New P4P Concerns

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Greetings All,
I am trying to "get back on the horses" after my P3P disaster. (Self induced apparently).

I received my brand spanking new P4P this week. I know it is a vastly different animal than the old P3P. But after today, my third actual flight. I am a wee bit nervous.

And I will post logs asap.

I started with a mostly full battery, I had played with camera settings a bit. I launched and took it up to around 20 feet and about the same away from the HP, and let it come to a hover. The camera started flicking straight down. It would just set normal for a few seconds then it would point straight down and then right back up. Maybe it was trying to set a home point, I'm not sure. I need to verify if I had precision landing actuated, if I did it was not intentional.

Then I started a run where I took it up about 100 feet or so and sent it out at full throttle. It seemed liked it wuold slow down and then speed back up. I really didn't like that. There was wind, but not that much.

But I flew it around till the low battery warning came on at 30 % and came home. As I was descending it would come down very slow, then speed up, then slow down again. When it got to 15 or 20 feet AGL it dropped pretty darn fast for a second or two. Enough to pucker me up a bit.

And then there's the new battery that don't seem to want to charge too.

I am nervous coming off of a hard impact with the older drone, and I have not gotten comfortable with all of the new firmware and sensors. And this behavior being so completely different from the P3P is killing my confidence.

I did all the firmware updates to drone and controller right out of the box. But the batteries and even the charging tray need upgrades? Is that correct? ( And I did try the tray. Single, and car charger on the battery. ) The one that came with the drone does fine. The extra I bought is the one being difficult. It is a brand new DJI unit.

Other than needing to see the logs, which I will post asap, does anyone have any input?

As always, thanks in advance for your help.
 
Your biggest mistake BY FAR was updating the firmware! Should have left it alone and fly as is. Probably would have flown much better and now its too late to go back to what was probably a much better firmware version that DIDNT take ownership of the drone from you and hand it over to DJI. If it were me I would return it if you still can and get another new one AND DONT TOUCH THE FIRMWARE!!!!
 
I completely disagree, updating does not always cause disasters.
Did you do all calibrations, sticks, gimbal, IMU and COMPASS?
I was instructed by on screen instructions to do them all, after the last BIG update.
No problems now, none!
 
I completely disagree, updating does not always cause disasters.
Did you do all calibrations, sticks, gimbal, IMU and COMPASS?
I was instructed by on screen instructions to do them all, after the last BIG update.
No problems now, none!

Totally agree with this. You cause an accident and the first thing they will ask is "are you on the latest firmware." If it doesn't have it, it isn't fit to fly. You should always recalibrate after a firmware update.
 
The problem isn't only that it will LIKELY cause problems after the updates, its also that you are giving up control of your drone to DJI with them removing the ability to disable Geofencing. To deny that its a huge gamble to update a perfectly working bird for no benefit is to bury ones head in the sand and pretend their aren't thousands of people now having problems.
 
Totally agree with this. You cause an accident and the first thing they will ask is "are you on the latest firmware." If it doesn't have it, it isn't fit to fly. You should always recalibrate after a firmware update.

That's absurd! Of course it never ceases to amaze me how me people are willing to hand over their freedoms for the ELUSION of "safety". I for one will KEEP control of MY DRONE and not hand it over to DJI.
 
That's absurd! Of course it never ceases to amaze me how me people are willing to hand over their freedoms for the ELUSION of "safety". I for one will KEEP control of MY DRONE and not hand it over to DJI.
This is your choice, no one denies you that. But, to say that updates are all bad, well that is just not true. There are always problems with software, updates are common.
Don't update if you chose, but computers are computers, they need updates.
As for taking control, except for trying to stop intrusions into restricted airspace, I have seen nothing to prove DJI is trying to take control from us.
The new software will allow you to fly incognito, surely that is enough?
 
I agree with you Jeff. It's really sad to see the direction DJI has gone with taking away the abilities to change and or disable various functions, and on top of that, all the issues that people are experiencing after doing these updates. I don't think the other fellow has had any bad experiences yet, but it will inevitably come.

To play devils advocate though, I guess to a certain degree they (DJI) has to do these things in order to stay in business, they have to be in compliance with all the governmental agencies in the various countries in which their drones are sold.

Do you know if, say you build your own drone, are their flight controllers available that do not have all the restrictions and so forth built in ?

I think that may be the direction I may need to go in the future, but there's a lot I've gotta learn first.
 
