GoPro4 setup compatibility?

Joshua, yes indeed there's a pre-made cable but if you're comfortable splicing and soldering yourself (like me) it's really not hard.
If you have any questions about the wiring just hit us up here but it's pretty basic... video+gnd comes off the Phantom mainboard (the colored cable that originally came taped to the bottom) and goes IN to the iOSD, then there's a video OUT (+gnd) that goes to the vTx. and separate from that of course you're got power+gnd out from the Phantom mainboard (same cable as video) which goes directly into power+gnd on the video Tx.
There will be a few extra wires on the cable that comes with the TS352 that you can just cut off, like audio in (green+white) and VCC+ out.

The Boscam indeed theoretically puts out more power but it also eats more power, most folks around here say we're talking about a dozen or 2 seconds of flight time... not a huge deal. I'm perfectly happy with my TS352 and yep it's cheaper. Use channel 1 you will have to flip all 4 dip siwtches. by default they all come off and channel 1 is all on.
Then on the RX-LCD5802 it's channel C-1.
 
Thanks man

I've watched the videos by HPIguy (or whatever it was) and they're pretty thorough so I shouldn't have any issues. Thanks for your instructions too - very handy cheers!

I've ordered the boscam TS832 TX, so that should be good I hope. Plus one of these monitor mounts. It might be too close to the DJI TX antenna but I can lengthen it if need be:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261545735455? ... EBIDX%3AIT

So the only remaining thing is the antennas to buy really. At the moment I'm very very tempted to get these ones since they're boscam ones and the TX and RX are as well, so hopefully would work well together, plus they're a pretty good price, without seeming so cheap that they must be junk. Hard to know. One of the comments on the link suggests they're much better than the stock oem ones at least.

Any thoughts on these?
http://www.banggood.com/Boscam-SKY-FPV- ... 91109.html
With maybe one of these as the second antenna on the RX
http://www.banggood.com/5_8G-Sinistral- ... 08714.html

They look like female plugs despite being described as Male, and as I understand the Boscam monitor has female plugs on it so I'd need a pair of double male adaptors I guess?

The other ones that look like they are popular and presumably therefore good to use are these ones. I guess they're basically the same but they have a choice of connectors - not sure if I need straight or right angle etc:
http://www.banggood.com/5_8G-Gain-Petal ... 19079.html
 
Well I think I'm going to go with that last set, for the sake of under £6 they've got to be worth a try since they have good feedback!
 
Ordered a set of those, and the helical one as well, so I'll report back how they are in due course!!
 
Boscam monitor arrived today. No means of testing out a picture on it with no TX, but it seems like a nice sturdy piece of kit. Like it!
 
GoPro Hero4 Silver ordered today. Should be here Thursday I hope.

Postman delivered the minim iOSD today too, and I've also ordered a little TK102 GPS tracker (a mere £16!!). Adds a touch more weight but gives me a bit of reassurance that in the event of a runaway or suchlike I stand a chance of finding the Phantom!


One question that has occurred to me before I bolt on all these expensive extras is that I haven't tried the Return to Home failsafe function at all yet.
Is there any inherent risk in doing this (ie turning off the TX while the P2 is flying say 50 yards away)?? I'd kind of like to test that it works ok before I attach all this kit to help put my mind at rest, but not sure if it would be putting an unnecessary risk to my P2? I'm sort of assuming that if for some reason the return function failed to invoke that I could just power up the TX again, and carry on flying in normal GPS mode again?

But we all know how dangerous assumptions can be sometimes.....

Any thoughts?
 
no but it's not necessary to turn off the RC to test the feature. Are you familiar with the 2 modes of your flight computer: Phantom Mode and Naza mode? if not, familiarize yourself with them.

I'm going to assume you're in the default (Phantom) mode. In the Assistant software in the Basic / RC tab there is a section "control mode switch". The setting all the way on the right by default says "normal fly". If you change that to Failsafe (aka Return To Home aka RTH) , from then on if you flip the RIGHT toggle on the remote (S1) all the way down, that will put the Phantom in Failsafe mode. The indicator LEDs will flash rapid yellow, and it'll act just like it lost signal with the remote... difference being you DIDN'T lose signal and you can flip the switch right back up and resume normal flight.
bear in mind:
if you are below 20m altitude (from takeoff height) , it will ascend to 20m then come home and start to land
If you're are above 20m altitude it will simply come home and start to land

I use the feature all the time like a "come back home" autopilot but I pretty much never let it land itself, I always resume control
 
MrJoshua said:
Boscam monitor arrived today. No means of testing out a picture on it with no TX, but it seems like a nice sturdy piece of kit. Like it!

