Progress so far (or lack of!)

[DaWife]

Some may remember that I got a Phantom 1 for my hubby for his birthday. I went ahead and gave it to him a couple of days early so he which has turned out to be WE could get it figured out. So far, he's put the landing gear on, the prop guards, the cam mount and the propellers BUT we're confused about the propellers.

They are self tightening and each has the directional arrows showing one way with a lock & the other way with an open lock. Are we right in assuming they should be installed so the lock arrow is the same direction as the arrow on the motor mount? I've searched for answers and watched a couple of how to vids but can't find anything specific about that.

Also.... the Naza-M Firmware* v4.02. I've read many posts saying to upgrade immediately BEFORE flying but I've also read a lot of posts that say don't bother because it will mess up the Phantom. Some have even said, they even revert back to an earlier version of the firmware. So, which is it?

I remember reading in a couple of places about having to change the Receive Type setting to "D-Bus" after updating the firmware. If not, the transmitter and Phantom don't communicate which could be bad. I assume that's done via the control panel from the computer?

The batteries are charged and if we get the props and firmware figured out, we may make our first test flight today!

Thanks for all of the advice,

DaWife

 

[ElGuano]

Some may remember that I got a Phantom 1 for my hubby for his birthday. I went ahead and gave it to him a couple of days early so he which has turned out to be WE could get it figured out. So far, he's put the landing gear on, the prop guards, the cam mount and the propellers BUT we're confused about the propellers.

They are self tightening and each has the directional arrows showing one way with a lock & the other way with an open lock. Are we right in assuming they should be installed so the lock arrow is the same direction as the arrow on the motor mount? I've searched for answers and watched a couple of how to vids but can't find anything specific about that.

Also.... the Naza-M Firmware* v4.02. I've read many posts saying to upgrade immediately BEFORE flying but I've also read a lot of posts that say don't bother because it will mess up the Phantom. Some have even said, they even revert back to an earlier version of the firmware. So, which is it?

I remember reading in a couple of places about having to change the Receive Type setting to "D-Bus" after updating the firmware. If not, the transmitter and Phantom don't communicate which could be bad. I assume that's done via the control panel from the computer?

The batteries are charged and if we get the props and firmware figured out, we may make our first test flight today!

Thanks for all of the advice,

DaWife

The propellers only tighten if they're on the correct motor, so you should feel free to trial-and-error this. FWIW, if you are facing the front of the phantom. the front left and back right motors get the silver nut props, the front right and back left get the black nut props.

I would upgrade to 4.02 and perform an advanced IMU calibration prior to flight. It's the latest and most stable firmware, and has been out for 6 months now so it's well-tested.

If you have two antennas coming out the bottom (I recall you have a 1.1.1 so that should be the case), your receiver should be D-BUS, and yes it is set in the Assistant software on the PC. If you get it wrong, you simply won't be able to do anything with your controller, so you'll know soon enough.

 

[DanCH]

Here's a tip for doing the firmware upgrade. Connect your USB cable directly to a USB port you know is fully working.

I had a huge problem upgrading my firmware to 4.02 a while back. I was connecting my phantom through an extension USB cable and the upgrade failed, even though the assistant software seemed to be connected to the phantom correctly. It left my phantom in a state that closely resembled "bricked". It had no firmware and obviously couldn't do anything other than flash and beep loudly. All advice I googled for online pointed to it being dead. But once I connected directly to the back of my PC the update thankfully worked.

 

[ElGuano]

Here's a tip for doing the firmware upgrade. Connect your USB cable directly to a USB port you know is fully working.

I had a huge problem upgrading my firmware to 4.02 a while back. I was connecting my phantom through an extension USB cable and the upgrade failed, even though the assistant software seemed to be connected to the phantom correctly. It left my phantom in a state that closely resembled "bricked". It had no firmware and obviously couldn't do anything other than flash and beep loudly. All advice I googled for online pointed to it being dead. But once I connected directly to the back of my PC the update thankfully worked.

That's really good advice. Some peripherals don't do well with USB hubs, about once a month I get strange behavior when connecting a device and the fix is to go directly to a free USB plug in the back of the computer.

 

[DaWife]

Re: Progress so far (or lack of!) UPDATE!!

There has been PROGRESS! It's been in the air!! WOOHOO! We updated the firmware, did the advanced calibrations & compass calibration, crossed fingers and up she went. :mrgreen: DH thought he'd lost contact so turned off the transmitter and she came right back & landed at his feet. Very impressive. We ran battery #1 down and switched to battery #2 and flew around more.

The only thing we can't figure out is how to stop the motors! You'd think there'd be an easy on/off switch on the bird. We tried to figure out the Stop Motor info in the directions but either we didn't understand or it didn't work.

Any advice besides letting the battery die down?

 

[OI Photography]

Re: Progress so far (or lack of!) UPDATE!!

The only thing we can't figure out is how to stop the motors! You'd think there'd be an easy on/off switch on the bird. We tried to figure out the Stop Motor info in the directions but either we didn't understand or it didn't work.

Any advice besides letting the battery die down?

Two ways to accomplish that:

1. Use the same CSC stick combo you used to start the motors (e.g. both sticks all the way down and to the inside)

2. Leaving the right stick centered, hold the left stick all the way down for 3 seconds

Btw, in the "stop motor" section in the software, you want to be careful to leave it selected as "Intelligent" instead of "Immediate", or action #2 above could kill the motors even while in the air.

 

[DaWife]

Here's a tip for doing the firmware upgrade. Connect your USB cable directly to a USB port you know is fully working.

I had a huge problem upgrading my firmware to 4.02 a while back. I was connecting my phantom through an extension USB cable and the upgrade failed, even though the assistant software seemed to be connected to the phantom correctly. It left my phantom in a state that closely resembled "bricked". It had no firmware and obviously couldn't do anything other than flash and beep loudly. All advice I googled for online pointed to it being dead. But once I connected directly to the back of my PC the update thankfully worked.

THANK YOU! I had to change the USB connection before it would upgrade. I'm not sure I would have thought of that if you hadn't mentioned it.

DaWife