Separate battery for gimbal?

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I've just hooked up my goodluckbuy gimbal a few days ago and I'm not happy with the flight times I'm getting. 4 1/2 minutes with 2200 mah and 5.5 minutes with 2700 mah.I have prop guards,extended landing gear and my fpv transmitter.
So do they make a separate battery yoo can just hookup to the gimbal? It seems like probably a button cell would supply enough power for the gimbal? If someone made a setup that held a button cell and had a jst-xh connector that would be perfect,it would be very lightweight.
Something like in the picture except with jst-xh connector,it holds two 2032 button cells.Do they make something like this or do I need to invent it? lol
 

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What your planning may work but the benefits may be minimal. The problem is the additional weight of the gimbal...that has lowered your flying times. Throwing a battery for rhe gimbal will make it no better either. The power consumption by the gimbal is very minimal but give it a try and see what you come up with. Good luck!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
 
FangsCPO said:
What your planning may work but the benefits may be minimal. The problem is the additional weight of the gimbal...that has lowered your flying times. Throwing a battery for rhe gimbal will make it no better either. The power consumption by the gimbal is very minimal but give it a try and see what you come up with. Good luck!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
Yeah I didnt think about the additional weight of the gimbal,I was thinking about the power consumption.I guess the way to test it would be to fly it without powering up the gimbal and see what my flight times would be
 
I was also disappointed at the loss of flight time when I added my gimbal. I was considering an auxiliary battery to power both my gimbal and AV Tx. The advice from several of the more experienced guys is that it wasn't worth the trip. Neither use very much power and any gain would be more than offset by the weight penalty of the extra battery.

It's really all about the weight. The rule of thumb is that you loose a second of flight time for every gram of added weight. So if your gimbal + Gopro weighs 300 gm. it will cost you 5 minutes of flight time. I did some experiments that supported what the experts were telling me. My gimbal + AV Tx use about 100 mah per flight. So if I turned both off I can get about another 25 sec. of flight time since the Phantom uses about 4 mah. per second just to fly. I can find about a 300 mah 11.1v lipo for auxiliary power, however it weighs about 40 gm. So my flight time would be 15 sec. less and I'd have to charge or change the aux. battery every other flight.

How much does your Phantom weigh with everything? Mine is about 1200 gm. and I'm getting 9.5 to 10 minutes with a 2700 mah battery and P2 props.

To improve your flight times; get rid of the prop guards (they're costing you about a minute), get some P2 props (they're good for about + 2 minutes), and use a good 2700 mah battery, like a Maddog.
 
joeflyer said:
I was also disappointed at the loss of flight time when I added my gimbal. I was considering an auxiliary battery to power both my gimbal and AV Tx. The advice from several of the more experienced guys is that it wasn't worth the trip. Neither use very much power and any gain would be more than offset by the weight penalty of the extra battery.

It's really all about the weight. The rule of thumb is that you loose a second of flight time for every gram of added weight. So if your gimbal + Gopro weighs 300 gm. it will cost you 5 minutes of flight time. I did some experiments that supported what the experts were telling me. My gimbal + AV Tx use about 100 mah per flight. So if I turned both off I can get about another 25 sec. of flight time since the Phantom uses about 4 mah. per second just to fly. I can find about a 300 mah 11.1v lipo for auxiliary power, however it weighs about 40 gm. So my flight time would be 15 sec. less and I'd have to charge or change the aux. battery every other flight.

How much does your Phantom weigh with everything? Mine is about 1200 gm. and I'm getting 9.5 to 10 minutes with a 2700 mah battery and P2 props.

To improve your flight times; get rid of the prop guards (they're costing you about a minute), get some P2 props (they're good for about + 2 minutes), and use a good 2700 mah battery, like a Maddog.

