First Flight review

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So, just flew the P3P for the first time (UK based)...Im pretty much hooked. Work tomorrow is going to be hell.

A few findings (probably mentioned loads of other places):

- the camera is set at 4k out of the box (kind of expected), I selected NTSC during setup, but may change to PAL as doubt there will be much differnce on max resolution
- 5-6 mins of video came out at 2.6gb, a 64gb card looks like a must in my situation
- reviewing the footage, you can definitely notice where 60fps may improve the quality, then again not actually tried 1080p
- the stability of the thing is amazing, literally stayed put when in full GPS (10-12sats)
- battery is down to 70% after 6-7min, not used the fully battery as a boot camp came through, one of them mentioned 'ah it was a drone' and I got scared

And few newbie findings (definitely mentioned elsewhere):

- the motors/rotors are slightly angled forward/back, I kindof expected them to be straight
- the gimbal was not 100% horizontal, but the advanced sensor calibration in the app fixed that
- the ipad app screen looked dark, but the scroll wheel on the right adjusts the camera settings (as detailed in the manual)
- it seems the ipad app automatically whacks the ipad brightness to full, not sure how that will effect battery life, then again it may have been on full before!

All in all very impressed.

One question (yes I've searched etc and have an 'idea'), what is the recommended NEW battery maintenance:

- long term storage (over a few days??) should be at 50% charge
- fully discharge every few weeks or 10 cycles

however, tonight I've only used 1/4 of the new battery - is it recommended to discharge a few times, or will it be safe to top up to 100%, or am I being over cautious??

cheers,
Matt
 
I've also just had the first flight and credit where credits due its pretty impressive. Light bridge is clearer than my old FPV setup but a big laggy on my iPad 2 Mini, when I first moved the gimbal up and down I thought the gimbal was broken as the video was jerky, but I realised it was the video feed and the gimbal was silky smooth.

I cannot remember if hardware acceleration should be enabled on an iPad 2 Mini or not, I had it enabled. Anyone remember?

I did not have much luck with IOC but then reread the manual and apparently home lock is not yet available.

I was impressed with the stability to produce a panorama from DNGs, but its still a bit grim here so the video was a bit dark and gloomy.

On landing on a large garden table I noticed the app reported a compass error, I moved the Phantom forward a bit on the table and it went away. I guess the compass is sensitive to the metal supports in the rattan table. My previous Phantoms never displayed an error though.

I also found it landed quite heavily despite a smooth descent but may be me being out of practise. Stopped the motors by pulling down on the throttle for 3 seconds and all good, no toppling over as some has reported.

p.s. I performed a full IMU calibration, gimbal calibration and compass calibration before the flight as its probably been bouncing around on its trip from China.
 
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- long term storage (over a few days??) should be at 50% charge
- fully discharge every few weeks or 10 cycles
The app is set to out discharge after 10 days so if you miss 2 weekends in a row, it'll discharge. I personally run them down to 30ish% and don't recharge until I'm ready to go again. V+ was 20 runs before a full cycle, so I'm planning on doing 15 on p3 batteries.
 
The app is set to out discharge after 10 days so if you miss 2 weekends in a row, it'll discharge. I personally run them down to 30ish% and don't recharge until I'm ready to go again. V+ was 20 runs before a full cycle, so I'm planning on doing 15 on p3 batteries.

cheers, will try that, i did notice something in the app about the 10 day discharge but wasnt sure if that was the case for brand new or 'broken in' (if that's a term) batteries.
 
cheers, will try that, i did notice something in the app about the 10 day discharge but wasnt sure if that was the case for brand new or 'broken in' (if that's a term) batteries.
Its customizable, set it to your normal "long term" schedule, ie, if you miss a flight day that you planned to make. I only fly weekends and rarely miss, so it works for me because it accounts for the missed planned weekend flight.
 

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