After 2 months and 2 failed repair attempts, I ended up with a new camera/gimbal unit. Everything looked AOK after installing and recalibrating. Took it to my usual flying field and waited for home lock, which I never got. It wouldn't pick up more than 5 satellites, where before I'd get 8 or 10 within one minute of powering up. I had low satellite numbers when first got the phantom 3 months ago, so I did the gps aluminum foil mod which worked like a charm at the time.
I'm sure it's the camera that's causing the drop because did a quick field test and removed camera/gimbal cables to disable the electronics, powered up again, and sure enough I got home lock and green only blinks within a minute. Couldn't get an exact number because I had no telemetry, but the problem was obvious. This is all before I even switched on the video, which probably would have caused a further drop in sats.
Is it possible that different units of the same vision plus cameras are emitting varying levels of interference? I still have aluminum tape from the last mod... does anyone know of a thread or have a suggestion on how to further isolate the the camera from the gps module? I'll start rereading that huge foil mod thread again to see if it addresses this specifically, but I also wanted to share this experience to see if anyone has any insights as to what may be happening. I really want to get back to flying!
I'm sure it's the camera that's causing the drop because did a quick field test and removed camera/gimbal cables to disable the electronics, powered up again, and sure enough I got home lock and green only blinks within a minute. Couldn't get an exact number because I had no telemetry, but the problem was obvious. This is all before I even switched on the video, which probably would have caused a further drop in sats.
Is it possible that different units of the same vision plus cameras are emitting varying levels of interference? I still have aluminum tape from the last mod... does anyone know of a thread or have a suggestion on how to further isolate the the camera from the gps module? I'll start rereading that huge foil mod thread again to see if it addresses this specifically, but I also wanted to share this experience to see if anyone has any insights as to what may be happening. I really want to get back to flying!