Hi AndrewCCM and crash1sttime.
It's been another few months and unfortunately there is still no progress on fixing Blind/Blank FPV on the Phantom 2 Vision Basic (non-plus, egg camera) model :-/ A few other drone hackers have reached out to me and we've shared info but haven't been able to get the FC200 cameras into "Boot me" mode in order to re-flash the boot-loader on them. The
P2 Care Program may be the best route for any US flyers who haven't broken too many warranty seals on the Phantom 2 Vision drones (base with the egg camera).
For those of you looking for a blank screen fix for your Phantom 2 Vision+ Plus model, I've consolidated all the resources I've found in one place to help you sort through your options. Here we go...
What causes the blank screen issue on the P2VP? Quite simply, the firmware memory chips corrupt over time and if enough memory corruptions build up then the bottom board in the module won't boot up and the streaming video feed to your app stops.
What about heat? Heat never helps! But it's not the root cause. It probably increases the rate of volatile memory corruption, but even a cool module, sitting on the shelf, corrupts over time - as we see from the myriad hobbyists who turn it on after shelving it for 6 months only to find FPV isn't working.
Now you have telemetry (because the top board in the wifi module still works and transmits wifi signal to the range extender), but the FPV doesn't work because the Davinci video processing chip on the lower board stops doing its job and freezes during its boot-up sequence.
What are your options (as of March 2019):
- Buy a working module ($100 to $200 on eBay) that is good for now, but has a non-zero chance of failing at some point in the future
- If you live in the USA and you've never opened or modified your drone, try your luck at DJI's P2 Care Plan - maybe after filling out the survey and jumping through all the hoops you'll get your drone fixed for FREE! This is the only repair option that I know of to fix a Phantom 2 Vision Basic (egg camera) that has no live video feed.
- Get a newer drone that is less likely to go blind: Mavic Pro, P3 Standard, Phantom 4, etc. (note that some P3Pro do go blind for similar reasons to the P2VP issue)
- Reflash the NAND yourself, using the tutorial I've put together - this requires about $30 of equipment and a steady soldering hand. Be careful not to damage the test pads on the board or repair will become impossible for you or anyone you send the board to!
- Have someone else repair your board for you (~$80) - I am in the USA and do the repairs (contact me here), in the UK this Youtuber FlymyMavic has a tutorial on the fix and does great work, or try one of the handful of people offering the service on eBay (my handle on eBay is okstuv)
Oh, and one more tip.
For those of you with no telemery and no fpv: your problem is Binding, not necessarily a bad module. Unfortunately, binding the module to the range extender is trickier than it used to be. You see many modern cell phones are not completely compatible with the binding feature in the DJI Vision app.
I've put together this tips and tricks page to help people bind their range extenders properly - even examples of what a bad bind looks like and what a good one looks like. Enjoy!
Good luck and happy flying!