New P3P new cooling fan on 4K camera

[KyleMaxxUAV]

That's great info Canada.
So there certainly is a fan driver then. The fan is not just hard wired to the supply rails.

When you say 'a few minutes use' do you mean the Phantom is just powered up, or do you actually have to record 4k for the fan to come on?
(I am thinking that for anything less than that, the fan should not be needed - according to P3A design anyhow!).
My video card case at 60degC is hot to the touch. I would not put the back of my hand on it.
Does your fan come on before that temperature level?
I had been hoping that maybe the fan was only needed in direct sunlight at midday in the tropics.
But if its coming on for you in the depths of Canadian winter I guess that's not the case.

Fan came on after shooting some video for 4 mins

The p3a is missing the chips highlighted, which is why the feed is limited to 2mbps and 4K is not an option on the advanced

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Andy Boyd]

So my fan not coming on after 30 minutes of video is definitely wrong.

I can see the fan wires hard-wired down by the lower edge on your photo. Strange that they are so far from the new components.
Wouldn't you expect the fan to be driven by the new circuitry, not by something that is already on the P3A board?
Are the fan connection points already on the P3A board then?

 

[KyleMaxxUAV]

So my fan not coming on after 30 minutes of video is definitely wrong.

I can see the fan wires hard-wired down by the lower edge on your photo. Strange that they are so far from the new components.
Wouldn't you expect the fan to be driven by the new circuitry, not by something that is already on the P3A board?
Are the fan connection points already on the P3A board then?

Maybe it's a faulty camera ?? Did you try flying and shooting 4K ?? Or transferring a video from your bird to your tablet via DJI GO ?

I'm not sure about the contact points I can't find the photo I saw of the advanced chipset


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[wooglin]

I have just received this earth-shattering response from DJI European technical support team:

Jan 7, 23:39

Dear Phantom,

Thank you for contacting the DJI technical support.
The phantom 3 advanced is not compatible with the pro camera.
There is no driver to activate the fan in the gimbal.

Thanks for choosing DJI
With kind regards,
DJI NL Technical Support

If that is true, this gimbal fan is not functioning for anyone who has retrofitted a Pro camera onto their P3A.
After my search for 'gimbal fan' on this forum, it seems a lot of users have hardly noticed the presence of the fan, let alone checked whether it is working.
It would be great if someone who has upgraded the camera on a P3A can confirm that their fan is actually spinning.

And I would love to know how the fan behaves on a real P3P. Does it really just switch on and off with the battery power, or only when shooting 4k, or only when a thermal limit is reached on the video board. It might even have speed control like a proper PC graphics card.
I would also not be surprised to hear that the gimbal fans on a number of P3P are no longer working (due to crashes, debris getting into the tiny unguarded fan, etc), and that it is not having any adverse effect (in the short term anyway).

On my p3p I have not seen the fan spinning. My belief is that it only spins if temperature of the TI and other chips go over a predefined temperature value. If the fan spins all the time it will wear out more quickly. I have experience with these types of fans in a professional environment and they only run when chipset temps go above a preset range.

 

[Andy Boyd]

Maybe it's a faulty camera ?? Did you try flying and shooting 4K ?? Or transferring a video from your bird to your tablet via DJI GO ?

I'm not sure about the contact points I can't find the photo I saw of the advanced chipset


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

My Advanced gimbal assy is out of commission awaiting a new cable. So meanwhile, here is the 'video card' inside the gimbal box.
Compared to the Pro there are components missing from the underside of the board too.
The board itself seems identical, including solder pads for the fan. But the Pro has lots more circuitry.
Nice to see the well labelled test points for diagnostics!

Incidentally the upper case is also identical. The Advanced even has the hole drilled for the fan cable!
Saves on stock management I suppose.

 

[KyleMaxxUAV]

My Advanced gimbal assy is out of commission awaiting a new cable. So meanwhile, here is the 'video card' inside the gimbal box.
Compared to the Pro there are components missing from the underside of the board too.
The board itself seems identical, including solder pads for the fan. But the Pro has lots more circuitry.
Nice to see the well labelled test points for diagnostics!