I can't vouch for the other vtx, but the ImmersionRC 600mw works really well. I've read the output is actually a bit more than 600mw.
20141028_094639.jpg


As for connecting it to your iOSD, I like to avoid soldering when I can, so I used a plug and play cable I bought online.
It's the black gable you see on the right. Made for a really easy and clean install :)
DSC_0113.JPG


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LDX ... UTF8&psc=1
 
Thanks guys :)

I haven't ordered a cable for it but will look at what needs wiring to what and if it looks a nuisance to do then I might buy one but would rather save the money and solder it up myself really if I have the bits. I'm not sure if the cable is made up of bits that you receive with the different bits of kit or if I'd still need to buy plugs or something? I'm sure the video covers it and I've just not given it much thought yet that's all.

QYV - yes I'm familiar with those modes and have it in Naza mode, and until about 10 minutes ago had it set as GPS> ATTI> ATTI.
Seems a bit silly now but I'd been reading an article or a video (I forget which) that suggested that having failsafe able to activate on a switch is a bad idea, hence recommending the setup above, but in hindsight, I disagree.
So after spending a lot of time reading this thread:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthre ... 00&page=59

(Haven't finished it yet) I've changed it to GPS> ATTI> Manual, since it appears flyaways can at least sometimes be rescued with manual mode where other modes fail to respond and RTH has not invoked (for whatever reason).

Is there actually any real difference between invoking RTH with the switch and my powering off the TX? I want to try it but am still paranoid (perhaps excessively) about a risk of losing it. More than anything I'm just trying to educate myself as best as I possibly can to prevent a stupid blunder. If I lose this bird there's no way I can afford to replace it like many people seem to do, so I'm being careful.

I received my GPS tracker today (TK102). Don't yet have a sim for it but I'll be adding that.
All I'm waiting for now though is the gopro (tomorrow) and the TX, but that might still be a week. New antennas are coming but might be a while yet.

I plan on doing some flights with the gimbal and gopro, but no fpv, just keeping it close, then add the rest once the TX arrives.

One thing that I'm sure about is that I think twice now when I've switched it on outside, it has done the home location lock (fast green) after getting satellites, but then done an alternating red green flash AFTER locking home.
I'm a little confused as I thought any red flashes meant not enough sats locked to have a fix, yet this happens right after it confirms it's locked the home location?
 
MrJoshua said:
Thanks guys :)

(Haven't finished it yet) I've changed it to GPS> ATTI> Manual, since it appears flyaways can at least sometimes be rescued with manual mode where other modes fail to respond and RTH has not invoked (for whatever reason).

NO NO NOOOOO! "Manual" mode = absolutely no flight computer assists, as in, the thing that keeps the Phantom stable during flight... NO assists, 100% manual control - unless you are an EXPERT EXPERT pilot it will plummet right out of the sky. You can do what you want of course but as strongly as possible I urge you to reconsider, pretty much nobody wants full manual flight mode... it is NOT how you can rescue a bird in distress... it would just cause more distress.
I would suggest you change that back to GPS > ATTI > Failsafe. It's what me and most other pilots in Naza mode run... if you are the type of pilot that can somehow go flipping those switches in flight inadvertently, you're in the wrong hobby :) You should know **** well where those switches are before you fire up the rotors and know exactly where they are during flight. I typically flip between all those modes regularly... most of the time I want GPS if I want a stable shot, but I flip to ATTI when I want extra speed. As mentioned previously I use Failsafe when I want the bird to just fly itself back overhead to the home point, or at least in my direction.. whenever I want I flip the switch back and do whatever.

As long as you don't leave the gopro's wifi on, you aren't going to experience a flyaway... that just doesn't really happen anymore. But hypothetically let's say you do: IF flipping the S1 switch is sufficient for you to regain control, you want GPS, ATTI, or Failsafe you don't want manual, for reason mentioned above.

getting back to your other question, it's about the same but if it's a simple toggle switch and I can either have my Phantom maintain RC link or completely turn off the RC, I'd rather it remain connected to the RC. just seems safer.
I absolutely disagree with whoever says it's not a good idea to have failsafe as a switch option. I think it's a great idea and anybody with a brain should have the option there when they want or need it.
 
Thanks mate - interesting to hear such a contrasting input!