I just tested it without powering on the gimbal,same results,so both of you are correct,its all about the weight.
I hate to lose the prop guards,reason being I've had phantom drop out of the air on me twice and discovered e clips were off,and Ive found my eclips off a couple times before flying,so If I'm flying this over any people and it drops I want the guards on there for their protection.
I dont have a way to weigh it
 
I'm a pretty good pilot and I don't fly above people..........that much. You need to be very careful. Prop guards or not, if that bird falls out of the sky, the weight of the Phantom and the speed it will pick up from dropping from any altitude will cause serious injury. Also keep in mind I discovered that once I had a gimbal on my Phantom when it went into secondary fail safe, it would land on its own but due to the increase of weight, it will come down faster than you would like and you could break something. So avoid the secondary red fail safe light. As soon as you think you are going to hit the primary red fail safe light....start coming down for a landing. Good Luck and stay safe!
 
htownphantom said:
I've just hooked up my goodluckbuy gimbal a few days ago and I'm not happy with the flight times I'm getting. 4 1/2 minutes with 2200 mah and 5.5 minutes with 2700 mah.I have prop guards,extended landing gear and my fpv transmitter.
So do they make a separate battery yoo can just hookup to the gimbal? It seems like probably a button cell would supply enough power for the gimbal? If someone made a setup that held a button cell and had a jst-xh connector that would be perfect,it would be very lightweight.
Something like in the picture except with jst-xh connector,it holds two 2032 button cells.Do they make something like this or do I need to invent it? lol

You and I have the same setup (minus the FPV) With the stock 2200 mAh batteries I was getting around 6 mins of flight time. I moved up to 2700 mAh lectron batteries and I got over 9 mins on my last flight. Weight kills everything.

To answer your question about the wire harness, I ended up making my own. I cut and tapped into an S3 balancing cable and soldered a JST into it so I could power both the gimbal and battery buzzer off the phantom battery.

You can see it in my video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E3lEKn2 ... e&index=10
 
joeflyer said:
I was also disappointed at the loss of flight time when I added my gimbal. I was considering an auxiliary battery to power both my gimbal and AV Tx. The advice from several of the more experienced guys is that it wasn't worth the trip. Neither use very much power and any gain would be more than offset by the weight penalty of the extra battery.

It's really all about the weight. The rule of thumb is that you loose a second of flight time for every gram of added weight. So if your gimbal + Gopro weighs 300 gm. it will cost you 5 minutes of flight time. I did some experiments that supported what the experts were telling me. My gimbal + AV Tx use about 100 mah per flight. So if I turned both off I can get about another 25 sec. of flight time since the Phantom uses about 4 mah. per second just to fly. I can find about a 300 mah 11.1v lipo for auxiliary power, however it weighs about 40 gm. So my flight time would be 15 sec. less and I'd have to charge or change the aux. battery every other flight.

How much does your Phantom weigh with everything? Mine is about 1200 gm. and I'm getting 9.5 to 10 minutes with a 2700 mah battery and P2 props.

To improve your flight times; get rid of the prop guards (they're costing you about a minute),
get some P2 props
(they're good for about + 2 minutes), and use a good 2700 mah battery, like a Maddog.

I bought some aftermarket p2 props,it flew wacky.Does dji make phantom 2 props that fit the phantom 1 without any modification?
 
OI Photography said:
htownphantom said:
I bought some aftermarket p2 props,it flew wacky.Does dji make phantom 2 props that fit the phantom 1 without any modification?

Yes. Does your P1 have 2 black prop nuts and 2 silver? Or all 4 black?

Mine has all silver but I bought it used from B&H photo.They all screw on the same direction if that helps
 
htownphantom said:
OI Photography said:
htownphantom said:
I bought some aftermarket p2 props,it flew wacky.Does dji make phantom 2 props that fit the phantom 1 without any modification?

Yes. Does your P1 have 2 black prop nuts and 2 silver? Or all 4 black?

Mine has all silver but I bought it used from B&H photo.They all screw on the same direction if that helps

Sure does :) Here's the ones you'll need: http://1uas.com/DJI-Propeller-9-White-P ... uts-To-Fix
 
htownphantom said:
I've just hooked up my goodluckbuy gimbal a few days ago and I'm not happy with the flight times I'm getting. 4 1/2 minutes with 2200 mah and 5.5 minutes with 2700 mah.I have prop guards,extended landing gear and my fpv transmitter.
So do they make a separate battery yoo can just hookup to the gimbal? It seems like probably a button cell would supply enough power for the gimbal? If someone made a setup that held a button cell and had a jst-xh connector that would be perfect,it would be very lightweight.
Something like in the picture except with jst-xh connector,it holds two 2032 button cells.Do they make something like this or do I need to invent it? lol

I have P2 props, ebay gimbal, and prop guards and with a 2700 maH I get solid 8 minutes.

