too hot to fly

[Oso]

Well, it was 95 here today and on my 3rd battery I started getting some serious lag and screen 'Blips' towards the end. As this is the normal summer temp I will either have to fly early morning, late evening, or find another solution. Dang it, thought I had it dialed in as the P3 is flying awesomely, iPad was working great, now this. I tried my iPhone 6+ and it was unaffected by the heat, but the screen is too small, now the search is on for a 8-10 tablet that will work in the heat. <sigh>

Hi sir. I was also out today in the upper 90's. If I still had my Mini 2, I wouldn't have bothered. Now with the Air 2, I am much more confident and had no issues at all. I still won't go out later this week when we will both see over 105, but I'll go to 100. Maybe we can figure out a way for you try my Air 2 to see what you think. You'd have to drive down to my area however. It's hard for me to get my kids away from Minecraft.

http://www.phantompilots.com/posts/418241/

 

[F6Rider]

Yep, going to be 105 on Friday for us, Guess I will put my iPad Mini 2 on eBay, does the air 2 fit the mount with a shade attached, or is a shade needed with the OEM anti-glare screen? And Minecraft will turn your kids into zombies

 

[Oso]

Yep, going to be 105 on Friday for us, Guess I will put my iPad Mini 2 on eBay, does the air 2 fit the mount with a shade attached, or is a shade needed with the OEM anti-glare screen? And Minecraft will turn your kids into zombies

The Air 2 fits, but with only a click or two left to lock it in. I think that a thin shade would fit, but it would be very tight. Perhaps just a bit too tight. Even so, I haven't used a shade at all. The screen on the Air 2 is really awesome. As long as I keep it clean (no fingerprints) I can see the screen outdoors even when not in the shade of a tree. If I find a nice tree to stand near, it's perfection. With the Mini 2, as soon as I walked through my front door the screen instantly turned into a mirror. Not so with the Air 2.

The size isn't crazy big. I was very concerned about that because I kept thinking as if it was as large as my older iPad 3. The Air 2 is noticeably narrower. Obviously not as small as the Mini 2, but really not too big.

I do find the mount a little wobbly and that pesky screw gets loose. I did order an Inspire mount, but it won't be here until Tuesday next week. It should be a little better.

Overall I am super happy, especially since it means I can fly much more this summer.

 

[Havavision]

Only 114 in Havasu today. Didn't fly

 

[Oso]

Only 114 in Havasu today. Didn't fly

With the P3 spec'd to only 104 and most tablets spec'd to only 95 or less, I don't know what you guys in AZ will do for 2/3 of the year. The last time I was there (Chandler) it was crazy hot, though of course a dry heat.

 

[Havavision]

With the P3 spec'd to only 104 and most tablets spec'd to only 95 or less, I don't know what you guys in AZ will do for 2/3 of the year. The last time I was there (Chandler) it was crazy hot, though of course a dry heat.

Guess I'll come to Sac!

 

[ScottyT]

Seriously, people shouldn't be needing to purchase high end tablets with more CPU resources or greater tolerances to cater for this app alone, or have to worry about cooling them with home made ice packs.

Yeah my Android tablet gets hot running the DJI pilot app, and it lagged before I reclaimed some resources after employing the Google Play Services workaround.

But it's no surprise it gets hot when the DJI Pilot app sits at > 50% CPU on a quad core @ 1900MHz (not throttled). The temp gets bumped up 30C (86F) degrees then

And this is before I turn on the P3 so the app is using half the tablet's resources before the FPV stream is even initiated. The app is basically sitting there with a black screen showing "No signal"...

As per the attachments:

Pic 1 shows the performance stats for the tablet running the DJI pilot app with the RC transmitter turned on but the P3 is off. Grounded. No blinking lights. No FPV stream to display. Nothing really for the app to do.
However it is using 50% of the CPUs at full frequency, hence the tablet heats up considerably, going from 40C to 70C
Where the red line intersects the graphs is where the RC transmitter is turned off, app still running. Negligible CPU usage by the app, as one would expect (note the frequency stepped down to conserve battery as there is no longer CPU demand).
The tablet cools down. Calm is restored at 40C.

