Upgrade Questions

[teebsa]

Hello, I recently purchased an FC40 and am hooked on these quads. I've flown FP heli's in the past so picking up quads came pretty naturally. So far I love my Phantom, but looking for a little more, much to my wife's chagrin.

I'm torn between selling the FC40 and getting a P2V+ or building on to the FC40 to get what I'm looking for. I have a few questions about the "upgradability" of the FC40. I apologize is these are newb questions, just don't quite understand what all possible with the FC40 based on my searches. I love the all in one concept of the V+, but kind of feel the camera is lacking, especially considering the GP4 is right around the corner and the upgrade path will be limited with it.

I'm considering replacing the FC40 cam with a gimbal, GPro, video rx/tx, FPV monitor, but wanted to know if live telemetry and waypoints would be possible with the stock FC40 electronics.

Is it worth upgrading the FC40 or just sell it and buy V+?

 

[Jermz]

Pros and cons of doing it each way

FC40 - you can buy it a few pieces at a time, you don't have to drop $1000+ all at once. A gopro can be used for many different things, the vision camera is just for your phantom, you really can't do a lot else with it. The stock FC40 camera isn't too bad on its own, it's not a gopro, but for a cheap camera it's pretty awesome.

Vision+ - it's pretty much ready to go. Installing and calibrating a gimbal on the fc40 isn't horrible, but it's definitely not plug and play. P2 batteries give you more flight time, but are about 5x's the cost. You have to modify the fc40 to put large batteries in it, you can't fit anything larger than a 2700 in it. The fc40 doesn't give you any telemetry via the wifi camera, the vision does.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wedeliver]

Hello, I recently purchased an FC40 and am hooked on these quads. I've flown FP heli's in the past so picking up quads came pretty naturally. So far I love my Phantom, but looking for a little more, much to my wife's chagrin.

I'm torn between selling the FC40 and getting a P2V+ or building on to the FC40 to get what I'm looking for. I have a few questions about the "upgradability" of the FC40. I apologize is these are newb questions, just don't quite understand what all possible with the FC40 based on my searches. I love the all in one concept of the V+, but kind of feel the camera is lacking, especially considering the GP4 is right around the corner and the upgrade path will be limited with it.

I'm considering replacing the FC40 cam with a gimbal, GPro, video rx/tx, FPV monitor, but wanted to know if live telemetry and waypoints would be possible with the stock FC40 electronics.

Is it worth upgrading the FC40 or just sell it and buy V+?

I think your question is a matter of opinion. For some of us it is worth it, or others it might be better to just bite the bullet. I think perhaps we need to consider what features we want and how we can get there.

For myself, I am very interested in FPV and I dream about flying around and it seeming that I am in the aircraft. To me that is almost as good as really flying. I also want to do photo stuff, try to give that other special view, for my RV Park in Northern California. So for that reason I need good steady smooth video camera and gimbal. So for the FPV I don't even think the Vision + has the fatshark goggles, so even more money... I want to win the game here and build a quadcopter around that and the camera I end up with.

At this point for me I cannot afford a better Phantom, thinking about a build your own from hobbyking or something like that for the future. But in the meantime I love what I got and I am trying learn to fly and by so doing I hope to learn what I want and need to full fill my goals. Good luck with yours

 

[teebsa]

Yeah, that's kind of my dilemma.

I can probably end up with a better rig by upgrading the FC40, at least from a video quality standpoint. I'm just not sure if the telemetry and waypoints can be added. I love everything the V+ has to offer, I just understand the camera has it's limitations and is really not upgradable at all.

This will mostly be used for hobby, but the occasional real estate or party/wedding shoot isn't out of the question and want to make sure I'm equipped for it.

 

[parkerman]

I have the 40 and my neighbor has the P2V+ If you can afford to change to the P2V+ then by all means do it. It is quite a complete unit. It offers so much more. # of sats. Heigth readout,beefier quad, larger props, longer range on FPV,etc. You will be glad you did.