New FC40, odd thing happened.

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Hi guys, just learning about this little devil at the moment, settings outa the box, TX in CE mode, S1 GPS,Atti,Atti, S2 off, 1st & 2nd flights in the bush were all good, got back home, got the software up & happening, plugged her in & enabled IOC, did IMU recal & advanced cal(couldn't hurt??) re-cal the compass out side, in the air with no problems, literally ripped off the ground(no camera) got a bit full of myself & changed TX setting to FCC & set up S1 swt to GPS,Atti,Failsafe, this is where it got odd, compass re-cal at each flight(just to get it into my head for when I travel) start up same as before, perfect, this time when throttling up to full it begrudgingly got off the ground, what a slug! From ripping off the ground to slug, still flew OK, also the idle spin sounded quieter, have not had a chance to re-test or change the cal back to test, thought I'd ask here if anyone has had a similar thing happen(operator error is more than likely the cause!) Thanks.
 
biomedchad said:
did you adjust your warning voltages at all? was the battery charged?
No didn't touch those, they come out at 1st stage, no load 11.3, loaded 10.7. 2nd stage, no load 11.2, loaded 10.6
Battery had a full charge.
Put every thing back to outa the box spec's, one thing at a time & still a pig to get off the ground, once in the air it's fine, it's a bit like there is a delay to get to full power when the stick is progressively pushed up full, it stays on the ground for about a second before lift off, as before the instant it got to full throttle it ripped off the ground, it's had about 4 flights before turning to a slug(may be normal & before was weird??)
Will change locations & re-test as there are metal sheds & a carport about 18 meters from lift off point, I have a small tbe that I'm putting down to the metal sheds & the wanderings it's getting are the tree's it flys around & under :roll: so I'm making it work for a living :D
 
I am with you!

I had the same experience like you. In the beginning my Phantom hopped up after barely moving the left stick (mode2). After doing some calibrations and gain changes (and setting everything back to default several times) it behaves exactly like yours. Very sluggish at take off. In the beginning I had a few tip overs before I realized that I had to give full throttle from now on. And it takes a second to spin up enough to lift it from the ground. After that it's fine. She flies wonderfully stable.

I wonder what causes this behaviour. Changing the values for vertical gain doesn't help. My gains are all back on default. Only thing I changed are my voltage gains, and I set the switches to IOC and Failsafe. I tried reflashing the firmware and import the default FC40 config. Maybe there's a bug in Naza?

Another thing, it doesn't matter how heavy the payload is, with or without extra payload, the throttle up behaviour at take off remains sluggish and delayed.
I would surely want to get it back to how it was.
 
After some searching on the net it looks to me my controller, with self centred throttle stick, is regarded by Naza Assistant (or the TX calibration software, going to check that as well) as an older version, non self centred one. In the latest firmware version, the throttle behaviour at take off, is changed to work only after 50% stick, for the earlier versions. While mine is already at 50%, maybe I only get half the power at take off.

I did reflash the latest firmware (I had to because I couldn't get the Phantom to calibrate itself out off the box, had a fly away the first time I tried RTH) and it started the odd throttle behaviour straight after that.

I seems the firmware that we can download is different from the initially installed firmware in the factory, even though they have the same version number.
 
I'm confused...

I think you're saying that after some calibrations your Phantom seems sluggish? I'm not sure why that would be...

They do become sluggish when you add a gimbal and camera to them.

Have you added any weight to the Phantom?
 
Guipago said:
Yep, as soon as I switched from gps,atti,atti to gps,atti,failsafe things changed, maybe were stuck with it?
Hmm. didn't try to set them back to default. When I reflashed the firmware and downloaded and imported the default settings I immediately changed the switches back to IOC and Failsafe. I'll change them to Off and GPS/Atti/Atti again and try it when it stops raining.

CarlJ said:
They do become sluggish when you add a gimbal and camera to them.

Have you added any weight to the Phantom?

With my Phantom, as i stated before, weight doesn't change anything in take off behaviour. If I fly it completely naked it is much more agile in flight but take off is delayed and sluggish. It barely lifts off the ground but once it does everything is as it should be.
 
have you re-calibrated the controller itself? Making sure the stick meters in naza match your movements?
I think its in the RC Tab of the naza assistant.
 

