I have a new p2, how do I learn to trust it?

[lake_flyer]

You're welcome!


Droneslinger.com has all available software versions up for download. At DJI you can only get the latest versions. I hope 1.8 stays up for good.

 

[TeamYankee]

Team Yankee wrote: "All it takes is a commercial van driver to go passed with a GPS jammer onboard and all hell could break loose!
I suspect most of the bizarre events could be down to poor GPS signals - interference or jamming."

What do you mean by this. What kind of a commercial van would operate with a GPS jammer?

I just ordered a Phantom 2 H3 3d with the 5.8Ghz tx/Rx. The reason is to switch out the 2.4Ghz Tx/Rx for the 5.8 to reduce the likelihood of interference.

I just received my GoPro 4, and it will be riding the gimbal.

Do you think this will help reduce flyways? I have had one of those before and am not keen to have a second. The others were with the original Phantom.

Darren

Take a look here: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2010/03/17/gps-jammers-easily-accessible-potentially-dangerous-risk/

There have been cases where aircraft waiting to take off have been delayed due to GPS issues and it was traced to a driver going passed the airport at the same time every day...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...000-after-interfering-with-plane-signals.html

Just something to be aware of... GPS is not a be all and end all of flying a Phantom 2 - you have to be aware and be able to switch to ATTI mode when the GPS is taking it off course due to jamming.
It maybe rare, but I bet some of the fly aways are related to this.

 

[lake_flyer]

Fly aways have been reported even more by Vision2+ (5.8GHz) owners. It has nothing to do with you're control frequency unless you have your Gopro Wifi on together with a 2.4GHz receiver.

Most 'fly aways' are pilot error and in very sporadic cases a GPS malfunction possibly caused by battery (voltage) drop outs or loss of GPS signal. And what a rookie calls a fly away is most of the time nothing more then a switch to Atti mode (it automatically switches to Atti when GPS is weak), making people think it suddenly has a mind on its own. Panic does the rest.

[Edit - adding some extra thoughts]

...and switching to Fail Safe when GPS is bad is the worst thing you can do. It WILL fly away to some location only the Phantom knows. But there's nothing strange about that. If you are flying line of site you get a warning by the yellow lights. You should be aware that it flies in Atti by then and have to correct for wind drift. If you're flying beyond visual range you MUST have FPV and IOSD otherwise there's no way of telling that you are in Atti mode. Switching to RTH or Homelock when flying beyond line of sight on any moment, without FPV and/or IOSD, is like playing Russian roulette. It will keep somewhat within range of the transmitter but you will have a hell of a time finding it, if you're lucky.

 

[lake_flyer]

I just put on the 8" props on the P2 and loaded 1.8.

I set the gains on default (button) and changed the vertical gain to 120%.

The weather calmed down a bit but the wind is still gusty. However, I just took it up for a quick run.
Man! What a joy. I will never put on those ugly 9" props ever again.
Silky smooth, just like the FC40, responsive but forgiving. The yaw is also much smoother. Descending like a rock with not a single hint of VRS, just like I was used to from the FC40.

1.8 + 8" props is from now on the way to go for my P2. I just hope DJI will come up with a special expert 3.X where experienced pilots can make the things work like they ought to in the first place. I am willing to sign a statement that it's my own risk.

 

[scubari]

Re: Vs: I have a new p2, how do I learn to trust it?

You're welcome!


Droneslinger.com has all available software versions up for download. At DJI you can only get the latest versions. I hope 1.8 stays up for good.

I bet i can find answer to this somewhere here..but i ask anyway ..if i downgrade to 1.8 is there any affect to h3-3d ?
If i have understand correctly, gimbal is controlled by gcu independently so p2 downgrading should not affect the fimbal functions..??

 

[scubari]

Re: Vs: I have a new p2, how do I learn to trust it?

I just put on the 8" props on the P2 and loaded 1.8.

I set the gains on default (button) and changed the vertical gain to 120%.