This is your choice, no one denies you that. But, to say that updates are all bad, well that is just not true. There are always problems with software, updates are common.
Don't update if you chose, but computers are computers, they need updates.
As for taking control, except for trying to stop intrusions into restricted airspace, I have seen nothing to prove DJI is trying to take control from us.
The new software will allow you to fly incognito, surely that is enough?

The NFZ's are getting more and more restrictive with each update. There is no logical reasoning behind many of them as they are nowhere near any dangerous areas. If people are dumb enough to fly at an airport nothing DJI can do will stop them. Their should be VERY STIFF penalties for these idiots left up to law enforcement and NOT DJI. When people start going to jail for stupid s@@t then it will be more of a deterrent then DJI's overreach of NFZ.

Also. I'm pretty sure flying incognito has nothing to do with whether or not you can take off in one of DJI's incorrectly assigned NFZ's right?
 
Wow, opened up a can of worms it seems.

I spent what seemed like hours updating and calibrating when I first powered up. I know the drone and controller firmware updated, it was presented in such a way I saw no options.

I calibrated the compass, I calibrated the gimbal. I don't know about the rest, IMU, etc. unless it was part of another process, probably not. But I darn sure watched a couple of hours of YouTube on settings and made sure those were correct as best I could.

Now I am in a fight with Zeemo distribution who sold my spare, standard capacity, battery through Walmart. It is dead as a hammer. And in their initial response to my request for a refund or exchange they told me they'd had enough of people trying to scam them by sending in old batteries and I could go stuff myself. Seriously, they accused me of scamming them. Now once I explained what my next move was going to be, we are back in discussion. But the response is just ship it back to us in Brooklynn, NY. No name. No RA number... who's scamming who I wonder.

So far this significant investment is leaving me less than satisfied. The darned P3P was used, but it was perfect and intuitive from the moment I picked it up.
 
I also had a brand new battery that was DOA but Beach Camera was great about it and sent me a new one that was fine. I hope you are able to work it out and get it replaced. Just google it and maybe send them the links as it happens all the time with these batteries. They sit too long before selling and then once the voltage drops too far they wont take a charge without taking it apart and "hacking" it back to life. I love my P4P now but ONLY after I did what I had to do to take back control of it and get DJI's grubby paws off of it.
 
Wow, opened up a can of worms it seems.

I spent what seemed like hours updating and calibrating when I first powered up. I know the drone and controller firmware updated, it was presented in such a way I saw no options.

I calibrated the compass, I calibrated the gimbal. I don't know about the rest, IMU, etc. unless it was part of another process, probably not. But I darn sure watched a couple of hours of YouTube on settings and made sure those were correct as best I could.

Now I am in a fight with Zeemo distribution who sold my spare, standard capacity, battery through Walmart. It is dead as a hammer. And in their initial response to my request for a refund or exchange they told me they'd had enough of people trying to scam them by sending in old batteries and I could go stuff myself. Seriously, they accused me of scamming them. Now once I explained what my next move was going to be, we are back in discussion. But the response is just ship it back to us in Brooklynn, NY. No name. No RA number... who's scamming who I wonder.

So far this significant investment is leaving me less than satisfied. The darned P3P was used, but it was perfect and intuitive from the moment I picked it up.
I was watching the discussion degenerate into the usual format and thinking you would be left behind...
I have a P4 and after a self induced botched first pass, updated everything just fine. You may want to do the six step IMU calibration to rule out any errors with the the stability of the drone and fly again to check. I have never used the precision landing feature with mine as I always hand catch and since my take off area is on a large slope, would end badly anyway. I have only calibrated my compass just the once in over twelve months and even if prompted, check my flying area as there is usually some sort of inteference in the area affecting the calibration.
With the change in speed in flight, do you have OA turned on and the sun may be affecting it (seeing it as an obstacle)?
As for the battery, scammers like the one you are dealing with are amongst us. Good luck....
 
Thanks tevek.

I did turn off the OA and the craft appeared to work more like I would expect. I think it is such a leap ahead in technology from my P3P that is is a larger learning curve than I anticipated.

I did a battery worth of flight yesterday afternoon to work on camera settings and the biggest issue I had was the rate of descent. It was painfully slow and actually stopped several times. But I live in a heavily wooded area and I have to descend through an opening in trees. I feel certain that the craft was evaluating the landing area and following its programming. Once I got it below the main canopy, it descended much better.

There's a whole lot of code and transducers and sensors crammed into that little white plastic bundle. It is amazing. And that 20 MP camera and mechanical shutter. My God that's good.

Take care
 
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