another dji vision no gps battery gimbal tilt control thread, 2018 edition :)

[dronecamino]

Hello, greetings! I am new to drones but am pretty good with electronics and soldering etc so I thought I might be able to get this drone working.... I got a P2V from a guy, has a rotorpixel gimbal, was upgraded to fpvlr stage 2 antennas (before I started troubleshooting) and I am hoping to either get it all the way working for a decent price or sell it and stop fussing around with it! Here is where it is at:

it had a bad lipo battery in RE500 range extender (would not hold charge) and a bad usb port so I soldered a better port in from an old blackberry and also an old battery from said blackberry, works great now, charges and holds plenty good. Next I was having trouble using app where nothing would show up when connected to wifi. Learned I needed to pair the egg which I did using mac address sniffed via wifi analyzer app.

Now I get access to sd card and have picture, but gps, battery, alt, speed, and tilt for gimbal are not working.

Here is what I have done to try and determine root of problem:
-install on 2 android devices (cats60 and nexus 7) both litichi free and dji vision apps, same
-wiggle wires to gps, wiggle all other wires, advanced drone calibration, calibrate gimbal, test continuity between white wire to egg and main board, it has continuity all the way to mainboard solders to white wre extender at egg.
connect egg at original white wire bypassing extender, factory mainboard reset and reinstall firmware, reseat most wires going to anything important. no dice so far, here are some pictures, I hope there is an answer or some further advice! thanks!!

drone will "see gps satalites when started out in the open but I have not flown much due to the battery issue. Also what would be the best bet on a battery? I am considering buying something to at least fly around with and I am a little unsure which I should go with... hate to buy a dji one and end up not getting the features working.... dynamic home point sounds fun!

Here are some pictures I took in case they help Imgur: The magic of the Internet

just thinking out loud, any way to tell if the contacts on the egg are good? I know that pins 1-4 (4 being closest to the wire) go data, data, ground, positive. Could be a buggered port? Or could it be the mainboard not sending the data on the pins? any easy way to "sniff" that? Could still be a bad wire even though continuity shows fine on dvm?

Thankyou so much in advance!!

--edit-- I have ordered a new compass, used re700, and new ultrax "6500mah" battery.... will report in after these are installed (compass for slight drift when hovering) Also ordered a new gps patch, wanted to get the thick one but ordered the 931-1015-ND by mistake.... hoping something in my current range extender is to blame for the big issue with the no data problem... at the very least it will improve the range and with a new battery I will be able to go more than 40'!

 

[dronecamino]

also ordered cable kit, (I doubt it but it seems to have been the solution to this problem for at least one person as far as I could find.) and just to do another test I hooked up stock gimbal and cam to original white wire and still no luck.

 

[crash1sttime]

also ordered cable kit, (I doubt it but it seems to have been the solution to this problem for at least one person as far as I could find.) and just to do another test I hooked up stock gimbal and cam to original white wire and still no luck.

Lets start at the begining, first off the cable kit you have, not sure which one, but they only produced one for the phantom 2 vision plus, which isnt your quad as you have the egg camera, there are no cables other than the white cable, now on that basis lets proceed.

the egg camera connects to the quad via the white wire which supplies power and sends the telemetry from the main baord down to the egg camera.

The tilt is a wire that comes from the NAZA via a 3 wire cable and plugs into the, well it would have connected to the original gimbal but you have the rotor pixel so it plugs into that, the RPG has a small set of pins on the front side, and 1 of them is where the tilt signal goes to, let me know which RPG you have as i have both models and i will send a picture of where it plugs in.

If you arent getting telemetry then there is an issue with either the cable , the egg camera or the mainboard, look at where the cable connects to the main board, there are 2 small fuses just in front of the connector, these can fail and will cause issues if so, if its the egg camera then only a replacement can be used to determine this issue im afraid as there are no user serviceable parts inside it.

If you need further advice, or if your UK based you can send it to me as I have spares of most things and may be able to get it fully working as i hate seeing the P2V quads fail, email me at [email protected] and check out my YT channel at FlymyMavic

 

[dronecamino]

Thank you for your reply! I am on mobil at the moment but I will try to type a good response. The cable kit has the white 4 pin and a few others including the one that would have the gimbal control if I am not mistaken. Genuine DJI Phantom 2 Vision Part P2V-22 Cable pack -US stock | eBay

Great to know about the fuses as I tested the wire with my voltmeter and it checked out ok as far as I could tell all the way to the board. If there was a problem inside the egg I would think one of the causes could be bad contacts on the female end of the white wire connector. Other than that probably not much I could check.