The weather calmed down a bit but the wind is still gusty. However, I just took it up for a quick run.
Man! What a joy. I will never put on those ugly 9" props ever again.
Silky smooth, just like the FC40, responsive but forgiving. The yaw is also much smoother. Descending like a rock with not a single hint of VRS, just like I was used to from the FC40.

1.8 + 8" props is from now on the way to go for my P2. I just hope DJI will come up with a special expert 3.X where experienced pilots can make the things work like they ought to in the first place. I am willing to sign a statement that it's my own risk.

Can you recommend good 8" props ?
Brand&shop ?
Thanks

 

[lake_flyer]

I have only used the original Phantom FC40 / P1.1.1 props. No experience with other 8".
I think it's the 8045, they cost about 10 bucks a pair. Considerably cheaper than the P2 props.

 

[lake_flyer]

I don't think there's a difference for the gimbal other than that you can set the max and min for the manual tilt. You could however control the gimbal by the Naza, bypassing the gimbal controller. Just hook up the motors directly to F1 and F2 on the Naza receiver. If you have a Zenmuse you will use the excellent Zenmuse controller of course, but a cheap chinese gimbal might actually work a lot better without controller. Got to try that soon. Maybe the Naza is much more precise and faster than a cheapo gimbal controller.

{edit} this only works with 1.8. With 3.x you can't.

 

[scubari]

Ok. Im downgrading now. Lets see how it goes

 

[lake_flyer]

Not sure about any consequences for your 3D gimbal. But as you said, it has it's own controller so I think you're safe.

Let me know how it works!

I just took it up again, just before dinner. It is great. I even landed it on the available 3 square meters on my balcony, in gusty wind 3-4Bfr. No sweat at all. With the 9"s I always hand cached just to be safe. But with the good old 8"s I immediately felt in total control again.

Wow, it was thanks to this thread that I finally did what I was thinking about since the first minute I had this P2.
I'm going to love my P2. I must admit I was underwhelmed when I first took it in the air. But I'm happy again.

Thanks OP!

 

[scubari]

Im on 1.08 now. It raining outside so no test flight tonight.
When powering up, gimbal was working normally...so i think i will give it a try tomorrow.
Curious about those 8" props..must order a set and try them
Thanks for sharing your experiences

 

[lake_flyer]

If you still use 9" props with 1.08 be careful with descending. It allows you to descent faster than what is to be considered safe with the 9". I was not gonna advise you to do that. Use 8" props with 1.08. If you descent faster than 2m/s with 9" you have all the right to get into VRS sooner or later. Only with 8" you can do a 6m/s descent safely. Just tried .

 

[scubari]

If you still use 9" props with 1.08 be careful with descending. It allows you to descent faster than what is to be considered safe with the 9". I was not gonna advise you to do that. Use 8" props with 1.08. If you descent faster than 2m/s with 9" you have all the right to get into VRS sooner or later. Only with 8" you can do a 6m/s descent safely. Just tried .

Yeah man, i have been there..vrs. Im coming down in loops or moving all the time anyway
Cant wait for tomorrow to see if i have my old phantom "back"
I allso adjust gains for the first time.. so its gonna be interesting!

 

[lake_flyer]

Well, I did some further testing with 1.08 / 8' props.

Moderate breeze.
It seemed that this time there were more vibrations in the gimbal. Although the flying experience was better. It flew incredibly fast with a lot of tilt on full throttle. Almost got the entire front arms in the footage. Descending was also incredibly fast, with no more than a few bumps but very stabile.

However, tuning the gimbal have been a PITA and I really don't want to go through that again. Also, I noticed quite a fast power drain with this combination. So I moved it back to 3.06 and the 9" props.
And guess what, it flies better than before and the gimbal has even less vibration than before. All I did was changing the YAW gain to 140%, the rest on P2 factory default gains. My cheap gimbal likes 9" - 3.06 better, that's clear.

 

[CameraGuy]

I had a great afternoon.

I took my P2 with the H3 3D gimbal out for a test flight. 10 minutes of great footage even in a wind. Very happy camper.

