Servo and noise in general

BMEWS · Mar 26, 2014

Hi,

I've finally charged up all the batteries and upon power up of the P2V. However, there is a constant whining noise that appears to be associated with the camera (seems to be the servo). It sounds like a high pitched tone and some occasional RF interference but definitely isn't what I expected. It could be the norm but would like to hear from experienced hands out there. There is also an accompanying fan noise which I assume is coming from inside the unit itself.

I'm not happy with the noise which becomes worse when I pitch the camera up or down. Considering this unit is 1 day old (out of the box) i'm surprised and rather disappointed.

I have another issue after downloading the latest Phantom 2 installer (v2) when this is connected to the p2v I can see that the firmware states it requires no updates. However, if I try to look at the view option I get the error message of "you must update main controller firmware to new version" in red. Looking at the main controller line on the screen I see the following :-

"main controller loader -.-.- hardware id firmware 1.08 no updates"

Any idea what's going on there?

additionally, i'm trying to connect my nexus 7 as the viewing device. My N7 sees the range extender and I can see an image on the screen from the camera. This is how I can pitch the camera up and down (with its accompanying whining noise). However, the preview quality seems incredibly limited. i can only see the options for 320x240 30fps, 640x480 15fps, and 320x240 15fps. i've set it to 320x240 30fps but would have expected better quality.

Any ideas what I may be doing wrong? Are these the ONLY settings available? or is this a lemon edition of a P2V

thanks

BMEWS

Pull_Up · Mar 26, 2014

Hello.

Noise - it's normal. Digital servo keeping watch to move the camera in the one axis to attempt some stabilization. Should sound like an old dial up modem on steroids. It's both normal and encouraging. If it ever goes silent then you've got a problem! I found it VERY odd when I first fit my Rotorpixel gimbal not to have that lovely noise accompanying me. Don't worry, with the props spinning you won't hear anything over the noise they make.

Updates - if you did it today with the version 2.0 new Assistant, well it's just been released this morning and the servers are either falling over or DJI haven't got the actual firmware ready to go quite yet. You'll have the latest firmware prior to this fresh one in all likelihood, so either have a flight or wait until the version 2.0 sorts itself out (probably, hopefully, within 24 hours)...

BMEWS · Mar 26, 2014

Cheers Simon,

Wasn't expecting to hear gears grinding on modern technology. We'll have to see what happens if/when a new gimbal is released or RP manage to get to a more palatable delivery schedule. Popularity brings its own problems

thanks again. I may go for a flight tomorrow now. just wanted to make sure that upon first flight it doesn't decide to do a runner

proper compass calibration prior to motors running I think will be the order of the day.

BMEWS

Pull_Up · Mar 26, 2014

It's not gears, just a 200Hz refresh rate. But it is a bit annoying. There's a cooling fan in the camera as well just to add to the chorus. It sounds a lot louder indoors than it does out, though.