I do intend to do a bit of manual flying at very close range to see how it behaves and I expect it to be a lot like a normal heli in that respect. Everything I've read about manual on these though is that it disables the GPS input completely but yet still uses the gyro and accelerometer functionality, retaining a lot of the basic stability. This might be complete rubbish but a lot of stuff I've read especially on that linked topic is from people who fly manual at times and claim it's actually fairly tame as long as you know what to expect from it. It probably depends on perspective and what each person is used to, but personally I'd expect that if I can fly a normal heli that has no sort of autopilot functionality then I ought to be able to manage manual on the phantom.

I could be wrong of course, and cannot claim to have experience of phantoms besides 2 short flights, so I'm not in any way trying to argue someone else's better experience! I wouldn't be so big headed at all - just want to make sure no-one thinks I'm trying to be a smartass! :D

There's been a lot of discussion on that thread that with a lot of flyaways, they've only been salvaged or 'snapped out of it' in manual mode, ie where GPS mode, Atti, and Failsafe mode have all failed to respond, but manual has done. So on that basis it doesn't seem a bad idea. Granted you can't necessarily tell the orientation beyond a certain distance, so manual in that context has very limited use (ie no easy way to just point it home and bring it back), but IF you can at least see it, and know there's no people/property beneath then I'd conclude better to attempt a rough manual landing or even kill the motors and drop the bird than see it vanish into the distance forever potentially. Hopefully this is all very much a moot point, and one I'll never have to worry about in practise, but I'm just doing a ton of reading where I can, then analyse all the stories I find and see what might logically give the best odds of a rescue if something goes wrong.

I'm inclined to think "who knows" based on the huge amount of contrasting and contradictory stuff I've read by now. Not anyone's fault, but just everyone has their own opinion and perspective on what works best.
I do intend to fly GPS though 99% of the time, with perhaps the odd manual practise. I'm happy to be put in my place about any of this stuff of course - I have no problem being wrong and would rather be wrong and shown to be than be stubborn and full of regret as a result of it!!

I'll certainly use a huge amount of caution when it comes to trying out manual mode though. I'm assuming there's no reason why I can't launch it that way so there are no surprises (since I understand switching in mid flight to manual causes the bird to drop notably due to the change of throttle stick behaviour if you're not ready to compensate for it)?

And yeah, I am pretty meticulous about where the switches etc are before takeoff.
I'm in the process of making myself a pre-flight checklist, including the switches, compass calibration every flight, iphone and gopro wifi off etc etc.

Nice to hear a reassuring comment with some confidence about flyaways not happening often now though. I received my little TK102 GPS tracker today so will buy a sim card tomorrow for it and get testing it out. Then tomorrow evening I think I'll be busy installing the zenmuse, gopro, IOSD etc.
 
I just tried a little test actually as I was curious about the manual thing.

Removed the props, and powered the P2 up in manual mode, then gave some throttle above half way to stimulate more or less where it might be on the stick when hovering. Then holding it in the air and keeping the throttle still I began to tilt the phantom around giving it some pitch & roll. Sure enough all the motors constantly adjust what power they're outputting as I move the phantom by hand, which suggests to me that there is indeed some input from its brain to help try to keep it level at least to some degree, otherwise it would surely just keep them all at a constant speed regardless of me waving it around.

Hardly a conclusive test I know, but it's doing 'some' form of assistance in manual mode. I want to try it out in the field anyway at some point.
 
I flew manual for a few seconds the other week and almost crashed!
I was quite high,I started to move slowly forward and as I went forward the quad leaned more and more forward till the point were it virtually dive bombed towards the ground!
Luckily I was high enough to have time to flick it back to GPS at which point it levelled itself out with a few metres to spare.
 
Yeah I can imagine the potential for hairy moments switching over in flight hence me wanting to try it from the ground first.
It's always good to be able to fly something manually though if you can so that you're able to carry on if automation fails, or at least stand a chance of damage limitation etc.

Ok, so last night I wired up the gimbal in readiness for my gopro hopefully arriving today.
Simple enough, and the P" already had the anti interference board under it from the previous owner who'd left it attached.

Now I know it's considered a no-no to switch them on without the gopro attached because of potential harm to the motors as they're tuned for the balanced weight etc etc etc, but I wanted to just see if it came on and positioned itself.

It didn't. What happens when I turn on the phantom is the gimbal moves repeatedly in the same sequence and keeps doing it, as if it can't find the correct position to stop at.

I think I know why though. The 4 plastic pegs that secure the gimbal to its bracket (ie the pegs that go through the rubber bushes) appear to be too long, so the rear ones get in the way of the yaw axis on the gimbal. I'm assuming that because they prevent it from rotating to its side to side limits it knows this and keeps trying.