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dragonash said:
have you re-calibrated the controller itself? Making sure the stick meters in naza match your movements?
I think its in the RC Tab of the naza assistant.

I just did. No change.

Sorry if it seems I'm hyjacking this thread but since my problems are exactly the same as the OP's I think it might help to combine the effort to find a solution.
 
lake_flyer said:
dragonash said:
have you re-calibrated the controller itself? Making sure the stick meters in naza match your movements?
I think its in the RC Tab of the naza assistant.

I just did. No change.

Sorry if it seems I'm hyjacking this thread but since my problems are exactly the same as the OP's I think it might help to combine the effort to find a solution.

Hyjack away, but I think we're running out of ideas.

Mine also behaves exactly as described, but only after I added all the weight.
 
both batteries I have are fine, in dual battery mode and in single mode there is enough power, 12.6V according to Naza. The Lipo checker tells the same.

I think it is a software problem. It only happened after I reflashed the firmware of the Phantom and the TX. Never got it back to 'normal' after that.
 
For sh@ts and giggles send DJI a email to there support dept and explain to them the problem. It may take a day or two to get a response but they always do. Also on the DJI site there's a list of support centers you can call and get some person/person help. Even if you didn't buy it from them they still give you 5-10min of there time. I'm in the States and Atlanta Hobby support center was VERY helpful. Worth a try. Good luck!
 
Never got reply from DJI to my support questions other than "thank you for your support question, bla bla", and a link to the FAQ page. I don't think a dealer can help out with this problem. This is a glitch in the firmware, I'm sure.

But anyhow, the Phantom flies like a dream. Just the take off changed. Not a real problem if it stays this way. It almost seems as if it's calculating the thrust needed to take off at a given weight. And it applies just enough thrust to get it airborn safely. When I release the pitch stick it raises straight up, no need to correct pitch (because my quad is balanced out). And it does the same with any payload.

Not a great problem at all. But strange that the OP and me are the only ones (so far) who have this behaviour. I expected that is was a common thing.
 
This is just a shot in the dark, but it sounds to me like when you plugged it in, it upgraded to a newer firmware which responds slower. I've heard that some of the other Phantom models were zippier in older firmware versions, and when you plug in a Phantom with an older firmware I think it automatically upgrades if there is a new version available. It could have even done that without you noticing. Any idea what your out-of-the-box firmware version was and what it is now?
 
Don't consider it a hi-jack, we are experienceing the same thing, I'm new to r/c, your putting it in a better way than me.
For mine,
2 different brands of Batt, full charge, same thing
no camera or gimbal, same thing.
all control sticks work & get full movement when checked in assistant.
reacts exactly as lake_flyer's, both had the same thing happen "after" plugging into the assistant, so a download of some sort when we hooked up to the assistant looks like whats happened, will e-mail DJI on it & see what pans out. With mine i just charged the Batt, pre-flight & powered up transmitter then Phantom, waited until the leds stopped winking at me(green still winking) & yahoo! off it went & back it came, of course, when I got home I HAD to hook it up to fiddle :roll:
Thanks for the advice.
 
slothead said:
This is just a shot in the dark, but it sounds to me like when you plugged it in, it upgraded to a newer firmware which responds slower. I've heard that some of the other Phantom models were zippier in older firmware versions, and when you plug in a Phantom with an older firmware I think it automatically upgrades if there is a new version available. It could have even done that without you noticing. Any idea what your out-of-the-box firmware version was and what it is now?

I'm going with Tom on this one. It's logical, got the whole Occam's razor thing going on. I'm on the fence with not noticing an update, but whatever.

I sure hope that's right, if not that will be my 3rd incorrect answer and the mods will remove a letter from my available posting alphabet. Screw up 6 times and you're left spewing vowels...

No pressure Tom :)
 
Re-doing IMU basic & advanced cali on a surface that bubble levels flat(maybe overkill but) Iv'e put the idle speed up a notch, charging a Batt & we'll see what happens.
 

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