Phantom V1 or Phantom V2 (pros & cons)

[DeweyAXD]

Thanks that is super helpful and thanks for sharing your video.
I have a few questions from what I have seen in your video and link (excuse my ignorance):

1 - If I purchased a Phantom V1 with pmu for zenmuse and I wanted mini iosd would it be necessary to do your can bus hack?

2 - regarding the P2 shell, why would you want to fit a P2 lipo for £105 when you could buy decent 5000mah lipo to fit for £30?

3 - is there a benefit of me ditching the pmu and fitting the upgrade board instead?

Thanks again,
James

Sorry James I forgot to get back and check this. A lot of good answers and comments from everyone as I'd expect. My answers to this question:

1) No... if you get the PMU v2 the CAN BUS port is on the PMUv2 itself. The PMUv2 pretty much takes over from the main board apart from the actual routing of power to the ESC's

2) Answered by a few and the 'smart battery' option is still subject for debate. The key thing for me is that even with the plastic casing the power to weight ratio of the 5200 is 1.6 .... that is about as good for any lipo I've found on hobby king. I found a 6400mah that is 502g on HK (A Turnigy NANO tech). On paper that looks good but it is power to weight of 1.4 - this means it will likely give about the same flight time as the 5200 but be a lot heavier in the air. Further testing to come on it all!

3) Personally I think there is. Less mess inside, if you do the Sarawuth mod as per those links you get your canbus port and if done right you can shave what we (the people trying this) believe to be about 60-80g over using the PMUv2... that is a whole Hero3's worth of weight. It is also a lot less cluttered inside (especially if using a non stock TX).

Other comments in here are well worth listening to. I for one believe that the new TX on the P1.1.1 and P2 is probably a help on some of the reliability issues. Having said that I had a flyaway crash on a NAZA v2 F450 with my Futaba T8J (almost certainly caused by calibrating my compass in a bad area).

Personally right now I believe the upgraded P1 into a P2 shell leaves you with very few drawbacks and from RC Groups and all the investigating people have done: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2085480 it has been suggested and tested that the NAZA v2 itself has the limiter inside it that stops stock lipo's being used (seems swapping to a non P2 Nava v2 allowed its use). That is all still subject to testing BUT if proved and if re-flashing the NAZA to non Phantom 2 specs can't be done, then it means Phantom v1 with upgrade board inside actually will give you the most options.

 

[ElGuano]

Personally right now I believe the upgraded P1 into a P2 shell leaves you with very few drawbacks and from RC Groups and all the investigating people have done: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2085480 it has been suggested and tested that the NAZA v2 itself has the limiter inside it that stops stock lipo's being used (seems swapping to a non P2 Nava v2 allowed its use). That is all still subject to testing BUT if proved and if re-flashing the NAZA to non Phantom 2 specs can't be done, then it means Phantom v1 with upgrade board inside actually will give you the most options.

My thought is if it were easy to defeat the locked bootloader and flash the NAZA firmware, there's be no NAZA Lites out there anymore by now. I don't think there's a very strong EE hacking community out there for the NAZA, which is going to make the proprietary battery issue difficult to defeat.

 

[Jmm_jammy]

This thread is answering a lot of questions for me and many others I'm sure, one other question...
ElGuano I looked at your mods on RcGroups and the x2 maddog soldering lipos together seems a bit overwhelming for me, would I get a similar effect putting 2 of these http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=31980 on a "Y" connector setup? The Compacts are only 203g each.
Would that get me 15min flight with zenmuse, fpv, iosd?

Thanks!

 

[ElGuano]

Phantom V1 or Phantom V2 (pros & cons)

This thread is answering a lot of questions for me and many others I'm sure, one other question...
ElGuano I looked at your mods on RcGroups and the x2 maddog soldering lipos together seems a bit overwhelming for me, would I get a similar effect putting 2 of these http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=31980 on a "Y" connector setup? The Compacts are only 203g each.
Would that get me 15min flight with zenmuse, fpv, iosd?

Thanks!

Those compacts won't work. They're too tall and too long to fit in the shell. Plus, they actually weigh *more* than the maddogs.

It will be very, very hard to hit 15 safe and reliable minutes on a P1 without significant mods. Parallel connectors are 20g+ in weight, soldering batteries saves you up to 20g. That's a 40g difference before you even talk about how to mount those two batteries to the craft. The weight matters more than you think, if you frequently make compromise decisions that add it rather than subtract it, you'll find it very hard to ever hit 15min.

I'd recommend going with the p2. Everyone runs that with zenmuse, avl58 and iOsd and everyone gets over 15minute flight times without even trying.

 

[Jmm_jammy]

This thread is answering a lot of questions for me and many others I'm sure, one other question...
ElGuano I looked at your mods on RcGroups and the x2 maddog soldering lipos together seems a bit overwhelming for me, would I get a similar effect putting 2 of these http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=31980 on a "Y" connector setup? The Compacts are only 203g each.
Would that get me 15min flight with zenmuse, fpv, iosd?

Thanks!

Those compacts won't work. They're too tall and too long to fit in the shell. Plus, they actually weigh *more* than the maddogs.

It will be very, very hard to hit 15 safe and reliable minutes on a P1 without significant mods. Parallel connectors are 20g+ in weight, soldering batteries saves you up to 20g. That's a 40g difference before you even talk about how to mount those two batteries to the craft. The weight matters more than you think, if you frequently make compromise decisions that add it rather than subtract it, you'll find it very hard to ever hit 15min.