If installed according the instructions for the H3-3D the pins, they are very loose, and the washer parts that clip onto the pins do not apply any pressure to the rubber mounts. I'm assuming this is normal and the pins are effectively there just to prevent the gimbal from detaching if the rubber mount balls manage to wiggle/vibrate free from the frame?

That's fine if that's the case, but what should I be doing about the rear pins if they're what's causing the gimbal to misbehave?

It might just be of course that without being electrically hooked up to the gopro it doesn't know what to do - so I might be worrying over nothing (as I often do!), but regardless of that it does seem like a design blunder re' the length of the rear gimbal pins since they stop it fully moving.
 
Leave those plastic pins out altogether.
On mind I have a couple of cable ties loosely through the front two dampers.
Your gimbal is probably going bonkers cause there is no Gopro attached,it is expecting the weight to be more than it is and it cant balance without the Gopro attached.
 
Good idea with the cable ties - should have thought of that, cheers! :)

Got the gopro today as expected - really nice little thing, I've not really seen one up close before - and not I've fitted it, the gimbal is behaving nicely so that's all it was.

With the tilt control it seems very slow to move between the fully up/fully down positions. Takes 4-5 seconds to fully rotate.
I presume this is intentional to make it a nice smooth transition, and I've got no issue with that. Just thought I'd check that was normal, in case it should be quick.

There was a small flat ribbon cable that came with the H3-3D and it doesn't appear to be necessary. Have I overlooked something?

Bracket for mounting the FPV monitor came today too, so I will get that sorted out, and I got a sim card for the little TK102 GPS tracker. Now I've read in a lot of places that ONLY a 2G sim card will work in these, but I could only get a 3G one and it works fine as far as I can see. Quite happily reports its position on google maps when I call it anyway so that's good.

So I might take the phantom apart tonight and fit the iOSD inside. Just waiting for the TX and antenna set now.
But if it's calm at the weekend I'll try some close range, non FPV filming. Will be a bit random of course but like a kid at Christmas I'm just itching to play with it!
 
smallman28 said:
Leave those plastic pins out altogether.
On mind I have a couple of cable ties loosely through the front two dampers.
Your gimbal is probably going bonkers cause there is no Gopro attached,it is expecting the weight to be more than it is and it cant balance without the Gopro attached.

This. Those pins kind of suck. They get in the way of the gimbal and are practically impossible to reuse so I replaced mine with some good quality nylon string (came with prop guards I don't use).

Looks good and works great.
Side note: if you have to say "i know I shouldn't do this, but I did it anyway" with anything (especially a Phantom), it can cost you.

The gimbal, like everything else in this hobby isn't cheap..they're really sensitive, not surprised it's spazzing out without the camera.
 

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Thanks! Yes it seems crazy to include pins that don't fit correctly with a piece of hardware specifically intended to be used in that very application. Never mind.

Cable ties will do the job I guess.

By the way, I see you've got some sort of braiding on the wires exposed on your phantom. Is it an shielded sort of metal braid or just plastic to physically protect the wires? There are a lot of wires hanging about in the phantom and I can't help but think it's be a good idea to electrically shield them if possible, to reduce the chances of anything suffering interference etc. Might not help but there's a reason a lot of sensitive electronic devices use shielding...
 
MrJoshua said:
Thanks! Yes it seems crazy to include pins that don't fit correctly with a piece of hardware specifically intended to be used in that very application. Never mind.

Cable ties will do the job I guess.

By the way, I see you've got some sort of braiding on the wires exposed on your phantom. Is it an shielded sort of metal braid or just plastic to physically protect the wires? There are a lot of wires hanging about in the phantom and I can't help but think it's be a good idea to electrically shield them if possible, to reduce the chances of anything suffering interference etc. Might not help but there's a reason a lot of sensitive electronic devices use shielding...
I agree, I went thru the same disbelief with my pins. How does a company fail to make something so simple work as intended?
It took trial and error trying to figure out why my gimbal would randomly twitch during FPV flights..I kept thinking it was crashing!

But yes, the FPV cables are protected with plastic weave finish.
Offers better protection over exposed wires (not to mention looks better) [emoji4]

Using a flash, you can see the FPV cables through the mesh
 

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Ahh ok thanks. Definitely a good idea to add stuff like that. I'll have a look to find some on ebay. I've got spiral wrap stuff but your mesh looks a lot better for this job.

Still, I can't help but think that adding shielding that has metal would be a nice bit of insurance against any of the open wires picking up erroneous signals etc.
 

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