View attachment 39901

Incidentally the upper case is also identical. The Advanced even has the hole drilled for the fan cable!
Saves on stock management I suppose.
View attachment 39902

Nice one Andy !! Again here is the pro for a side by side !

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Silverwingflinx]

Ok well if you go to RC711.com they sell replacement p3 no cam and no controller so that would mean you can add any parts to that p3..

 

[Andy Boyd]

Ok well if you go to RC711.com they sell replacement p3 no cam and no controller so that would mean you can add any parts to that p3..

I see it: DJI-PH3-P34.
So it really seems European DJI support were wrong to state that the 4K camera is incompatible with P3A. It could be that they just meant the P3A FIRMWARE has no fan driver. Who cares when we have P3P firmware!
I already asked them to clarify. I will send them a reminder.

 

[Silverwingflinx]

Multirotorheli .ca I was told you can use a 4K cam on p3A they are all the same just cam is different...

 

[Andy Boyd]

So my fan not coming on after 30 minutes of video is definitely wrong.

I can see the fan wires hard-wired down by the lower edge on your photo. Strange that they are so far from the new components.
Wouldn't you expect the fan to be driven by the new circuitry, not by something that is already on the P3A board?
Are the fan connection points already on the P3A board then?

Latest on my Pro camera on P3A:
I put a 64Gb SD card in so I could video beyond 30 minutes and extend my "does the fan ever come on" test..
Last time when I got close to 30 minutes the 16Gb card filled up and the recording light changed from single flash to double flash.
And this time it did just the same! So I looked up that double flash in the manual.

Duh. I should have looked at that earlier. I am now interpreting that status message as "Overheated video card". As far as I can feel, the heat doesn't get all the way down to the camera module itself.
If the gimbal overheats I believe a warning message is sent to the controller device. But not if the video card overheats, as far as I can see.
And nothing else seems to happen. It doesn't shut down the recording which is causing the overheating.

Anyway I think that I can finally conclude that the fan is definitely not working on this Pro camera on my P3A.
And if anyone else who has put a Pro camera on a P3 happens to see that double blink after extended 4k recording, then I suspect they have the same problem. No fan control.

 

[Deleted member 27337]

Latest on my Pro camera on P3A:
I put a 64Gb SD card in so I could video beyond 30 minutes and extend my "does the fan ever come on" test..
Last time when I got close to 30 minutes the 16Gb card filled up and the recording light changed from single flash to double flash.
And this time it did just the same! So I looked up that double flash in the manual.

View attachment 40061
Duh. I should have looked at that earlier. I am now interpreting that status message as "Overheated video card". As far as I can feel, the heat doesn't get all the way down to the camera module itself.
If the gimbal overheats I believe a warning message is sent to the controller device. But not if the video card overheats, as far as I can see.
And nothing else seems to happen. It doesn't shut down the recording which is causing the overheating.

Anyway I think that I can finally conclude that the fan is definitely not working on this Pro camera on my P3A.
And if anyone else who has put a Pro camera on a P3 happens to see that double blink after extended 4k recording, then I suspect they have the same problem. No fan control.

Thanks Andy you are a huge help. I'm thinking 1 of 2 things here... 1. The P3A cannot control the P3P gimbal fan even after flashing the P3P firmware or 2. You have a defective gimbal fan.

If anyone here has installed a P3P gimbal on a P3A, can you please comment on whether your gimbal fan works?

 

[Dirty Bird]

I seriously doubt the Phantom mainboard or firmware controls the fan at all. It is almost certainly controlled by the gimbal controller by means of a simple thermistor or some similar temperature sensor. My guess is you either have a bad fan or a bad gimbal control board.

Thanks Andy you are a huge help. I'm thinking 1 of 2 things here... 1. The P3A cannot control the P3P gimbal fan even after flashing the P3P firmware or 2. You have a defective gimbal fan.

If anyone here has installed a P3P gimbal on a P3A, can you please comment on whether your gimbal fan works?

 

[Andy Boyd]

I seriously doubt the Phantom mainboard or firmware controls the fan at all. It is almost certainly controlled by the gimbal controller by means of a simple thermistor or some similar temperature sensor. My guess is you either have a bad fan or a bad gimbal control board.

