GPS PLUG CONNECTION FIX

great job and through research!

I would do this... but ive not crimped connectors before... though it is probably not rocket surgery.

but i should just face it... I've spent a lot of money on copper foil, GPS antenna, arctic silver... and I see a crimping tool in my future....

the obsession is a fun curse..... but a curse nontheless

Thanks again! (and if you have the time and are so inclined, a video tutorial would be much appreciated!)
 
Sandman1962 said:
great job and through research!

I would do this... but ive not crimped connectors before... though it is probably not rocket surgery.

but i should just face it... I've spent a lot of money on copper foil, GPS antenna, arctic silver... and I see a crimping tool in my future....

the obsession is a fun curse..... but a curse nontheless

Thanks again! (and if you have the time and are so inclined, a video tutorial would be much appreciated!)


Crimping si not difficult but you must use the correct crimper for the job or you will get a poor crimp which wire can pull out off which would be catastrophic (probably) for phantom.
 
Thank you thank you! So far so good. I have 8 to 10 satellites on telemetry showing and still my vision would fall to ground. It did it at any heigth.it broke my gimbal one time propellers another time the compass off landing leg. My friend give me link to this post to look zat. Im now glad he did it fixed my trouble. I owe my friend big time now.
 
Wow thanks for finding this I opened up mine today and found the same thing a very loose connection. I applied two spots of hot glue and that seems to secure it pretty well...
 
dataway said:
Wow thanks for finding this I opened up mine today and found the same thing a very loose connection. I applied two spots of hot glue and that seems to secure it pretty well...

hope you did foil mod whilst you had it open.

i am selling a insulated copper foil shield, see classified section.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=35259
 
MapMaker53 said:
I personally don't see anything wrong with an educated engineer (or anyone else having related expertise) correcting someone's post if it contains information that is incorrect or based on a well-meaning but scientifically incorrect assumption -- and I welcome and appreciate the information.

I think someone might need a Snickers bar.
+1
 
I'm not an electrician or engineer. A month or so ago I posted that I had taken to time to test the GPS connector for connectivity. Test was done with probes at pcb soldering point and GPS puck. I had my son wiggle the heck out of the connector for literally 5-10 minutes, we used a power tool to create vibration also. At no time could we break the connection. Another point I made was that there are MULTIPLE connectors like the GPS connector inside the P2V+, so if the GPS connector is failing, logically they all should be failing. Glad to see people like max and vk3bq chiming in here with more of a scientific approach.

OP may be trying to be helpful, but I wouldn't make changes based on speculation and opinion.
 
mij119 said:
I'm not an electrician or engineer. A month or so ago I posted that I had taken to time to test the GPS connector for connectivity. Test was done with probes at pcb soldering point and GPS puck. I had my son wiggle the heck out of the connector for literally 5-10 minutes, we used a power tool to create vibration also. At no time could we break the connection. Another point I made was that there are MULTIPLE connectors like the GPS connector inside the P2V+, so if the GPS connector is failing, logically they all should be failing. Glad to see people like max and vk3bq chiming in here with more of a scientific approach.

OP may be trying to be helpful, but I wouldn't make changes based on speculation and opinion.

Its an absolute problem with no speculation occurring. The changes that FLynfrank is suggesting is a piece of ziptie. This keeps the plug from wiggling and eventually wearing out. All the other terminals are either gooped in place or have a snug interference fit. If you had your son wiggle the connector for 5-10 minutes there is no possible way that he could have cycled it through the amount of high vibrations that are encountered during run time. The vibrations could be monitored and by my best guess you would see 80-200hz. Thats roughly the drone sound that some fuselages create at idle or with slight throttle.

This is called cyclic fatigue and trying look for an intermittent break in GPS lock by wiggling a healthy plug is only part of the problem solving. Please refer to the below thread. This fix below along with FLynfranks mod will keep the GPS solid.

Jeremy James

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=33453
 
Hi Jeremy, what exactly are you thinking is failing due to cyclic fatigue? The plastic, the metal, the plug as a whole? Much of the discussion here has been about how repeated disconnection and connection of the plug makes the "wigglines" worse. Obviously not cyclic fatigue in this case.
 
burlbark said:
Its an absolute problem with no speculation occurring. The changes that FLynfrank is suggesting is a piece of ziptie. This keeps the plug from wiggling and eventually wearing out. All the other terminals are either gooped in place or have a snug interference fit. If you had your son wiggle the connector for 5-10 minutes there is no possible way that he could have cycled it through the amount of high vibrations that are encountered during run time. The vibrations could be monitored and by my best guess you would see 80-200hz. Thats roughly the drone sound that some fuselages create at idle or with slight throttle.

