Two P2V+'s coming, after reading this board I'm confused

[Walter]

I have two Phantom 2 Vision + units coming this week. Cases, spare batteries, you name it.

After reading this board it seems I may have made a bad decision going with DJI. Tell me I am wrong.

I am an experienced quad copter pilot, at least in my opinion, and everything I had read up to this point didn't really bother me. Now, I am wondering if I went with the right company. Would there be another brand that you would recommend (I could still return everything at this point)?

 

[Dirty Bird]

I can't promise you that you'll never have a problem with your purchase. If you crash one, expect to lose a gimbal/camera. That's what you can expect crashing virtually ANY gimbal. What I can tell you is, if you thoroughly school yourself on the aircraft, use common sense and due diligence, the odds are you will have a lot of fun with your new Quads. There are plenty of us out here with lots of safe flights under our belts and thoroughly enjoying our Vision+.

 

[flyNfrank]

Do not take any part, of anything, for granted and you'll be just fine. Btw, do not upgrade either of your copters to the v3.04 firmware!!! The v3.04 currently has issues that will no doubt ruin your experience in no time.

 

[Meta4]

It's hard to say Walter since you don't give any details of what your concern relates to.
At the moment though there isn't another product that offers what the Phantom has and there are loads of very happy users.
If you are just scared because of a few negative posts, they are from a minority of users and the real cause of their problems isn't always DJI. The true picture of how many satisfied customers are out there doesn't come through if you concentrate on negative postings.

And take much of what you read here with a grain of salt. Lots of posters express opinions with supreme confidence even though they are based on very little evidence .

 

[JWarren]

This board will scare you because people come here for help with problems, not to tell their success stories. I purchased a PV2+ 3 weeks ago and had a gimbal problem. Flew great, excellent optics, no other issues. I was impressed enough that while the aircraft was being exchanged for a new one (B&H), I purchased another set up just like it (and yours). I got that one in 3 days ago, and have been flying the heck out of it, no problems. The other new one arrives tomorrow. As I said, you'll get "scared" by this site because people are looking for solutions and all you really hear about are the problems. Go to B&H's site and read the reviews. It will set your mind at ease without doubt. There are also people here on this board who have had hundreds of problem free flights. Just judging from what I've read, 90% + problems can be traced back to human error while other problems are hardware or software glitches for certain individual aircrafts. Unless you have problems right out of the box like quite a few on here have had, I'd say you have little to worry about. If you do, exchange it. Lastly, these are highly technically, advanced, cutting edge devices we are flying. **** is going to happen, just do all you can to be prepared. I'll step down from the soapbox now. :roll:

Regards,
Joel

 

[JWarren]

Do not take any part, of anything, for granted and you'll be just fine. Btw, do not upgrade either of your copters to the v3.04 firmware!!! The v3.04 currently has issues that will no doubt ruin your experience in no time.

Like flyNfrank's comment here makes me pause and gives me doubts because I did upgrade the unit I'm flying now to v3.04 :lol: Should I do the same to the one coming in tomorrow? I asked in another thread what to do and since I'm not going to be using ground station, I'm sticking with it I believe. I think. Probably. I'll sleep on it. :?

Regards,
J.

 

[Doono]

Hey Walter, you're not from DJI's marketing department are you?

 

[ftimster]

I have three and am very happy i to upgraded my phantoms and was not happy with the way it would fly very lame... i flashed my pv2+`s to the 1.08 firmware and am VERY happy now with all my quabs they fly like little turbos

 

[marcusdji]

It is a good toy, but here where I live there is the magnetic declination problem that was not fixed yet by the firmware.

And the biggest problem: my camera fell down by itself breaking the ribbon cable. No crashes at all...

 

[SilentAV8R]

Do not take any part, of anything, for granted and you'll be just fine. Btw, do not upgrade either of your copters to the v3.04 firmware!!! The v3.04 currently has issues that will no doubt ruin your experience in no time.

Funny both my P2V and P2V+ have been running the 3.04 software flawlessly since it came out.

 

[flyNfrank]

Do not take any part, of anything, for granted and you'll be just fine. Btw, do not upgrade either of your copters to the v3.04 firmware!!! The v3.04 currently has issues that will no doubt ruin your experience in no time.

Funny both my P2V and P2V+ have been running the 3.04 software flawlessly since it came out.