Now this thread about trusting your Phantom it hit a real mark for me. About 20 months ago, I bought the Phantom 1, and in June of 2013, I had a flyaway that put it in the Lake. Completely wasted. The GoPro was somewhat salvageable - in other words I dried it out and it works when it feels like it, but everything else, including the GoPro 3+ Black needed replacing. So, I spent another $1500 and did it again, and I had a few decent days, but then a flyaway that was recorded, and put on youTube. You can see it here, it has had 15,000 views almost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLRwOeeHdlg

So, I decided to try this again, and I went out and bought the P2 with the H3 3D gimbal. I also bought a Hero 4, and purchased the 5.8Ghz radio. The strong belief was my flyways were caused by 2.4Ghz wifi or microwave interference - etc.

Todays flight, while in a pretty stiff wind of 20kmph using the regular radio, etc has returned my faith in this little product, and I will now do the radio conversion, put on the propeller guards, and the next flight will have a signal from the go pro going to my iPhone.

I'd love to add the ability to see the stats while flying, but don't know how, but I am happy with this. It is so rock steady, it's like the go pro was on a pole when I asked it to sit still. You can see the flight by visiting here.

Once again, this was flight one. Nothing fancy, just wanted to see what it would look like.

For the record, I brought it into Premiere, cropped the propellors that sometimes appeared due to the high wind, and made it a 1080 file for YouTube.

If you are interested, take a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqKBqoZ ... load_owner

Happy flying everyone. I know I am!!

Darren

 

[Cloud9]

You can use 8" props on your P2.

If you mount 8" (P1/FC40) props on your P2 you have most of the flight characteristics of the FC40 back. However, you should set the gains like on the FC40, maybe the vertical gain slightly higher. My FC40 is even heavier then my P2 and still use the 8". You loose 2 minutes of flying time but you get a very smooth flying P2.

Most of the problems with the P2 and the Vision are coming from the 9" props. DJI wanted to get the maximum flying time for their P2 family (Vision) quads so they came up with that 9" prop that's now standard on the entire P2 family. These 9" props do give a better lift and flying time. However, they also produce a lot more spoil of air. Now as long as you're climbing or flying straight there's no problem, be it that these props are less forgiving and quite harsh when you yaw. When you descent with these props the P2 gets in the extreme prop wash they produce. My P2 got in VRS during hovering, I didn't even have to descent for that.

We, P2 owners, are the victim of DJI's marketing positioning of the Vision+. They want to claim it is so easy to operate that anyone can fly it. And that it has the longest flying time. And with success. I know people who never before had a radio transmitter in their hands, buying a full fledged Vision2+. Even after I advised them to start small and learn how to fly in the first place. The vast number of fly aways and crashes are coming from this kind of V2+ users. (The naked P2 models seem to appeal more to experienced users who want to mod their quad to their own 'vision', like me :roll: ). So they dummed the whole P2 family down with their software 'upgrades' to a thing that won't let you do the fine programming and adjusting anymore that you still can with your FC40 or P1.1.1.

My advise: Try the 8" props on the P2. Use initially the same settings for gains as the FC40 does. Increase the vertical gain if it's too sluggish for your taste or if it's slowly descending when hovering. You get your smooth flying experience back for sure.

Another idea is to also downgrade to 1.8 software. That version at least allows you to adjust settings for third party gimbals and doesn't limit your descent rate. It will feel as a fully loaded FC40.

My FC40 still flies great with 8" props and it's weight is around 1400 grams while my P2 is only 1300 grams.

After starting my DJI journey with a FC40, the P2 I bought later was kind of a shock because it flew really jerky and unstable.
Besides, the 3.X software limits you in almost everything. You can only descent with 2m/s and when you do, there's no way to stay out of the prop wash because the Phantom will commence a straight down landing and won't react to your sticks anymore, until you descent even slower, only then you get control back. Descending from 300m takes forever this way. This frustrates me. I always descent in a slope but with the P2, if I pull the stick down too much it hits 2m/s and it just stops in midair with a big bump (gimbal just clashes up and down at that moment) and starts to descent on that very spot. Ridiculous! And the descent is not smooth although terribly slow. It still bounces up and down like mad. And is always on the verge of going into VRS, I just feel it. It sometimes drops 3 to 6 feet in less then a fraction of a second. It never led to problems but it is a cumbersome way to come home.

