Newby looking for advice (flight times & Voltage)

[Browneee]

Hi there all, I'm new to the forum & Phantoms .

I've had my P1 two weeks now... Flown it a bunch of times (only had one battery:-(). I purchased three "zippy 20C series 2200 Lipo's. I also purchased a Feiyu Tech G3 (what a pain to install.)

Before the new batteries & gimbal I was getting a little over 10 minutes flight time. Now I get 4 may be 5 mins max before auto land . I upgraded the NASA firmware today also.

Obviously the gimbal will drain power for itself, but will it cut flight time by half?, or is there a problem with the firmware upgrade , how do I roll it back to original firmware?.

Also, can you play around with the voltage limits ?. What's the lowest safe level you guys are going to ?. I'm too scared to touch these settings.....

Regards Rob

 

[Gizmo3000]

for every gram of extra weight you add, you lose about 1 second (so if you add a 200gram gimbal, that'll cut 3.5 minutes right there.
Yes, you can drop your battery failsafe's down a bit, but read up about it, there's some threads on here.

Best thing you can do to bump up flight times is switch to Phantom Vision props, they'll give you about an extra minute.

I get around 6 minutes with my Phantom 1.

 

[kydan]

You'll want a higher capacity battery such as the Maddog 2700mah or SMC Racing 2800mah for longer flight times. Both of those batteries fit into the stock battery compartment.

Also as mentioned above, purchase Vision props (cheapest is at uavproducts.com for 4 sets at $15 each with free shipping/no sales tax over $50).

I kept my voltage settings as they were already set up in the naza software.

 

[ElGuano]

Some good advice in this thread. P2V props (which will likely require you to adjust your gains in Assistant) + larger battery is the best solution, most Phantom 1 flyers have gone this route.

Paying more for a lighter gimbal (Zenmuse/Stella) is another option.