This is called cyclic fatigue and trying look for an intermittent break in GPS lock by wiggling a healthy plug is only part of the problem solving. Please refer to the below thread. This fix below along with FLynfranks mod will keep the GPS solid.

Jeremy James

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=33453

Unfortunately, your conclusion lacks any scientific validation, it is pure speculation and theory. A lot like your conclusion on the "undersized wires" that lead to the ESC problem on 3.0 quads. Just because you and a couple other people strongly believe something is true, doesn't make it true. One thing I have learned from these forums is that there are a ton of "experts" who claim to have fixes for many things that DJI just can't seem to fix, but usually it's a bunch of guesswork. Nothing personal.

BTW, why don't ALL of the near identical connectors fail that are present in the V2P+ if your theory is valid? Only a couple of about 8 have a connection that is secured by silicone. I can wiggle the others just as easily as I can the GPS plug. The internal male and female metal connections on those plugs are IDENTICAL to the GPS plug.

I seriously doubt any flight not involving a crash is going to put the kind of stress on that connector that I did during my test. BTW, we did the test with the motors running, at full throttle for much of the time. We simulated vibrations with a tool when we did it without throttle.
 
mij119 said:
BTW, why don't ALL of the near identical connectors fail that are present in the V2P+ if your theory is valid? Only a couple of about 8 have a connection that is secured by silicone. I can wiggle the others just as easily as I can the GPS plug. The internal male and female metal connections on those plugs are IDENTICAL to the GPS plug.

I strongly disagree with that assessment. The other cables/connectors within the Phantom are typically servo cable connectors. The tension of these particular connectors are far superior to the GPS connector's tension. I made a statement previously to confirm my selection of connectors was comparable to these "servo connectors" related to tension when plugged in and/or removed. My selected connectors are rated at 3oz (x4) each for pull resistance, the servo cables are in the range of 2oz each from my "un-educated" opinion. The GPS connector has minimal resistance/tension in comparison.

Why do I bother.....
 
My solution is just as effective as any here based on the fact I've had no flight anomalies since (or before)...

I just bent two of the four pins (#1 & #3) about .5mm towards one side.
The top shell actually prevents the plug from coming out so there's no worries there either.

As others have said the benefits of one, none, or the other mod. is anecdotal. If it gives you more confidence in your a/c then that's good enough.

Evidence beyond that is non-existent at this time.
 
mij119 said:
Unfortunately, your conclusion lacks any scientific validation, it is pure speculation and theory. A lot like your conclusion on the "undersized wires" that lead to the ESC problem on 3.0 quads. Just because you and a couple other people strongly believe something is true, doesn't make it true. One thing I have learned from these forums is that there are a ton of "experts" who claim to have fixes for many things that DJI just can't seem to fix, but usually it's a bunch of guesswork. Nothing personal.

BTW, why don't ALL of the near identical connectors fail that are present in the V2P+ if your theory is valid? Only a couple of about 8 have a connection that is secured by silicone. I can wiggle the others just as easily as I can the GPS plug. The internal male and female metal connections on those plugs are IDENTICAL to the GPS plug.

I seriously doubt any flight not involving a crash is going to put the kind of stress on that connector that I did during my test. BTW, we did the test with the motors running, at full throttle for much of the time. We simulated vibrations with a tool when we did it without throttle.

If I disagree with you in my post doesn't mean I'm slamming you. Just wanted to point that out so that maybe things can continue being civil. You mention "We" a few times, are you referring to a hobby shop of some kind, or others that you fly with?

The Plug & Connector for the GPS are the only combo together under the top cover. When the top cover gets removed, that combo is effected. Either the plug gets pulled, or the top cover is flipped over and can dangle from the combo. Both methods apply some kind of overall stress. If you were to look back a few pages from this one, a member has found that corrosion to the copper on both sides of the connection. Using Contact Cleaner has turned up some great results. I believe the members name was "copythat" or something similar. He discovered it after trying everything else.