P2 users who never flown a P1 or FC40 will probably never know how extremely smooth and forgiving a Phantom can be unless they ditch the 9"'s and 3.X software.

There are very experienced pilots here with Vision2+'s, for sure. But the total package seem appeal to many novice flyers hence the amount of pilot induced error and the dummed down software DJI came up with. It even starts up default in a 'Phantom' mode that doesn't allow IOC.

I am going to do a downgrade to 1.8 and mount the 8"s myself. The weather is not cooperating right now but I will share my experiences here.

Hmm..this got me thinking. I remember a while back when everyone was raving about the increased flight times you get by upgrading your P1 to P2 props. And when you've got a P1 with 7 minute flights, it was very appealing.

Well I bought a pair and realized I wasn't a phan (pun intended) of the flight characteristics. Was much more skirmish and even sitting still in GPS it would jitter about.

I remember one day trying them on a 10mph windy day..that was a nightmare it looked like it would topple over at any second!
Could be partially my fault for not adjusting gains but gain settings are foreign to me.
So yeah, my P2 reminds me a bit of my P1 with the P2 props (not as bad) but the P1 is definitely a smoother flier.

I've got a P2, H3-3D, vtx, iOSD and Hero3+ what are your gains for the 8" props?

 

[Cloud9]

Not sure about any consequences for your 3D gimbal. But as you said, it has it's own controller so I think you're safe.

Let me know how it works!

I just took it up again, just before dinner. It is great. I even landed it on the available 3 square meters on my balcony, in gusty wind 3-4Bfr. No sweat at all. With the 9"s I always hand cached just to be safe. But with the good old 8"s I immediately felt in total control again.

Wow, it was thanks to this thread that I finally did what I was thinking about since the first minute I had this P2.
I'm going to love my P2. I must admit I was underwhelmed when I first took it in the air. But I'm happy again.

Thanks OP!

Nice! So I should just adjust the vertical to 120% after putting on the 8s?

I thought those props would have a harder time keeping the heavier P2 in the air

Not sure about any consequences for your 3D gimbal. But as you said, it has it's own controller so I think you're safe.

Let me know how it works!

I just took it up again, just before dinner. It is great. I even landed it on the available 3 square meters on my balcony, in gusty wind 3-4Bfr. No sweat at all. With the 9"s I always hand cached just to be safe. But with the good old 8"s I immediately felt in total control again.

Wow, it was thanks to this thread that I finally did what I was thinking about since the first minute I had this P2.
I'm going to love my P2. I must admit I was underwhelmed when I first took it in the air. But I'm happy again.

Thanks OP!

 

[lake_flyer]

I just hit the default button on the gains page in 1.08. Then I changed the vertical gain to 120%. I think 140% would even be better.

It flies incredibly smooth with 8". the noise of the props is also very soft. Descending is a new experience. Down like an arrow in a straight line with maximum speed forward while descending at 4m/s. Feels like a sports car compared to a mini van. However, my 8" props are already quite old and a bit chipped. I noticed a different kind of vibration in my footage and decided to go back to 3.06 and 9".

For pure flying fun 1.08 and 8" is a great combination anyhow. You loose a couple of minutes flying time however.

 

[lake_flyer]

I thought those props would have a harder time keeping the heavier P2 in the air

The motors will do more RPM with 8". But the higher the RPM, the easier it is for the Phantom to respond to changes. That's why it feels a lot smoother. It's like a car in a low gear. It reacts faster and with more torque than the same car in a high gear.

 

[jason]

I seem to recall your have problems (lake_flyer) and **** near losing your unit to that big lake in another thread. Also your comments regarding the flight characteristics of the 9" props are truly unfounded.