Potentially serious problem with Phantom 3 and iPad

[eseckinger]

My nexus 7 does not even get warm neener neener!

 

[ebfoxbat]

I ran a full battery flight yesterday with my iPad mini 2 with no issues. I start by for quitting all apps. I put it in Do Not Disturb mode and and Airplane mode. Then I restart the device.

My theory is that this wipes any cache, frees RAM, and resets and command queueing that's happening.

I started my flight with a compass calibration but otherwise took off pretty quickly after the restart.

 

[leekiya]

Even when I flew my P2 with the iPad I always turned off background refresh FOR ALL apps so as to compete for bandwidth. Go to Sttings>General>Background Refresh and turn off the top slider for Background refresh, this will prevent the iPad from trying to update or refresh any apps while you are flying.

If you lost FPV while flying tho would this not prevent the pilot app from refreshing and giving you FPV back.

 

[rmfa]

If you lost FPV while flying tho would this not prevent the pilot app from refreshing and giving you FPV back.

No, the Pilot app isn't in the background. This would be for the other apps that are.

 

[delirious]

Interesting. So the conclusion is that an ipad case causes overheating? I just put one on yesterday and did two flights. I didn't get any sort of video problem til I reached my max range. Lost feed and the drone returned and feed came back. I have my channel set to 20 and 4 mb/s. That extends the range some..but quality isn't like 6 mb/s

 

[leekiya]

Interesting. So the conclusion is that an ipad case causes overheating? I just put one on yesterday and did two flights. I didn't get any sort of video problem til I reached my max range. Lost feed and the drone returned and feed came back. I have my channel set to 20 and 4 mb/s. That extends the range some..but quality isn't like 6 mb/s

In auto does it nock the quality back a bit the further you fly away in order to keep FPV. Not played around with these setting yet.

 

[delirious]

it doesn't affect quality. Tahoe Ed (DJI rep) suggested channel 20. and 4 mb/s Now that I've experienced it's full range from my front porch, I'll put it back. I don't plan on seeing how far it can go often.

 

[Flying Fred]

I'm having the same problem with an iPad mini 2. I connect to the P3, take off, and the next thing I know I'm looking at a blank screen. I also have an Inspire 1 which started acting up after about 10 flights when I updated the firmware last week. The screen wouldn't go blank but the screen would pixilate and freeze especially when it looking at moving objects such as cars. I enabled the hardware decode and that seems to have solved the problem on the Inspire for now. I got my P3 yesterday, downloaded the new IOS app immediately (which I think is pretty cool btw), updated the firmware and the screen went blank on the first flight. I do have a life proof case on my iPad but I'm still confused because I don't understand why the iPad would overheat on the Phantom but not the Inspire? Are y'all sure its an overheating problem and not a glitch in the app that DJI needs to address? Has anybody taken one for the team and gone through the absolute hell of trying to get someone from DJI on the phone who speaks English AND who can actually give a direct and satisfactory answer to this question?

 

[bcass1]

keep in mind that Dynamic Home Point does not work with the I pad mini!

 

[Jimmykjimmy]

I have an Android tablet without a SIM card and an iPad mini with a SIM card. Does having a SIM card make a difference flying the P3? Shouldn't think so but you never know.

 

[Serpent]

UPDATE: I popped my SIM card out of my iPad (Spring FreedomPop) and all seems to be well again and smooth as butter. That's the only change I made and it now works. Will need to experiment more to see why this is.

If this is the case then try putting the phone in 'Flight' mode (no pun intended) before flying. I don't think this will disable the lightning connector. iPad should not overheat to affect app performance. Overheating CPU / GPU would normally result in application and/or OS crashing.

 

[Michael Olsen]

Sorry to intrude here, but how do you set the channel and speed?

it doesn't affect quality. Tahoe Ed (DJI rep) suggested channel 20. and 4 mb/s Now that I've experienced it's full range from my front porch, I'll put it back. I don't plan on seeing how far it can go often.

 

[delirious]

Sorry to intrude here, but how do you set the channel and speed?

