Some Newbie questions - Need advice Please

Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Hello Community,

I have been reading through your excellent pieces of information and thought I would turn to you for some advice and guidance. I have recently acquired a Phantom 2 with H3-3D Gimbal, an FPV system with 8" monitor and a Futaba T8J to go alongwith it. I also have mini iOSD installed. I have just completed my 4th flight and could use some help :

1) My H3-3D Gimbal while inflight seems to perform ok. When it is on the ground and starts up. It never becomes still. Continously keeps adjusting ever so slightly, tilting slightly to the left and center repeatedly. It also looks like it is not completely off the ground and the gopro is touching the floor, (perhaps the reason). Any thoughts on what may be going on?

2) Is there something you would recommend to stabilize the H3-3D gimbal while its being transported. I plan to travel with this, and I don’t want it to just aimlessly be moving around in the case. Or is that ok?

3) My FPV reception is terrible. There are wavy lines through it (with sprionets attached and tightened) even at a very close range (10-15ft). Further, it becomes grainy and cuts in and out constantly while in flight. Any thoughts?

4) The Futaba didn't come with a mount for the FPV monitor. Could you recommend one?

5) Im thinking of getting one of those multi chargers, since I have three batteries and don't want to babysit them. Are there any concerns with these? Any recommendations perhaps?

6) Is there a way from the Futaba or the mini iOSD for me to tell how much flight battery is left on the Phantom?

7) Is there a config file or some standard configuration for the Futaba that people use. It came pre programmed with the controls, but I see some cool stuff people are doing with trims for smoother panning and coding switches to failsafe and im wondering if there is a general best practices collection.

Thank you so much for reading this. I am thrilled to be a part of your community. Appreciate all the help and guidance I can get.
 
I'll try to address your questions:

1) Keep gimbal off ground - taller legs or spacers on legs to get it up will probably cure that gimbal movement. I find my P2 did that also from the start.

2) alot of folks use a little foam below or around gimbal when transporting or Shapeways offers a clamp to hold it steady.

3) reposition antenna on aircraft or change channels on both Tx & Rx for better reception.

4) Amazon & ebay offer mounts for monitors for Futaba

5) Buy a larger charger from a local dealer where you can see them and also have local support in case of failure. There are alot available and I'm sure others here can recommend brands, but get it locally so your not bound by shipping in case it goes bad.

6) The IOSD mini shows battery life in upper left corner of screen. On P1s and early models it showed voltage, on P2s it shows percentage of bettery left.

7) Go to YouTube and look up HPI guy - he has 3 excellent videos on Futaba setup for Phantoms including settings. His 3 video tutorial is the holy grail for setting up Futaba.
 
taimoor said:
Hello Community,

I have been reading through your excellent pieces of information and thought I would turn to you for some advice and guidance. I have recently acquired a Phantom 2 with H3-3D Gimbal, an FPV system with 8" monitor and a Futaba T8J to go alongwith it. I also have mini iOSD installed. I have just completed my 4th flight and could use some help :

1) My H3-3D Gimbal while inflight seems to perform ok. When it is on the ground and starts up. It never becomes still. Continously keeps adjusting ever so slightly, tilting slightly to the left and center repeatedly. It also looks like it is not completely off the ground and the gopro is touching the floor, (perhaps the reason). Any thoughts on what may be going on?

2) Is there something you would recommend to stabilize the H3-3D gimbal while its being transported. I plan to travel with this, and I don’t want it to just aimlessly be moving around in the case. Or is that ok?

3) My FPV reception is terrible. There are wavy lines through it (with sprionets attached and tightened) even at a very close range (10-15ft). Further, it becomes grainy and cuts in and out constantly while in flight. Any thoughts?

4) The Futaba didn't come with a mount for the FPV monitor. Could you recommend one?

5) Im thinking of getting one of those multi chargers, since I have three batteries and don't want to babysit them. Are there any concerns with these? Any recommendations perhaps?

6) Is there a way from the Futaba or the mini iOSD for me to tell how much flight battery is left on the Phantom?

7) Is there a config file or some standard configuration for the Futaba that people use. It came pre programmed with the controls, but I see some cool stuff people are doing with trims for smoother panning and coding switches to failsafe and im wondering if there is a general best practices collection.

Thank you so much for reading this. I am thrilled to be a part of your community. Appreciate all the help and guidance I can get.


Hey Talmoor, welcome to the club. I'll throw in my 2 cents as well and hopefully it helps.

1) Have you ever firmware updated, either the Phantom 2 body, the gimbal itself, the RC or the iODS mini? ALL of them have USB ports for this and you should browse here, then go to DJI to see which of those pieces could use an update. When I first gt my H3-3d to replace my H3-2D, it did some funky gyrations. Firmware update solved it completely. Now, I power up my Phantom 2 and the gimbal initializes, then sits quietly - pretty much works flawlessly now.

2) For now, until you find a decent replacement that is made for that purpose, the suggestions to use light foam or maybe even light cloth should be fine. The idea is just to keep it from having extreme movements in any direction during transport.

3) Your video reception should NOT be that bad, especially close to you as it is. I mistakenly used a reverse polarity antenna on a regular SMA plug on my LCD / Receiver and I still got reception at over 1000 ft away. Did you buy this as a kit - pre-assembled or add all the extras to P2 body? To me it sounds like your TX is getting major interference from something onboard the Phantom. Keep the TX away from the compass. Also, check your antennas again. Are they the right kind of fitting? Double check using this guide http://phantomlogs.blogspot.com/2014/07 ... ctors.html

4) You can get mounts that add your monitor right to the RC. I use a tripod mount and have my FPV screen stand separate from me. Just a preference.

5) The multi-chargers like this one - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...g=4bestdealsonline-20&linkId=EV4GJJP7EAYVEBOY - work OK, but my recommendation is to find your item on Amazon and use the reviews as a guide. Some people are very meticulous on their reviews and give great info so you can decide. You might also search here for your item to see if you should try.Put it this way - buy it on amazon and if it suck you have 30 days to return. Another option is to buy 2 more regular DJI chargers and make it 3 - one for each battery. It's what I do.

6) If your IOSD mini was set up properly, top left corner is where battery life displays. If you're getting other telemetry, you probably need to access your IOSD mini through the computer - with that, you can tell the measurements to move IN - in other words go from wide screen to medium and some of the values will be visible now when before they were probably chopped off because the IOSD was set too wide for your screen.

7) I'm not even touching this. I bow to thatHPI Guy. He does excellent walkthroughs / how-tos. I would not even try to improve on anything he says. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx-N0_ ... t_E5eRZ2YQ

Good luck and happy flying.
 
Thanks for all the replies and comments. I do really appreciate all the help and support.

Ive since verified, the Gimbal acts that way, only if it is even slightly touching something on the ground. The grass was doing it. Flat smooth surface and it was stable before takeoff and landing.

Ill have to monitor the FPV reception, although wavy and cutting in and out, I was able to get FPV to about 600m today. I have the TS351, a 5.8Ghz 200mw transmitter

Thanks for the tip on the mini iOSD. I thought that battery level was for something else. This is good to know. Thanks :)

Ill look into the mount and multi charger, thanks for the advice.

I am making a new Model on my Futaba with theHPIguys advice right now! :)
 

Recent Posts

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,352
Members
104,933
Latest member
mactechnic