Huge connectivity problems when flying 2x P3P at the same time & same location

[Reuben]

Hey guys,

So here's my story I have been flying my p3p for about 3 months and never really had problems with my 2nd p3p. (My 1st one crashed & fully refunded by the dealer) so here is my the problems I experienced this weekend.

Prior to this weekend I have flown many time with other drones, home built drones,inspires and many others and never had problems.

This weekend was the first time ever I flew my p3p next to another p3p and to say the least was not a great experience.

So we where about 5m away from each other with the controllers and the p3p where both in the air far away from each other. All off a sudden I started getting poor signal then black screen video cuts off then comes back the a full disconnect Gary bar showing on the iPad mini2. At that point I decided to check if I still had connectivity with the controller and it seemed like I did. The other guys had very similar issues using an android phone with the difference that his p3p started coming home by its self so I assume his controller lost the signal completely. Eventually everything reconnected and he gained control again and canceled the go home. In the mean time I was very concerned and started bringing mine back slowly half blind as I was still experiencing serious issues. When I was only about 2meters above the ground I was pulling on the throttle to land it and the phantom did not respond for a second or two then all off a sudden it just dropped about a meter which is quite lucky as I was two meters above the ground. Then landed it safely. My assumption was that when I pulled the throttle I lost connection and when the connection was regained the remote sent the full descend command that was missed during the disconnection. Any ideas?

After we both landed safely we did a test I started my remote and phantom while he's was off. I kept mine on the ground for this test. At this point no issues at all. Then asked him to start his remote and phantom and BOOM... straightaway I get poor signal message and strong interference message. Shut everything off and we decided that we will not fly them together at the same time again.

Can any one shed some light on this please? Why did I have no problems at all when flying my p3p with other quads including inspires but when flying with 2x p3p I had huge issues?

Thanks for ur help.

 

[Reuben]

Forgot to mention I am still on Fw 1.2 which is the one it got delivered with but using the latest Go app.

 

[JohnK]

I often wondered about that, too. I thought (perhaps incorrectly) that the "linking" of aircraft and RC was done at the factory and should take care of this problem. Would love to hear from someone knowledgable/experienced in this area.

 

[Reuben]

I'm very eager to find out. Shouldn't there be many channels that the remote can use? Why are they interfering with each other?

 

[Reuben]

anyone else had similar experiences?

 

[happydays]

Yep. We - the UAV Flyers Ireland Group - met up last weekend. There were nine quads in the air - V+, P3A, P3P, Inspire, Yuneek (or whatever way it's spelt) and f550 and the signal interference was deadly. We grouped together to get a few shots, but I chickened out and came in. The iPad drop was terrible, signal freezing, app saying control signal lost, FPV stalling - however we all still had control - but we were only a short distance out and up. I tried moving away a fair distance, but nothing changed so I came in.

 

[Fplvert]

I haven't flown with other Phantoms, but I wonder if you manually selected a different channel than the others you wouldn't get interferance?

http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/more-channels-hack.50034/

 

[Reuben]

I haven't flown with other Phantoms, but I wonder if you manually selected a different channel than the others you wouldn't get interferance?

http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/more-channels-hack.50034/

Hi Fplvert I believe the manual channel selection is only for the live feed and nothing to do with the controller transmission. Correct me if I'm wrong please. In our case we both had problems with both the FPV stream and also with the controller. The other guy that was flying lost complete connectivity and the p3p started coming home by its self until he regained connection and cancelled it. In my case i always had connection to the bird via the remote until the last 2 meters before landing when i lost control of the bird for a few seconds.

 

[Domenic]

Up until this past weekend I never had a fly away with my P3P. On Saturday I went out with a couple of friends who also had P3Ps. We all launched simultaneously in a wide open field about 30 feet apart. All of a sudden after going up about 200ft my P3P went "nuts" doing crazy cartwheels in the air not responding to the remote. Crashed....

No idea if this was due to three of us all trying to fly at the same time but I don't believe in coincidences...

 

[Reuben]

so I am guessing I had a lucky escape?

 

[ianwood]

Control uplink is spread spectrum and takes very little bandwidth. It's very unlikely you would lose control as result of uplink signal interference. There are two caveats to this: If the downlink saturates all frequencies across the uplink range, you could enter F/S. And, if the app loses downlink, it may decide to force F/S (not sure if it does). I've never seen it though.

Using the channel hack and setting the downlink manually would help a lot in flying multiple units at the same time.

 

[Julius717]

Been having this problem for months.

 

[vegas-k9]

It does say right in the book....don't operate near other 2.4ghz devices.

Just saying.

 

[Bret Lucas]

I've operated my P3 with 5 RC fixed wing airborne, all at close quarters, all on 2.4ghz. No control problems at all. However I did use a quiet channel (25) to reduce the chance of interference.

 

[jonnylees88]

so I am guessing I had a lucky escape?

Hi Reuben we had the same issue at weekend 2 P3As.

However we were lucky that I went up first and then my mate followed but as soon as he turned his on inexperienced issues and said just turn it off and it went. We pretty quickly realised you couldn't fly at same time. Good job really as we were over water.

I have thought about changing the channels but it would let you do this in the air. Any ideas ?

 

[adrian.ahonk]

I have played with other P3P user. at first time the signal look lost because to mode than 1 person play in yhe same time. but after I choose manually the channel on the DJI GO it was flying save ly and there's no issue that the signal lost. may be thats will help your probs.

 

[nhoover]

Back in June I flew my P3P with a friend and his I1 a number of times in various locations and we both had trouble if we stood together. It seemed better if we were 50 to 100 ft apart but we ended up usually flying only one at a time.

Later that month I flew with several friends - we had a couple P3s and a couple of P2V+s flying together and even standing a ways away I never could get a solid connection, not nearly as good as flying on my own. Really too bad.

 

[happydays]

Is it possible to manually alter the channel? I thought that option was removed two upgrades ago?

 

[bbfpv]

Is it possible to manually alter the channel? I thought that option was removed two upgrades ago?

?? where have you been, Connor? http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/more-channels-hack.50034/

 

[happydays]

?? where have you been, Connor? http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/more-channels-hack.50034/

Resting!