Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the camera?

[sifaka]

I had a P2V+ whose camera was removed because of a broken ribbon cable. I have been flying it without the camera, but with a gopro mount allowing me to take aerial photos with a Hero 3+. Yesterday I did some training flights and on the last one the P2V+ simply stopped responding to the controller, rose in the sky (it was at about 15m to start and rose to 30m or so), and flew away. As a last ditch I turned off the controller, hoping it would return home, but it just kept heading away at about 30-40m elevation. So the P2V+ is gone. My question is whether I can replace just the drone. I had already purchased a replacement vision+ camera ($676), but had not installed it. Fortunately, I had taken the GoPro 3+ off the drone, so I only lost the drone itself. I am thinking that maybe the best thing is to get a P2 and use the Go Pro (and try to sell the Vision+ camera, which does not have nearly the resolution of the GP3+), or replace the P2V+ drone and again outfit it to take either the Vision+ camera or a fixed mount Go Pro.

I cannot find online whether the P2 can accept the wiring harness of the P2V+ so that it can accept the Vision+ camera. I don't see any place that sells a bare P2V+ drone. Any ideas?

On another matter. This apparent flyaway occurred when the battery had 2 green bars. I have had this P2V+ fall out of the sky (completely non-responsive to the controller) @ 2 green bars, and fly itself into a cliff, non-responsive @ 2 green bars. In every case it was flying great for 8-15mins with no problems, then non-responsive. Is it the case that these should not be flown when the batteries are 50% or less? Was I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any insights,

Sifaka

 

[Dirty Bird]

Re: Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the cam

I routinely fly down to 10A% battery or less without issue. Your event was not caused by battery level. Thus far my aircraft has NEVER been unresponsive to the controls, whereas your's appears to have been unresponsive on multiple occasions. I cannot speak to the cause of your flyaway. Perhaps it lost GPS lock, entered ATTI mode, and drifted away with the wind? But clearly the bird needed to be sent in for diagnosis & service if you were having repeated instances of non-responsiveness.

 

[sifaka]

Re: Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the cam

I think one case was clearly a vortex issue, coming straight down. I don't remember seeing anything about this in the manual and learned about it the hard way. The second one still perplexes me as I had been flying for about 12 mins without any problem. There was no wind and I was in a completely open desert-like area where there was nothing that could interfer with the connection or the GPS. The P2V+ had performed flawlessly over a range of altitudes and distances of 3-30m. So I wasn't pushing the connection. I flying LOS and not using FPV. I was flying over the brow of a hill and the P2V+ was about 8m below me. I pulled it up level with me about 5M away and that's when it stopped responding and appeared to go into return home mode as it flew directly at me and I was standing between its current location and its takeoff location.

So is there some resource that has a full description of all of the calibration things that one can do? I calibrated the compass and made sure that I had a lock on GPS satellites and as I said, up until the failure it was performing flawlessly. The only thing that changed was that the battery was below 50%. These were new batteries and fully charged at the start.

Sifaka

 

[ilovecoffee]

Re: Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the cam

Oddly I've only seen this....can't find this part number any where else though!

http://www.greathobbies.com/productinfo ... JI-P2VP-10

 

[sbarton]

Re: Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the cam

You can buy used P2V+ w/o camera on eBay. Lots of them.

 

[kxkraze]

Re: Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the cam

It's posts just like yours that caused me to put a small autonomous GPS tracking unit on mine. If I have a fly away, I should still be able to track it down.


.

 

[DKDarkness]

Re: Is it possible to get a replacement P2V+ without the cam

I had a P2V+ whose camera was removed because of a broken ribbon cable. I have been flying it without the camera, but with a gopro mount allowing me to take aerial photos with a Hero 3+. Yesterday I did some training flights and on the last one the P2V+ simply stopped responding to the controller, rose in the sky (it was at about 15m to start and rose to 30m or so), and flew away. As a last ditch I turned off the controller, hoping it would return home, but it just kept heading away at about 30-40m elevation. So the P2V+ is gone. My question is whether I can replace just the drone. I had already purchased a replacement vision+ camera ($676), but had not installed it. Fortunately, I had taken the GoPro 3+ off the drone, so I only lost the drone itself. I am thinking that maybe the best thing is to get a P2 and use the Go Pro (and try to sell the Vision+ camera, which does not have nearly the resolution of the GP3+), or replace the P2V+ drone and again outfit it to take either the Vision+ camera or a fixed mount Go Pro.

I cannot find online whether the P2 can accept the wiring harness of the P2V+ so that it can accept the Vision+ camera. I don't see any place that sells a bare P2V+ drone. Any ideas?

On another matter. This apparent flyaway occurred when the battery had 2 green bars. I have had this P2V+ fall out of the sky (completely non-responsive to the controller) @ 2 green bars, and fly itself into a cliff, non-responsive @ 2 green bars. In every case it was flying great for 8-15mins with no problems, then non-responsive. Is it the case that these should not be flown when the batteries are 50% or less? Was I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any insights,

Sifaka

In theory you should be able to replace the 2.4 gHz receiver module in a P2 with a "DJIPV-16 DJI Phantom 2 Vision 5.8G Radio Receiver" and add the "P2V+ (Plus) Wifi Signal Transmission Module" to the P2. You'd need the "Phantom 2 Vision Plus PART 8 - CABLE PACK" too.