Upgrade your props and you will be happier.
 
JaysDMC said:
htownphantom said:
I've just hooked up my goodluckbuy gimbal a few days ago and I'm not happy with the flight times I'm getting. 4 1/2 minutes with 2200 mah and 5.5 minutes with 2700 mah.I have prop guards,extended landing gear and my fpv transmitter.
So do they make a separate battery yoo can just hookup to the gimbal? It seems like probably a button cell would supply enough power for the gimbal? If someone made a setup that held a button cell and had a jst-xh connector that would be perfect,it would be very lightweight.
Something like in the picture except with jst-xh connector,it holds two 2032 button cells.Do they make something like this or do I need to invent it? lol

You and I have the same setup (minus the FPV) With the stock 2200 mAh batteries I was getting around 6 mins of flight time. I moved up to 2700 mAh lectron batteries and I got over 9 mins on my last flight. Weight kills everything.

To answer your question about the wire harness, I ended up making my own. I cut and tapped into an S3 balancing cable and soldered a JST into it so I could power both the gimbal and battery buzzer off the phantom battery.

You can see it in my video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E3lEKn2 ... e&index=10

9 is pretty good. I'll try lectron. They're cheaper than the 2700 thunder power batteries i was using and getting only 8 min with gimbal and P2 props.
 
Got my new battery today.Put on the ebay P2 props I had,made sure they were balanced.Took it to a grass field,got 3' off the ground and flipped upside down.Gimbal came loose,was holding on by 2 rubbers.Not sure which happened first,the gimbal coming loose or the crash knocked it off.I meant to zip tie gimbal but forgot,not sure if the thrust of the new props made it come loose or what.
But it screwed up my gimbal and my phantom,which was surprising since it was the softest crash Ive had,didnt even damage the props.
Gimbal just flashes red now.Phantom was blinking yellow red green.Plugged it in to computer,got the dreaded error 25 message.
Took IMU out and banged it on the table and reinstalled it and it seems to be ok now but I havent flown it yet.
I dont have the software to try and upload it to gimbal and even if I did I dont know the procedure on how to put it on the gimbal and see if that would fix it.
I've got to get a new shell also.I took this guys advice: http://vimeo.com/65607135
I drilled holes in the shell to make it easy to lubricate the bearings which seemed like a good idea but Ive got lots of hairline cracks that ive glued coming from the holes I drilled,Im sure its weakened the shell by doing that.
 
Sorry to hear about the crash. Sounds like you've made a lot of mods, some of which are questionable (generally, lubricating motors isn't recommended on the Phantom 2212s, and drilling out the motor mounts to do that weakens them), but whether they are attributable to the crash is uncertain. I'd definitely check to see if any of your motors are loose or if you've lost any e-clips to the bells...an upside-down flip is pretty extreme and suggests a sudden mechanical/physical fault.
 
I didn't catch this thread earlier on, but glad to see everyone chiming in with solid advice about NOT adding the extra battery.

one of the other benefits of not adding the extra battery is simply for the fact that you will never have to worry about worrying about charging it up (or having the extra battery run out of juice mid-flight).
 
ElGuano said:
Sorry to hear about the crash. Sounds like you've made a lot of mods, some of which are questionable (generally, lubricating motors isn't recommended on the Phantom 2212s, and drilling out the motor mounts to do that weakens them), but whether they are attributable to the crash is uncertain. I'd definitely check to see if any of your motors are loose or if you've lost any e-clips to the bells...an upside-down flip is pretty extreme and suggests a sudden mechanical/physical fault.

Yeah when your first starting out you get advice and do mods that are not good but theres no way of knowing for sure who's right and whos wrong.your the first person I've seen say you dont need to lubricate the bearings in these motors.{and I'm not saying your wrong,I just dont know}
The lubricating holes seemed like a great idea at the time,not so much now with the cracks.
I check the motors and eclips before each flight{another good thing about the holes was easy access to eclips}and that was not the problem.It was either the gimbal coming off on one side causing it to have too much weight on one side and flipping it,or it was these P2 props not performing like they should and causing it to flip.I've used these props before but not with the gimbal.
 
Apparently the crash has also fked up my gopro.It turns on but no matter what computer I plug it into its not being recognized
 

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