I will look at the fuses when I get home and then wait until I get the replacement white wire before I proceed if no luck. Thank you!!! Also I am in California so shipping back and forth to UK would probably be second best to buying another egg...not sure.

Also when plugged in to PC I am getting no x1 input from controller if that helps sussing out the issue..?

 

[dronecamino]

so where the 4 wire white wire from the egg goes into the mainboard I see a smd cap and an smd resistor (not marked). Are they the fuses you were referring to? I will test both if it comes down to it...

 

[crash1sttime]

so where the 4 wire white wire from the egg goes into the mainboard I see a smd cap and an smd resistor (not marked). Are they the fuses you were referring to? I will test both if it comes down to it...

Sorry, I call them fuses as they blow if you unplug the white wire with the power on, I’m not overly great with electronic components

 

[dronecamino]

so I replaced the white wire, wifi wires in drone, gimbal wire, compass wire.... no change at all. I upgraded from the re500 to the re700, paired the egg, still no change. Problem remains; no gimbal tilt, no drone battery info, no gps satellites, no distance, alt, speed.

I have a feeling I will have a whole new bird in parts by the time I am done replacing parts.

Open to suggestions as to what is next.... go by order of cost? wifi board, mainboard, egg?

 

[crash1sttime]

Problem remains; no gimbal tilt,

Like I said there is a 3 wire harness that comes from the F2 slot on the naza and plugs into a set of pins on the rotorpixel gimbal, send a picture of your gimbal and i will tell you where they plug in, the wiring harness is a standard servo plug with 3 wires and teminates in a small white 3 pin plug, the RPG comes with an adaptor cable to convert the white plug back into a 3 pin servo plug.

no drone battery info, no gps satellites, no distance, alt, speed.

This is information sent down from the naza to the egg camera and then sent along with the video feed, its hard to say without being able to part swap the eggs main 4 boards if its a motherboard or camera board issue, i would need the whole quad on my work bench to trouble shoot that issue.

I have a feeling I will have a whole new bird in parts by the time I am done replacing parts.

Personally without access to parts or other quads to test with you are pissing in the proverbial wind mate and I would give up now

Open to suggestions as to what is next.... go by order of cost? wifi board, mainboard, egg?

As i said you are going to need to find someone with a P2V who will let you swap parts to work out what is wrong, without that you are just throwing good money after bad at it.

 

[dronecamino]

In post #2 I mentioned I hooked up original gimbal, gimbal wire was in kit as well and made no difference. I agree I am pissing in the wind... But the time and money to get the old drone somewhere to be tested is more than replacing everything I reckon. Plus I will have plenty of spare parts.

I will update this when I find the fix , my guess is mainboard at this point...

 

[crash1sttime]

In post #2 I mentioned I hooked up original gimbal, gimbal wire was in kit as well and made no difference. I agree I am pissing in the wind... But the time and money to get the old drone somewhere to be tested is more than replacing everything I reckon. Plus I will have plenty of spare parts.

I will update this when I find the fix , my guess is mainboard at this point...

As for the tilt, do you have the stock transmitter, it takes 4 batteries, or the upgraded one, which has the gimbal dial, go into the assistant software and see if the TX is set to basic or upgraded, from memory if you choose upgraded in the assistant then you cant tilt the camera using the app.

 

[dronecamino]

I tried both, I have the basic, I get no feedback from x1 in calibration unless I select the upgraded. Everything is up to date, I have not come across how I might be able to factory reset the controller but would try that if I could. To my knowledge the telemetry is in the 5.8 GHz feed to the re but I could be wrong? Next step after wifi board is the main board, then cracking the egg and getting another potentially.

 

[dronecamino]

gimbal now working via 7th channel activation tool. Now just missing telemetry and battery info....

That is with X1, no gimbal control in app.

 

[dronecamino]

so against the advice from people I updated my fc200 to 1.1.9 from dji website...all went well. Then shortly thereafter I lost my video feed. I found a version that says 1.1.8 in the rar txt file and reflashed it and now I have my camera back. In the app it still says 1.1.9 (as it did before the update) but I am convinced my problems are firmware based. Prior to update I tore down my egg and found nothing burned, cleaned all connections w/ alcohol, and reassembled with no change.... Now if Icould find a firmware from before 1.1.8... any leads?

 

[dronecamino]

Replaced mainboard, all is well now. Not sure what "blew" as there was no visible damage but I may consider gluing in white wire with rubber cement to prevent this from happening again as I do believe that the suggestion of frying due to unplugging with power on was correct.

 

[Vegamike]

I'm having pretty much the same issues. I get no POV but the camera does take and save pics and video.