Performance Issues - v1.11.20 Firmware

aviator67 · Aug 9, 2017

Has anyone notice a performance increase in speed on the P3P with the latest firmware update (v1.11.20)?

I did a test flight last evening after updating my firmware and noticed that my max speed was 54.67mph during a routine flight. I expect that about 10 mph of this was due to wind but tonight I flew a few test flights and it looks like the response of my P3P is somewhat more aggressive. In a zero wind condition tonight I'm getting 44.27mph. I tested both GPS and ATTI mode.

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

ROD PAINTER · Aug 9, 2017

At what altitude did you have zero wind? I have both a P3P and a new P3A and never got over 36 mph. Wind speeds can change around 10 mph for a difference in 100 ft altitude.

aviator67 · Aug 9, 2017

ROD PAINTER said:
At what altitude did you have zero wind? I have both a P3P and a new P3A and never got over 36 mph. Wind speeds can change around 10 mph for a difference in 100 ft altitude.

I agree, the P3 and AirData are recording groundspeed so wind will influence your "speed" stats. Tonight, at 394 feet, the wind was blowing at about 18 mph (as calculated by AirData) so it appears to be an calculated figure but it surprised me that I would be traveling at nearly 55mph! I've got 140 flights on my P3P and have never seen those speeds. I went out and flew my UPair One in the same conditions and it was noticeably slower by visual reference.

I may be all wet, but initially it looks like DJI may have tweeked the PID loops on this version of the firmware. .

G Lee · Aug 10, 2017

I agree my p3a seems more as you said aggressive in speed and climb

aviator67 · Aug 10, 2017

As it turns out, there was a strong wind at 300 feet last night so I went out this morning at 6:30am in dead calm conditions but still recorded 38.52mph, which is about 5 mph faster than any of my previous flights with this P3P. I'm also seeing the forward motor arms in the video, even with my camera gimbal set to not go above 0°. The props are clearly visible in the image. Now to be fair, I also added Plast-aid to the rear motor mounts, in the lower shell, making the rear arms somewhat stiffer, but I can't see where this would account for what I'm seeing.

Ahh, the fun of inquiry & discovery!

Numone · Aug 10, 2017

aviator67 said:
So I went out this morning at 6:30am in dead calm conditions and recorded 38.52mph, which is about 5 mph faster than any of my previous 125 flights with this P3P.....

Well, TBH it seems to be about 6mph slower than your earlier flight today?

aviator67 · Aug 10, 2017

Numone said:
Well, TBH it seems to be about 6mph slower than your earlier flight today?

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not being too scientific about this, initially it was just a perceived performance increase so I thought I'd ask around. Turns out, I had my gain settings lowered (0.20) before the upgrade and the apparently the upgrade reset those back to the default settings (0.40). This may be all that it is.

I'll test again later. I would think that would only affect the slope of the response and not the maximum response, but heck, I'm still learning & tinkering.