Hit the HD with the bars at the top. A menus will come up. Select manual. Select channel with lowest bar. Back the transmission speed down. That way you can go further with camera

 

[mfr1340]

I had same problems with my iPad mini2 with my first filghts. I had a case on it and the second time I lost signal was due to ipad overheating. I switched to my iPad air2 without case and all the other tricks, (background app re-freash, hardware decoding, saving flight vedio on iPad while flying). I also installed a range booster ( which gives me great confadence while flying). I have done 30 flights while doing the 10 for 10 batt break-in flights of 30% batt useage (since I have 3 batts) (8 to 9 min flights) and am now ready to do some 20 min. flights. One thing I also did was to set the camera setting at 1080 at 24 frame rate. No flicker and great picture for the whole flight. I start the recording before take-off and record the whole flight. I can transfer the recordings right to the iPad air2 with the camera kit and then watch it or send it to my apple tv and watch it on my 60 plasma. It is great, I am glad I didn't spring for the Pro model because the 1080p is more then I could hope for.
My late dad was a WW2 Bomberdire and photographer and a RC building nut, and I think about him every time I fly. He was also a professenal potographer. He passed 3 years ago at 84 so he never saw drones and what they could do. He would work for a year building a plane (6' wing span glider) and crash it with-in the first few flights due to the lack ao good electronics in those days. Then he would just start building a new one takeing out the electronics and putting it in the new one. I have had 30 flights and land my drone on a 2' dia. landing pad made from styrofoam. Now I am looking for the next area to fly. I go on Google Earth to look for good take-off areas where I can fly without anyone getting pissed off. My town is right in the middle of farm land and rolling mountains, but the coast is just 30 miles away so that looks like my next trip.
I went on a long flight so I could see how far I could go and still see the drone. I could still see it at over 3,100' away, and still had full signal strength. It was overcast and it showed up great against the clouds, Just don't take your eyes off the drone or you will lose track of it. But by looking at the picture you can just line up and look up slowley and regain line of sight contact with the drone.
Happy Flying!

 

[richardseguro]

I believe hardware acceleration should be enable on iPad mini 2. I think I read on another forum that it should be enabled for divices with the A7 chip

What you say is true...I have played with different combos: flying early morning, late afternoon and evenings. The live video latency is due to ipad overheat. I have never had live video issues unless flying during day after maybe 10-15 under heavy sun. So cooling ipad is a must.

 

[Oso]

I'm surprised that it took about 35 posts before overheating was mentioned. Overheating tablets causing video lag and crashing has been discussed so often on Phantom forums that it should be suspected first whenever these symptoms arise. I'm not saying that it is always the issue causing lag, but it is the issue a large percentage of the time. That is based on the vast amount of corroborating threads on this forum and the DJI forum. The Pilot app was considered one of the most CPU taxing apps out there which is why some of the more underpowered phones and tablets would bog down and start to throttle. Many people were hoping that the new GO app would be more efficient to help with overheating.

 

[blade strike]

If you look at the date this thread is a few months old.

 

[Oso]

If you look at the date this thread is a few months old.

Duh. I didn't see that this was an old thread that was recently resurrected. Frik.
See, that's why you're the IT manager of a city!

I guess I'm too used to people just starting new threads without looking to see what already exists out there.

Thanks sir for noticing and pointing it out. Cheers!

 

[F6Rider]

You should never fly an iPad with the case on, or any device for that matter, the DJI GO app is processor intensive so the device runs at a high usage causing more heat, the iPad is aluminum for a reason, to dissipate heat, if you cover it up it will run too hot, causing the processor to slow down to reduce the heat. This topic has been covered many times, and is a known issue with low power tablets, why I switched from the Mini 2 to the Air 2, which is much less prone to this.

 

[Luis Costa]

I use a Samsung S3, the phone never gets hot, and the app fails frequently, no matter the place, time or the distance.
Yes, I rolled back Google Play Services, flight mode, all other apps closed and memory optimisation.