Yup. Unless DJI Support say something more convincing, the logic is that one of the critical video chips has thermal sensing, triggers the fan that is wired to that board, plus sets off the double flash alarm of the LED that is also wired to that board, when it gets really hot.
My suspect Pro camera is going back to the shop. I'll wait for real 4k to come along when we've got processors and memory cards fast enough to deal with it!
Taking a look back to my VHS tape relics in the corner, it shouldn't take long now.

 

[did3d]

That's really interesting.
I damaged the gymbal on my P3A last week and decided to use that as an excuse for a complete camera replacement.
I believed that if I put a 4k camera on it then I would effectively have a P3P.
So I am hoping that dedicated processing chip vs shared chip you mention is on the video board that gets swapped out with the camera, and not the main board.
Do you know?

And that 5x improvement in live streaming bandwidth, I doubt if I get that from just swapping the camera and its circuit?
I've not seen any problem with video rate on the P3A displaying on an Ipad Mini, but for anyone live streaming to Youtube I guess it could be important.

hello Andy,
do you have change your P3adv camera for a P3Pro camera?
have you now 10mbs bitrate and better quality live video?
I have the same probleme with my advanced.
thanks

 

[With The Birds]

Anyone know more about the A9 chip in the pro camera. It's supposed to be capable of 240 Mbps. There is a petition on line hoping to encourage Dji to up the bit rate in firmware here DJI: 100Mbp/s bit rate for the Phantom 3 Professional

 

[Andy Boyd]

hello Andy,
do you have change your P3adv camera for a P3Pro camera?
have you now 10mbs bitrate and better quality live video?
I have the same probleme with my advanced.
thanks

Bonjour did3d,
Oui, j'ai i remplacé la caméra, mais.....I don't believe it has changed the live video feed rate.
When I rotate the Phantom I can see that the transmitted image moves in small steps (but of course the recorded video, does not - it is smooth).
The steps are just the same whether I have the slider set to minimum (4Mbps) or maximum (10Mbps).

Even to access this slider I have to change the Region on my iPad to USA. That is a tip I read somewhere on this forum.
If the Region is UK (or even France) then there is no access to the Custom settings on the 'Image Transmission Setting' page.

 

[Andy Boyd]

My Advanced gimbal assy is out of commission awaiting a new cable. So meanwhile, here is the 'video card' inside the gimbal box.
Compared to the Pro there are components missing from the underside of the board too.
The board itself seems identical, including solder pads for the fan. But the Pro has lots more circuitry.
Nice to see the well labelled test points for diagnostics!

View attachment 39901

Incidentally the upper case is also identical. The Advanced even has the hole drilled for the fan cable!
Saves on stock management I suppose.
View attachment 39902

Some users have commented that the fan is only held on by two screws.
The reason could be that the holes in the casing are two different sizes.
In fact I noticed that the screws in mine were loose to the touch.
I found they were designed for the smaller pair of holes but were fitted to the larger holes.
And without any studlock to retain them either.

 

[With The Birds]

Some users have commented that the fan is only held on by two screws.
The reason could be that the holes in the casing are two different sizes.
In fact I noticed that the screws in mine were loose to the touch.
I found they were designed for the smaller pair of holes but were fitted to the larger holes.
And without any studlock to retain them either.

Are the larger holes threaded? Those two posts may just be standoffs so whem mounted with two srews the fan housing doesnt warp towards the case when mounted or just general support. They wouldnt create a tool path in production for different thread sizes witjout good reason and using two different sized fasteners in that application makes no sense.

 

[Dirty Bird]

One thing for sure that is one TEENSY little fan!

Some users have commented that the fan is only held on by two screws.
The reason could be that the holes in the casing are two different sizes.
In fact I noticed that the screws in mine were loose to the touch.
I found they were designed for the smaller pair of holes but were fitted to the larger holes.
And without any studlock to retain them either.

 

[With The Birds]

One thing for sure that is one TEENSY little fan!

We need the big fans on top.... LOL Reality is it is probably only needed to assist cooling while we are rooting around sitting on the ground. Plenty of air flow around the heat sink while in flight.