P3 props... prone to stripping??

[msinger]

neslex, I never attempted to fly with unbalanced props. All of my props are balanced before their first flight. It's just part of the maintenance routine I like to do.

 

[Milehighdesign]

I have noticed a more balanced flight control. If you hover the P3 just at eye level. Watch the props and craft try to keep level or how level (stable) it sits in flight. Do this before and then after balancing the props. Thats how I could tell a big difference. Yes it flew great out of the box and took exceptional video and photos. It's that much better with balanced props. I haven't timed the flight vs non balanced. I did all the props I have so I don't have any to test against.

 

[Daninho]

Well the Jello is caused by motion and the rolling shutter in the camera. You can minimize the effect with your shutter speed.

Of course the jello is because of vibrations or movement BUT in this case most of the Phantom3's rolling shutter effect problems are because of the gimbal itself and not because of prop vibrations or motor vibrations etc.. Many ppl dont know that and balance their a**es off on props or using different rubber dampeners. Wrong props will cause vibrations as well but like i said most of the time the root is the gimbal itself and you can easily test it on the ground. If your gimbal makes noises and vibrate in a pulsating manner than you have one of those problematic gimbals. An unbalanced prop will give different looking jello, not pulsating every 2 secs.

minimize the shutter speed will only mask the problem and you will get worse quality compared to a gimbal without rolling shutter effect. I tested it with my gimbal. At 1/60 shutter speed the pulsating vibrations are still visible as a pulsating blurriness which again destroys your footage. On a little a**s smartphone screen you will off course not see it but on a normal 25 inch PC monitor or TV.

 

[Daninho]

neslex, I never attempted to fly with unbalanced props. All of my props are balanced before their first flight. It's just part of the maintenance routine I like to do.

again i wouldnt rate balanced props to high since many ppl balance their props to death with wrong tools etc.. For example i bought 3 different balancing rods for my phantom3, each of them give three different results on the dubro balancer and different results on another balancer. The widely availably thick aluminium rods are not suited for balancing at all, they are not precise enough.

I have many different props here for my Phantom1,2 and 3. Even 80 dollar antigravity ones, aeronaut, original 9450, 9443, cheap china ones etc.. Id say the difference isnt much, the most jello is because of bad gimbals. My H3-3D also produced tons of vibrations on the ground in intervals without even starting the motors. This will be seen as rolling shutter later in the video.

I guess 70% of ppl debalance their props, when i see that ppl just use the dubro original rod and put some paper on the tip and press the 9450 on it i can only shake my head, this will 100% debalance them. Even 1mm not centered exactly will give totally wrong results.

As you can see, the rod isnt even centered with this prop.

 

[Milehighdesign]

I had to 3d print 3 or 4 adaptors out of PET to get 1 that worked spot on for the shaft.

 

[flyNfrank]

The gimbal does a pretty good job at covering up small imperfections, so most people will probably never notice if their props are a bit off balance. With balanced props, your Phantom will fly more efficiently. That could mean a longer flight time, smoother movements, more stable hovering, etc. It's the same reason people balance wheels on cars -- all in the name of efficiency.

Out of balance props can eat a great deal of performance as msinger mentioned.

Once you have a prop that is out of wack, you will be able to tell when launching your quad that 1st 20-30ft at lift-off. You can hear the difference, and in some cases see it at lift-off.

The most common way to what I call "warp the prop", is from packing in the hardcase. Even though there is soft foam it will compress and warp the prop for anyone that does not remove their props prior to loading the quad in a hardcase.

You can generally see a warped prop just by bringing the ends of the props together when mounted on the quad. If one end of the prop is higher then the opposite end, then something is not right.

You can also measure from each end to say the table top. But you need to set the landing gear on something so that the legs are not sitting on the foot pad cushions. They can easily be at different heights so placing something solid and away from the cushions will give the best results with that method.

Btw, it has been found that the P3 props do have the potential to fly off if only hand tightened. I like to hand tighten them and then use the tool to slightly add that just enough past the hand tighten stopping point.

There is 3 ways props are known to loosen up and fly off. One is ESC failure where the motor stops instantly and spins backwards. Another is by the brake which is when you are say fly forward at full speed and let go of the lever to slow down. The last is when say flying forward at full speed and then use reverse to slow the quad down. You can fly using the mentioned possible ways and never ever have a problem. But then again there is that chance something could happen.