Newbie questions (1st flight today)

marcus_canada · Jul 22, 2013

Hi there guys. Been creeping on the forum for a while as I was figuring out whether to get into the Phantom craze or not.. But here I am, a proud owner

Anyhoo, I took my time and following other advise from this forum and other places, I balanced the props and bought/installed an active gimbal for my Gopro 3.
Also got a couple of extra batteries, Nanotech 2200's from HK.

First flight was all good, just flew round a field in GPS & ATT modes. Nothing crazy, just testing.

I noticed a couple of things though and wanted to just see if they were 'normal' or not.

- I ran 2 battery packs, only for about 5 minutes each, just to partially test them. I noticed that with both battery packs (1 DJI Stock and the other a Nanotech) I would get the RED LED flash at me if I ascended at a high rate. I realize that the voltage dropped during this maneuver but even with a fresh battery ?

- The other thing I noticed was that the GPS Hold isn't as firm as I've seen on the DJI Videos, the Phantom lazily slows to a halt when on GPS and sticks are released, and also there is an amount of drift whilst holding position with no input. No wind today either......

Well, appreciate your inputs

Spork · Jul 23, 2013

Not sure about the red blinks, but if you look in the NAZA control software you can adjust the voltage that triggers the red blinks and the failsafe, and calibrate the voltage... so that could potentially fix that issue - or you could just ignore it while doing high-speed climbs

The GPS hold is only accurate within a 2m or so circle, so you should expect some drift of about ~6 feet or so if it's windy or you are going from moving fast to a stop. Sounds like it's fine, but if you see it constantly drifting in one direction you should calibrate your IMU and your compass.

marcus_canada · Jul 23, 2013

OK Thanks for that. I am carrying a gopro 3 and an active gimbal with FPV gear to come so I am just afraid that the ESC's will undervoltage in wind or during an ascent.

I see talk of the rapid-fire Green LEDs prior to lift off. I got that for both of my first flights. What is that? Something about excessive gyro errors? Or is that the home point marking itself?

martcerv · Jul 23, 2013

The green flashes just after the yellow startup is home point lock, gps drift will depend on signal strength and also make sure you do the compass calibration. You may also want try the full calibration in the Naza software to see if it helps as it may have been banged around a bit in shipping.

Getting a red flash at full throttle could be saying you dont have full gps lock as it shouldn't be doing this on a fresh battery saying its getting below level 1 battery warning under load. If thats the case there seems to be something strange and you will want to find out whats going on there as I dont get that but I dont have a gimbal yet either. What gimbal did you get and have you weighed your setup, if its too heavy it could be a power issue under load with extra drain from the gimbal.

marcus_canada · Jul 23, 2013

I will hook it up and do the IMU calibration. I have the Arris Gimbal which is carrying a Gopro3. I don't have the extra weight of a Lipo for the gimbal as I run it from the accessory power line. I do plan to mount a 5.8ghz transmitter soon though. I was going to avoid using the Phantom accessory for that too, but can I?

martcerv · Jul 23, 2013

Some people have had reports of getting some interference using the aux power to the fpv tx, I use the main battery balance plug to power my DJI AVL5.8 fpv tx and get no video noise that way. A friend of mine had noticed he got a cleaner video feed with an extra small battery for his video tx compared to using the phantom aux power.

marcus_canada · Jul 24, 2013

martcerv said:
Some people have had reports of getting some interference using the aux power to the fpv tx, I use the main battery balance plug to power my DJI AVL5.8 fpv tx and get no video noise that way. A friend of mine had noticed he got a cleaner video feed with an extra small battery for his video tx compared to using the phantom aux power.

Good to hear. What size 'extra' battery do you reckon, a little 800mah 3s?

BruceTS · Jul 24, 2013

marcus_canada said:
Hi there guys. Been creeping on the forum for a while as I was figuring out whether to get into the Phantom craze or not.. But here I am, a proud owner

Anyhoo, I took my time and following other advise from this forum and other places, I balanced the props and bought/installed an active gimbal for my Gopro 3.

Shocked you installed the gimbal right away, my first flights were completely bare, no camera even.

This allows you to get the feel for your Phantom and much longer flight times. Heck half the time I take my gimbal off still, just to practice.

Right now the most fragile part is the gimbal and you don't want to damage that just learning.

marcus_canada · Jul 24, 2013

BruceTS said:
marcus_canada said:

Hi there guys. Been creeping on the forum for a while as I was figuring out whether to get into the Phantom craze or not.. But here I am, a proud owner

Anyhoo, I took my time and following other advise from this forum and other places, I balanced the props and bought/installed an active gimbal for my Gopro 3.

Click to expand...

Shocked you installed the gimbal right away, my first flights were completely bare, no camera even.

This allows you to get the feel for your Phantom and much longer flight times. Heck half the time I take my gimbal off still, just to practice.

Right now the most fragile part is the gimbal and you don't want to damage that just learning.

I know what you mean Bruce but I only wanted the Phantom for aerial footage so figured why not jump straight to rigged mode, I have other things for throwing around in the air just for kicks