I'd recommend going with the p2. Everyone runs that with zenmuse, avl58 and iOsd and everyone gets over 15minute flight times without even trying.

Ok something has changed now
I just got a brand new phantom v1 for £195 free postage. Not sure if I should keep this and mod with the money I have saved, or sell it on!

 

[ElGuano]

Re: Phantom V1 or Phantom V2 (pros & cons)

This thread is answering a lot of questions for me and many others I'm sure, one other question...
ElGuano I looked at your mods on RcGroups and the x2 maddog soldering lipos together seems a bit overwhelming for me, would I get a similar effect putting 2 of these http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=31980 on a "Y" connector setup? The Compacts are only 203g each.
Would that get me 15min flight with zenmuse, fpv, iosd?

Thanks!

Those compacts won't work. They're too tall and too long to fit in the shell. Plus, they actually weigh *more* than the maddogs.

It will be very, very hard to hit 15 safe and reliable minutes on a P1 without significant mods. Parallel connectors are 20g+ in weight, soldering batteries saves you up to 20g. That's a 40g difference before you even talk about how to mount those two batteries to the craft. The weight matters more than you think, if you frequently make compromise decisions that add it rather than subtract it, you'll find it very hard to ever hit 15min.

I'd recommend going with the p2. Everyone runs that with zenmuse, avl58 and iOsd and everyone gets over 15minute flight times without even trying.

Ok something has changed now
I just got a brand new phantom v1 for £195 free postage. Not sure if I should keep this and mod with the money I have saved, or sell it on!

Trust me, it's about the same money in the end, just whether you want to give it away in dribs and drabs or one lump sum

If you like to tinker as much as you like to fly, the P1 is a great platform and has a lot potential. If you really just want to get in the air with as few worries and for as long as possible, I'd still recommend going the P2 route.

It's your choice, and hard to make a bad decision IMO!

 

[Jmm_jammy]

It's a P1 with naza v2, do I still need to buy a pmu or upgrade board?

Yes I like tinkering, I built my tbs disco with custom gimbal from scratch.
I'll be happy if I get this phantom to an average 12min+ Fully loaded.

Already ordered dji mini OSD

 

[ElGuano]

Re: Phantom V1 or Phantom V2 (pros & cons)

It's a P1 with naza v2, do I still need to buy a pmu or upgrade board?

Yes I like tinkering, I built my tbs disco with custom gimbal from scratch.
I'll be happy if I get this phantom to an average 12min+ Fully loaded.

Already ordered dji mini OSD

12 min is easy. You may not even need dual batteries (I can hit that with a single 2700). If you built the disco, keep the p1, it'll be a piece of cake for you.

If you want iOsd, you need either: pmu-v2, or upgrade board with canBus wire mod.

 

[Jmm_jammy]

It's a P1 with naza v2, do I still need to buy a pmu or upgrade board?

Yes I like tinkering, I built my tbs disco with custom gimbal from scratch.
I'll be happy if I get this phantom to an average 12min+ Fully loaded.

Already ordered dji mini OSD

12 min is easy. You may not even need dual batteries (I can hit that with a single 2700). If you built the disco, keep the p1, it'll be a piece of cake for you.

If you want iOsd, you need either: pmu-v2, or upgrade board with canBus wire mod.

I thought I could do away with them bits if I had naza v2, ok I guess the upgrade board is the lightest option with the canBus mod.

What's the largest single lipo I can squeeze in the battery compartment if I done a bit of filing / dremel?

 

[ElGuano]

Re: Phantom V1 or Phantom V2 (pros & cons)

What's the largest single lipo I can squeeze in the battery compartment if I done a bit of filing / dremel?

If you carve up your battery opening, you can run this: http://www.thunderpowerrc.com/5400-mAh_2/TP5400-3SPP25

It's essentially my battery in retail form! Costs twice as much but you don't need to solder anything yourself.

Question is, at that price, it's almost a P2 battery, is it still a deal?

 

[vrso2]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPubleP4k88[/youtube]

 

[ladykate]

The DSLRPros phantom is a bit expensive (but of course you get a lot). Building your own would be more fun I would think. However, I'm not a builder anyway so I'm just sayin'... not sayin'...

 

[Jmm_jammy]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPubleP4k88[/youtube]

Seen this many times, they manage to run 16 minutes before the low voltage light, yet they have a external dual lipo setup?

Also... Do people change the red stripes to blue on the phantom 1?

What's the largest single lipo I can squeeze in the battery compartment if I done a bit of filing / dremel?

If you carve up your battery opening, you can run this: http://www.thunderpowerrc.com/5400-mAh_2/TP5400-3SPP25

It's essentially my battery in retail form! Costs twice as much but you don't need to solder anything yourself.

Question is, at that price, it's almost a P2 battery, is it still a deal?

Yes that is expensive, is there a near equivalent from HK? As I'm in the UK shipping from overseas make nothing worth while buying for here!

 

[ladykate]

Seen this many times, they manage to run 16 minutes before the low voltage light, yet they have a external dual lipo setup?

Is the DSLRPros' version $2600? I keep finding that number but I'm unsure if it is the version in the YouTube clip. If it is $2600, you can get a decked out P2 and several P2 batteries and still beat that price. Charging time is irrelevant if you have spare batteries - unless you want to fly all day - in which case you would be in a very small minority.

 

[DeweyAXD]

Also... Do people change the red stripes to blue on the phantom 1?

I changed mine to blue about 4 months before the Phantom 2 was released using some 3M masking tape I use for spray work... clearly they copied me and I am now owed a gazwillion dollars :lol: