compass recalibration out side it actually makes my compass be more off then if I do it in side my house. So I tend to never do a compass dance inless Im inside and only do it when some thing seems not right and its hovering funny. and then i still check the mod values to be sure its right.

I know many have the idea they are supposed to do the compass dance all the time and its not really nessasay or a good idea unless some one is real far from there normal flying area or if its out of calibration. So now when I get it were its supposed to be I dont mess with it. But when its real good on the mod values that thing with it moving when I yaw it only moves about 3 feet or so but useally only if Im less then about 40 50 feet up. When its up high it seems to do it a lot less. I also have one spot near my house I call the zone that it does weird stuff when its in this narrow spot in the sky about a block away from me. Some times it hits the zone and its like it hits a wall and will stop and I have to take a stab or two to get threw it or go up or under it. Then when its past the invisible force shield or what ever it is its fine again. I'm almost thinking it may be a microwave communication tower some place shooting a signal thats causing it.