As I have stated before I have actual data taken from both of the two flight loggers I always use when flying. There is a brief interruption to the gps connection which causes it to become confused on the quads location. The result is, the quad "appears" to switch into Manual Mode and because our setup requires the controller lever to be above the middle position in order to maintain altitude. With the levers position not up would equal not enough applied power, and the quad drops at a angle until either reaching the ground, or if the operator switches the S1 switches out and back into the GPS Mode. I was at 1000ft altitude the 1st time this happened which gave me enought time to figure out I could save it doing the mentioned S1 switch process.

I had the flytrex live and at 1st I thought the problem was related to that devices wire harness. I opened the cover and unplugged the flytrex wire harness and plugged the GPS plug in it's place. However, same results. This is when I used the end of a plastic tie strap to wedge in between the plug and connector to eliminate movement as much as possible. I flew over 25 flights and it never was to happen again.

Now, if you look one page back RichWest put together complete info for a 100% fix to this issue. I plan to go over ALL connections not secure with hot-glue using contact cleaner, and then I'm going to replace the gps plug and leave the connector as is.
 
My GPS pins/sockets are gold plated.
 
mij119 said:
burlbark said:
Its an absolute problem with no speculation occurring. The changes that FLynfrank is suggesting is a piece of ziptie. This keeps the plug from wiggling and eventually wearing out. All the other terminals are either gooped in place or have a snug interference fit. If you had your son wiggle the connector for 5-10 minutes there is no possible way that he could have cycled it through the amount of high vibrations that are encountered during run time. The vibrations could be monitored and by my best guess you would see 80-200hz. Thats roughly the drone sound that some fuselages create at idle or with slight throttle.

This is called cyclic fatigue and trying look for an intermittent break in GPS lock by wiggling a healthy plug is only part of the problem solving. Please refer to the below thread. This fix below along with FLynfranks mod will keep the GPS solid.

Jeremy James

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=33453

Unfortunately, your conclusion lacks any scientific validation, it is pure speculation and theory. A lot like your conclusion on the "undersized wires" that lead to the ESC problem on 3.0 quads. Just because you and a couple other people strongly believe something is true, doesn't make it true. One thing I have learned from these forums is that there are a ton of "experts" who claim to have fixes for many things that DJI just can't seem to fix, but usually it's a bunch of guesswork. Nothing personal.

BTW, why don't ALL of the near identical connectors fail that are present in the V2P+ if your theory is valid? Only a couple of about 8 have a connection that is secured by silicone. I can wiggle the others just as easily as I can the GPS plug. The internal male and female metal connections on those plugs are IDENTICAL to the GPS plug.

I seriously doubt any flight not involving a crash is going to put the kind of stress on that connector that I did during my test. BTW, we did the test with the motors running, at full throttle for much of the time. We simulated vibrations with a tool when we did it without throttle.

Sure..... I guess you have not opened and repaired and flown 200+ Visions and the same amount of other quad copters. I have been doing this (USdronerepair.com) for a couple years now and have the experience to see and confirm both problems and solutions. It works like this...

Identify problem, this may be through repair or examination of failed components.
Create solution, This is identified by 25 years of RC experience and knowing what works and what doesnt.

I hope your solid wires dont break and you experience the loss of your Vision+. Its not a good thing and it will continue to happen and will do so at a more alarming rate as cyclic fatigue hours start to accumulate. Anyone with any experience in the RC world knows not to use solid motor wires in a flexible chassis. If you dont know this than..... :roll:

FlynFranks ziptie fix is the simplest best form of security you can have with minimal intrusion, why this is hard for some to understand I dont know. Some people will experience no problem and that is because the GPS shielding is applying tension to the top of the plug. ;)
 
TOTALLY agree. Easy. Did it, no issues, why anyone would go thru the HASSLE to change plugs, connectors, etc., is beyond me. Have fun, those who choose that route.
 
Yes but gold is not that good. Perhaps dreadful is a bit ott

Gold is an excellent coating as it does not tarnish but it is still a poor conductor compared to some other metals.
 
robinb said:
Yes but gold is not that good. Perhaps dreadful is a bit ott

Gold is an excellent coating as it does not tarnish but it is still a poor conductor compared to some other metals.

Haha I thought you were joking when you said gold was a bad conductor
 

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