P2V LEMON EXCHANGED - how common are these problems

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I have been flying my P2V since I bought it in early november 2013 (about 70 plus flights). i am one of those people who have been reading this board since then and following all the issues other people had thinking "Thank god that's not happening to my phantom vision" until now. I remember the terror of flying it for the frist time hoping it wasnt going to fly away lol.

When I first purchased the P2V i flew it about 10 times without any problem. Then I could not get any satellites (usually I was able to get 6 easily on the ground and up to 10-12 at 30 metres altitude). The compass calibration 'dance' did nothing and when i felt the compass it was burning hot to touch. I took it back to the shop and they swapped the compass over for me. That solved that problem.

After about 60-70 flights i noticed a number of other problems start to emerge.

I should note here that I have always upgraded to latest software, and did IMU advanced calibrations repeatedly, including after each problem emerged and values were always in the acceptable range before and after the Advanced IMU calibration (It did say my machine was too hot to do IMU calibration but I believe this is a software issue from this forum). My P2V is still in original GPS mode and has never been put in Naza mode. Even though I can fly r/C heli's (have been for about 3 years) I am conservative regarding my flying ability with my $1400 machine and planned to try Naza after I had 100 flights so I knew if anything went wrong I could fly it myself wihout relying on IOC or home lock. (I can do all the 'flight manual 1, 2 and 3 star manouvres no problem)

First problem I noticed, every now and then in the middle of flight my iphone 5 screen would simply go black. I could see how much battery etc there was but the FPV preview was just gone, black screen. I tried taking a photo and stopping and starting a video when this happened and it seems I can control both of those things even though the screen was black. There was no particular distance this was happening at, sometimes at 30 metres away (20 m altitude0 other times 60 metres altitude 180 metres away). My iphone 5 was fully charged, wi fi extender was fully charged before each flight. Stopping and restarting the app did not help. I had to land the P2V, turn everything off and start again to get picture back. Not good when its 180 metres away and I can just see it and i am using the FPV to navigate it back to where i am.

Second problem, the P2V 'hover area' started to gradually increase. When it was new (after the compass replacement) it would hover in about a 1.5 metre diameter circle maximum. After the problems started to emerge the hover circle widened to about 5 metres diameter. Altitude stayed the same within a metre or so. i have read about the 'toilet bowl effect' and my 'toilet bowl area' was bigger than it should have been (always hovered in clockwise direction, maybe a southern hemisphere thing?). Also, the P2V did not fly in a straight line, it veered left going forward and veered right reversing. There are other posts relating to this and the east coast of Australia possibly being affected by magnetic declination.I feel this didnt afect toilet bowl area though as it wasnt always a 5 metre toilet bowl, if was a magnetic declination issue it should have been consistent from the start. I did compass calibrations before each flight in the end but this still had no effect on size of toilet bowl area.

The third problem relates to the battery. i fly my P2V over the ocean, out about 100 metres from the shore sometimes at 10-20 metres altitude and this problem concerned me a great deal for obvious reasons. When flying the P2V over a beach one time I had 74% battery left from a fully charged battery, had been flying for about 5-7 minutes light wind when all of a sudden the green flashing lights on the rear of the craft flashed blinking rapid red and the P2V started to self land just like it does when under 15% battery power remaining. Luckily I had it at 40 metres altitude and i steered it over to me onto the grass headland where it landed perfectly as it is supposed to (at 15% ;) I thought it may have been a poor battery charge or connection so i took the battery home and charged it, next day zero wind took it to a local park and flew it up to 5 metres and hovered it there with no problem. Then i increased throttle to gain altitude and when i did this the same thing happened, rapid blinking red lights and started to self land. I released throttle and green lights appeared again and it hovered in position. i repeated this agin with same effect just to make sure. Battery this time was at 95% and 92% battery indicator in all cases went red in the app on my iphone 5. After that I put it away and took it back to the shop :D (yes i did discharge it after every 20 flights and the battery cells in the assistant software came up even and normal, i checked)

the fourth problem had been there the entire time and related to soft areas of focus with the camera. Images were blurred in the bottom right hand corner. I was prepared to live with this as I have read it is a common issue. This issue was there from when i bought the P2V. It says my photos are too big to insert in this but if someone tells me how to post them i can post them if anyones interested.

I always landed my phantom in my hand and it has never crashed, hit a tree etc.

I took it back to the shop and within 3 days they decided I should get a new one after they had a look at it and decided they could not fix it. I have a new one now and have flown it once, it seems ok I guess i'll know once I have flown it quite a few more times.

I am writing this for two reasons.

First, just because you have had no issues and flown a few times doesn't mean you won't have issues in the future, everyone knows this but it pays to constantly 'pay attention' to your aircraft and catch any probolems before they result in a big problem like a fly away or even worse a failure cauding your P2V to crash and injure someone or damage something. i thought I was fine and all the problems i read about wouldn't happen to me as I had flown it a few times. They did happen to me though.

Second reason for writing, because I think the P2V is the best thing out there in terms of giving 'ordinary' people like me the ability to take amazing photos and capture images and footage I would only have dreamed about even 5 years ago. Everyone who sees it take off and rise at 6m/s up to 50 metres is amazed, then they see the photos and what it can do and they are blown away, especially when I send them the image as an sms while I am flying the P2V. I love my P2V, I am not writing this to detract from it, just as another experience for people to bear in mind (and to see if these are common problems so DJI may take note if they are).

I am happily looking forward to flying my new machine and taking photos of some very beautiful places here in Australia and overseas and posting them here. One thing i love about this forum is I get to see photos and video of fantastic places all over the world i would not otherwise get to see, and from a totally different persepctive. The other thing I love about it is the people on here are so willing to help with any type of problem, it really is a great 'phantom community' that I learn something from every time i read a new post.
 
As I mentioned In another thread I've found that he veering left on the way out and right on the way back is a result of using your thumbs only on the control sticks. I found for me any that using the thumb and forefinger to grip the sticks eliminated this. Although I have found I can't get used to that method. I still fly with only my thumbs and correct for the drift.
 

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