Hi Guys,
I thought I'd start a thread with helpful tips we've picked up as new P3 owners that may save some others some pain.
I"ll kick things off:
1. INSTALL THE PROPS CORRECTLY! They are color coded and match the screw color on the motor. Make sure they're right or it'll bury itself in the ground on take off
2. P2V+ props will fit the P3 but they are NOT designed for it and may unthread in flight. Don't use them. Get OEM DLI Props for the P3 only.
3. At 5% battery, the P3 is landing. You can fight it a little but it's coming down and you're not going to stop it. Don't get cocky and run the battery that low... It's a game of Russian Roulette and you're eventually going to lose.
4. Don't play games with super gradual take-offs. It will tip over and crash. Use the auto take off until your comfortable with controlling it, then, when you spin up the motors for take off, just fill throttle it up to 3-5 feet.
5. Don't trust the auto home/land feature. It's very accurate but not always 100% dead-on. Get it over head and visually observe it land. Cancel and take over if it's coming down over tree's etc.
6. Before your first flight, increase the RTH elevation to 83 meters (250ft). At this height, baring any buildings or redwood trees, you should be able to fly unobstructed right home. Adjust up if necessary. no reason to adjust down. Getting to 250ft is effortless for the quad. It's a good safe minimum for RTH.
7. The P2V+ hard shell, props and landing gear will NOT fit the P3. don't bother ordering it.. it wont fit or in the case of the props, are inflight disasters waiting to happen.
8. If you experience failure to take off on command but display says it did, put the P3 on the floor of your garage or basement (super level spot) and advanced calibrate the IMU. This should also fix any gimbal flops at power-up. Mine would snap to life then drift for a minute finally flopping over with the motors trying to move it in a direction it wont go every second until I manually lifted the lens up. Calibrating the IMU should fix all of this.
9. If your battery wont charge immediately after a flight, it's fine. It's too hot to charge and needs to cool. Be patient, put it somewhere cool (not the fridge or something) and let it rest. Leaving it on the charger while it rests is fine.. it's not charging but will immediately when it's reached a safe internal temperature. you can tell this by observing the lights on the battery. If it's flashing the LAST green LED rather than the first one in the cascading charging pattern, it's overheated and will begin when it's cool.
10. I think there is an issue recording over 2GB files. I'm still experimenting but be cautious with video over 2min long. I seem to have lost a few that didn't get saved. This could be a file system limitation. I'll post more when I know more about why and what the work around is.. if any.
I'll add to the thread as I discover or think of more.
This has all come from personal experience in a very short amount of time. Hopefully it saves someone else some pain
~K
I thought I'd start a thread with helpful tips we've picked up as new P3 owners that may save some others some pain.
I"ll kick things off:
1. INSTALL THE PROPS CORRECTLY! They are color coded and match the screw color on the motor. Make sure they're right or it'll bury itself in the ground on take off
2. P2V+ props will fit the P3 but they are NOT designed for it and may unthread in flight. Don't use them. Get OEM DLI Props for the P3 only.
3. At 5% battery, the P3 is landing. You can fight it a little but it's coming down and you're not going to stop it. Don't get cocky and run the battery that low... It's a game of Russian Roulette and you're eventually going to lose.
4. Don't play games with super gradual take-offs. It will tip over and crash. Use the auto take off until your comfortable with controlling it, then, when you spin up the motors for take off, just fill throttle it up to 3-5 feet.
5. Don't trust the auto home/land feature. It's very accurate but not always 100% dead-on. Get it over head and visually observe it land. Cancel and take over if it's coming down over tree's etc.
6. Before your first flight, increase the RTH elevation to 83 meters (250ft). At this height, baring any buildings or redwood trees, you should be able to fly unobstructed right home. Adjust up if necessary. no reason to adjust down. Getting to 250ft is effortless for the quad. It's a good safe minimum for RTH.
7. The P2V+ hard shell, props and landing gear will NOT fit the P3. don't bother ordering it.. it wont fit or in the case of the props, are inflight disasters waiting to happen.
8. If you experience failure to take off on command but display says it did, put the P3 on the floor of your garage or basement (super level spot) and advanced calibrate the IMU. This should also fix any gimbal flops at power-up. Mine would snap to life then drift for a minute finally flopping over with the motors trying to move it in a direction it wont go every second until I manually lifted the lens up. Calibrating the IMU should fix all of this.
9. If your battery wont charge immediately after a flight, it's fine. It's too hot to charge and needs to cool. Be patient, put it somewhere cool (not the fridge or something) and let it rest. Leaving it on the charger while it rests is fine.. it's not charging but will immediately when it's reached a safe internal temperature. you can tell this by observing the lights on the battery. If it's flashing the LAST green LED rather than the first one in the cascading charging pattern, it's overheated and will begin when it's cool.
10. I think there is an issue recording over 2GB files. I'm still experimenting but be cautious with video over 2min long. I seem to have lost a few that didn't get saved. This could be a file system limitation. I'll post more when I know more about why and what the work around is.. if any.
I'll add to the thread as I discover or think of more.
This has all come from personal experience in a very short amount of time. Hopefully it saves someone else some pain
~K