Actually there is nothing funny about the others who are less fortunate. I'm sure some would gladly trade with you in a heart beat to not have the issues they now have since upgrading to the v3.04 firmware. It's possible that you haven't paid attention to all the threads in both P2V & vPlus forums to be aware of whats going on.

 

[Phantom_Menace66]

Do not take any part, of anything, for granted and you'll be just fine. Btw, do not upgrade either of your copters to the v3.04 firmware!!! The v3.04 currently has issues that will no doubt ruin your experience in no time.

Funny both my P2V and P2V+ have been running the 3.04 software flawlessly since it came out.

+1
I also update to latest firmware with no issues. I'm not exactly sure what problem(s) this 3.04 firmware is actually causing...

 

[Phantom_Menace66]

Do not take any part, of anything, for granted and you'll be just fine. Btw, do not upgrade either of your copters to the v3.04 firmware!!! The v3.04 currently has issues that will no doubt ruin your experience in no time.

Why are you telling people not to upgrade their firmware? Could this not also be contributing to peoples paranoia? I have been flying my P2V+ with every new update that comes out with no issues. What problem is this firmware supposedly causing? Could it not be related to ones geographical location? If so, not upgrading firmware in a particular location could also have an adverse effect on the Phantoms behavior. Perhaps an enquiry as to where someone intends to be flying their Phantom is in order before giving advice as to whether to upgrade firmware or not.

Just my opinion

 

[JWarren]

Mine too has been flying OK with 3.04. And I decided I'm going to upgrade my second Phantom 2V+ today to it also.

 

[Walter]

Definitely not from DJI's marketing. ;-) You can read this thread and see why I am confused or more direct, worried if I went with the correct platform.

I understand everyone comes here to post up the problems but I didn't expect to see so many people swapping out complete units or complaining about the company not being all that responsive.

I absolutely plan to be cautious and it sucks that one crash will kill a gimbal. I don't plan on crashing but you never know what the future holds.

I will ask a few more questions without starting a new thread.

Is there a video or sticky on everything one should do before your first flight?
Is there a sticky that contains a preflight checklist everyone here has agreed upon?

There seems to be a lot of opinions regarding calibrating the compass before every flight. Seems weird to me but from everything I have read you should only do this when you move significant distances across the globe.

 

[phantomguy]

i think it's important to remember that at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of Phantoms of all models have been sold worldwide. Only a fraction of those owners post on this forum. I doubt that one can draw any real conclusions from the total population of Phantom owners just from this forum. I suspect there are a LOT of Phantom owners flying just fine on the most recent firmware. Just like there are others who prefer to fly on older firmware. All about choice.

 

[happydays]

Definitely not from DJI's marketing. ;-) You can read this thread and see why I am confused or more direct, worried if I went with the correct platform.

I understand everyone comes here to post up the problems but I didn't expect to see so many people swapping out complete units or complaining about the company not being all that responsive.

I absolutely plan to be cautious and it sucks that one crash will kill a gimbal. I don't plan on crashing but you never know what the future holds.

I will ask a few more questions without starting a new thread.

Is there a video or sticky on everything one should do before your first flight?
Is there a sticky that contains a preflight checklist everyone here has agreed upon?

There seems to be a lot of opinions regarding calibrating the compass before every flight. Seems weird to me but from everything I have read you should only do this when you move significant distances across the globe.

There are some great stickies (that apply to V+ as well) on the Phantom 2 Vision board.

CBS

 

[JWarren]

YouTube has several "quick start" videos from the start of opening the box. Start charging your battery and Wi-Fi booster first. The Wi-Fi booster will take about 3 hours to charge and you can be going over how to calibrate your compass and watching other videos that will have you in the air as soon as your Wi-Fi booster is ready.

Regards,
J.

 

[Walter]

Thank you all. I will keep searching YouTube. I have watched the unboxing from the DJI but was surprised not to easily find much more than that from the company itself.

I don't plan on going over the 400' ceiling and I will keep the P2V+ within 1000 feet (horizontally) to be sure. I don't plane to fly it like I stole it (La Trax Alias style).

 

[Phantom_Menace66]

Thank you all. I will keep searching YouTube. I have watched the unboxing from the DJI but was surprised not to easily find much more than that from the company itself.

I don't plan on going over the 400' ceiling and I will keep the P2V+ within 1000 feet (horizontally) to be sure. I don't plane to fly it like I stole it (La Trax Alias style).

The height/range can be limited in the assistant software. I have mine set on 120m(426ft) high and 500m(1640ft) range. I don't have any need to fly higher or further...