Pic 2 shows the P3 in flight with FPV very laggy. As you can see the CPU usage and Temp are very high. When a temp approx >80C (176F) is reached, the tablet will throttle the processor as per the frequency graph. You can see the Frequency chart and Temp chart peaks corresponding where it tries to ramp up the frequency again once a little cooler, but it soon heats up and is throttled again. Hence, lag.

Increased temperature is the result of the high CPU usage. Why is there high CPU usage for the app when it is doing absolutely nothing before the P3 is even powered on?

However, I can play a 4k video using VLC, and have Google maps running in the background actively using GPS as SatNAV and the tablet is lucky to use 10 to 15% of the CPU resources. Temperature rise 5C, hitting 45C MAX.
Isnt that basically the main workload of the app aside from the fact it's being done through the USB bus? It acts as a lowly 720p display device for the most part...where's all the overhead?

DJI need to sort this out, as there are obvious inefficiencies at play and I doubt the app really requires all the CPU resources it is demanding. Most if not all tablets that run the supported version of IOS/Android should run such a workload with resources to spare.

Save your money until they fix it I say; but don't hold your breath.

Pic 1: App loaded, RC toggled, Phantom not even turned on:


Pic 2: FPV streaming with lag

 

[F6Rider]

The Air 2 fits, but with only a click or two left to lock it in. I think that a thin shade would fit, but it would be very tight. Perhaps just a bit too tight. Even so, I haven't used a shade at all. The screen on the Air 2 is really awesome. As long as I keep it clean (no fingerprints) I can see the screen outdoors even when not in the shade of a tree. If I find a nice tree to stand near, it's perfection. With the Mini 2, as soon as I walked through my front door the screen instantly turned into a mirror. Not so with the Air 2.

The size isn't crazy big. I was very concerned about that because I kept thinking as if it was as large as my older iPad 3. The Air 2 is noticeably narrower. Obviously not as small as the Mini 2, but really not too big.

I do find the mount a little wobbly and that pesky screw gets loose. I did order an Inspire mount, but it won't be here until Tuesday next week. It should be a little better.

Overall I am super happy, especially since it means I can fly much more this summer.

Thanks Oso, good info, I ordered a Air 2 wifi/Cell to have the GPS, as Verizon only wants a few bucks for a sim card I might just put one in so I don't have to tether. I was worried about the screen but have heard good things about the new air 2 anti-glare screen. I already put the Inspire mount on, it is much more stable than the plastic OEM one. What the heck, it is only money.

 

[herein2014]

I have never had a single heat problem with my P2 and Black Pearl monitor and I have flown literally all day in 90+ degree heat, not looking forward to dealing with this new problem. The only problem I ran into once was the car charger got so hot it stopped charging the batteries, but that only happened once after charging 3 batteries back to back for almost 2hrs straight.

Seriously, people shouldn't be needing to purchase high end tablets with more CPU resources or greater tolerances to cater for this app alone, or have to worry about cooling them with home made ice packs.

Yeah my Android tablet gets hot running the DJI pilot app, and it lagged before I reclaimed some resources after employing the Google Play Services workaround.

But it's no surprise it gets hot when the DJI Pilot app sits at > 50% CPU on a quad core @ 1900MHz (not throttled). The temp gets bumped up 30C (86F) degrees then

And this is before I turn on the P3 so the app is using half the tablet's resources before the FPV stream is even initiated. The app is basically sitting there with a black screen showing "No signal"...

Those are some seriously bad stats and why I really wish DJI had released the P3 with an HDMI port. With an HDMI port any monitor would work and no dealing with an entire OS + a buggy app just to see what the P3 sees.