Help a dji noob please..

[Swifteagle]

I was in the same boat. Ive built countless multirotors from 250 FPV racers to octacopter with pixhawk. As much as I hate to admit it (Ive laughed at naza users for years!), to get something in the air and shoot good video with no fuzz, its hard to beat the P3.

Still, its not all roses; I absolutely hate the Apple like walled garden approach, like DJI actively trying to lock out 3rd party batteries.

And when it comes to flight controller reliability, DJI can still learn a thing or two from pixhawk. Like me, you're probably used to its ability of using 2 magnetometers, or even 2 GPS receivers, and have no problems if one fails. Or capabilities like inflight compass calibration. You might expect RTH and GPS navigation to work (crudely) with no valid magnetometer data, using GPS and dead reckoning. Pixhawk does all that and so much more. With DJI, well, forget all that, its pretty clear the phantom doesnt do any of that, and if its sole compass fails, you're in trouble. By some accounts even when switching to attitude mode.

I miss my 433 MHz mavlink telemetry link with virtually unlimited range. Im also still not fully convinced of lightbridge, and prefer my analog FPV setups. Yes, LB is much higher resolution, and its range is respectable, but I really miss my zero latency FPV and just having some snow and noise when S/N drops, rather than image breaking up, being delayed or disappearing completely. I may mount a 5.8 GHz analog micro FPV setup.

I too have laughed at naza/ phantom users... but I got sick and tired of wires and the lack of portability of my 450. I just bought another 2 extra batteries for $220 usd, that is the most expensive batteries ever! Regardless I still have big hopes for the phantom. I hope I really like it.

 

[Vertigo]

Consider yourself lucky. DJI batteries cost €160 here. I bought some clones on banggood at ~half that price, which I still consider a lot for a battery. Ive bought 4S 10000mAH batteries for less than half that price. They work fine so far, but there is no telling when a future firmware upgrade will detect them and lock them out.

 

[mrgoodwrench]

I just wanted to clarify something for the OP. While there are a lot of people here that will tell you that the cracking on the chassis isn't an issue, that would be a very optimistic outlook. In reality, It happens and a lot more frequently than a lot of the forum members here want to admit. A lot of the members here seem to downplay the issue (not sure why, maybe they get kickbacks from DJI) but I can assure you, it happens a lot more than they will tell you here in this forum.

I personally know 5 people with a Phantom Pro/Advanced and to date, 4 of the 5 of us have had issues with cracking. Not sure what to do about the issue. A lot of people here say to use bondic but adding weight where it doesn't belong doesn't sound like a good fix to me. There are reinforcement plates you can add but the opinions there are mixed as well.

I'm currently waiting to get my P3P back from DJI for cracked chassis repair as are several other forum members. Seems odd to me for a problem that people claim to be so rare to pop up so much here on this forum and others.

I just didn't want the OP to get the wrong idea. The cracking problem is REAL, it does HAPPEN, it is still happening today with current production birds. That 'bad batch of plastic' theory is a load of hooey.

That all being said, I love the P3P and have had a blast with it. Just wish DJI would make a shell that would stay together longer.