No image transmission after P3A crash

Joined
Apr 2, 2015
Messages
187
Reaction score
16
Hi,

My P3A fell out of the sky. Seems like suddenly there was no power at all even though the battery was 86% full. Luckily it dropped onto sagebrush (or a similar plant) and apparently only the vibration absorbing board was broken. Some rotors also broke, and I replaced all of them. One of the arms also buckled and cracked a little, but the damaged appeared to only be cosmetic. The cable that connected the gimbal to the inside the main phantom body was ripped cleanly off of the plastic terminal.

So I opened the phantom up and replaced the gimbal cable. When reassembling everything I also replaced the little cable grey that go between the gimbal and the rectangular lobe that also houses the two downward-pointing visual positioning sensors. That cable didn't seem to be broken because of the crash, but since I had to buy a whole new set of cables, I thought I might as well replace it.

When I first tried to fly the repaired Phantom, it first had various problems. For example, the camera didn't point horizontally forwards. It also went into Atti mode without me doing anything to cause it. Worst of all, there is no image coming back to the controller. The status display claimed that this was because the gimbal wasn't connected. After turning everything (the Phantom, the controller, and the iPad) off and on again, the camera now pointed horizontally forwards as expected and it seemed to be flying in the 'P' mode as expected. HOWEVER, I still did not get any image from the camera! Any ideas would be appreciated. Which cable is responsible for transmitting the image?

Thanks!
P.S. To clarify: I changed the two grey cables, but NOT the complicated black cable which didn't seem to have broken. By the way, it was scary the way the Phantom fell out of the sky! What happened, and how do I prevent it in the future??
 
Last edited:
Hi,

My P3A fell out of the sky. Seems like suddenly there was no power at all even though the battery was 86% full. Luckily it dropped onto sagebrush (or a similar plant) and apparently only the vibration absorbing board was broken. Some rotors also broke, and I replaced all of them. One of the arms also buckled and cracked a little, but the damaged appeared to only be cosmetic. The cable that connected the gimbal to the inside the main phantom body was ripped cleanly off of the plastic terminal.

So I opened the phantom up and replaced the gimbal cable. When reassembling everything I also replaced the little cable grey that go between the gimbal and the rectangular lobe that also houses the two downward-pointing visual positioning sensors. That cable didn't seem to be broken because of the crash, but since I had to buy a whole new set of cables, I thought I might as well replace it.

When I first tried to fly the repaired Phantom, it first had various problems. For example, the camera didn't point horizontally forwards. It also went into Atti mode without me doing anything to cause it. Worst of all, there is no image coming back to the controller. The status display claimed that this was because the gimbal wasn't connected. After turning everything (the Phantom, the controller, and the iPad) off and on again, the camera now pointed horizontally forwards as expected and it seemed to be flying in the 'P' mode as expected. HOWEVER, I still did not get any image from the camera! Any ideas would be appreciated. Which cable is responsible for transmitting the image?

Thanks!
P.S. To clarify: I changed the two grey cables, but NOT the complicated black cable which didn't seem to have broken. By the way, it was scary the way the Phantom fell out of the sky! What happened, and how do I prevent it in the future??

So the end of the cable that connects to the P3 mainboard, that connection was OK? If so, I'd double check those connections and make sure none of the prongs are bent, smashed or torn from the solder points on the board. Then check all the connections on the ribbon cable. There are 4 total connection points: inside the camera, 2 gimbal motors and the mainboard. If they look good, you might want to replace them anyways. Does the red/green light on the camera mainboard light up? Does it recognize and SD card?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mo of Pocatello
So the end of the cable that connects to the P3 mainboard, that connection was OK? If so, I'd double check those connections and make sure none of the prongs are bent, smashed or torn from the solder points on the board. Then check all the connections on the ribbon cable. There are 4 total connection points: inside the camera, 2 gimbal motors and the mainboard. If they look good, you might want to replace them anyways. Does the red/green light on the camera mainboard light up? Does it recognize and SD card?

Thanks so much! You asked, "So the end of the cable that connects to the P3 mainboard, that connection was OK?" Yes, it was OK, but I replaced that cable and remade the same connection (with the new cable) carefully. I can undo that cable end again and see what it looks like. About the ribbon cable: No, I didn't check the connections at all. I'll check these 4 connections the next time I have time to work on the Phantom again. Thanks again.
 
Having watched a video on dismantling the camera, the process seems a little complicated. Since the ribbon cable looks good from the outside, I wonder if there's a way to reset the camera circuit. Sometimes a reset is what is needed.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,935
Latest member
Pauos31