Updated Our Phantom 4 Pro 2.0 Firmware Today

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I did the update this evening. It all seemed to go well. I did notice an abnormal IMU after it rebooted along with a calibration prompt, so I did that and then all readings were nominal on the next boot.

When I powered it on to take off later on, I noticed the camera gimbal up/down didn't work. I re-calibrated the controller sticks and gimbal control and restarted the AC. Seemed to work okay after that. So I took it up for a short flight.

As the AC behaved nominally, I decided to go for a little excursion about 2500' and come back. I noticed that at the edge of the signal coverage zone, I got the red warning about weak video transmission, but the video feed was not breaking up. I turned the AC around and started to return, but he weak transmission message didn't go away like it normally does when I start to return or raise altitude. It remained on until I got within 1400' of the takeoff location.

The other thing I noticed is more pop up warnings about wind, air space, etc. Usually, these would clear on their own after a minute or so, but not this time. They started to become so numerous that they obstructed my screen view and I had to manually cancel them one by one.

Other than I don't like that hysteresis on the weak signal warning (that should go away as soon as signal returns) I noticed no serious issues. I used to use the weak signal warning as a means of determining my safe flying radius, but now it just gets stuck on once it triggers, so I have no idea if I returned to a strong signal area or not.

Oh, one other thing... it took MUCH longer than usual to acquire enough satellites to fly. After a minute, usually it has 12-13. This flight, under blue skies, it only had 6 satellites after a minute. 3 minutes passed before 11-12 and the status went green. I've never seen it take this long to acquire GPS. Usually it takes 30 -40 seconds to get to 11-12 and ready status. That's annoying for those quick deploy by the side of the road and fly situations where you want to get airborne as quick as possible. Having to set there 3 minutes as the battery drains down, until you get GPS is not all that good.

And one last item: the unit boots up with the red head lights on. Even though the switch is in the off position. It is necessary to toggle it to shut off the arm LEDs.
 
I did the update this evening. It all seemed to go well. I did notice an abnormal IMU after it rebooted along with a calibration prompt, so I did that and then all readings were nominal on the next boot.

When I powered it on to take off later on, I noticed the camera gimbal up/down didn't work. I re-calibrated the controller sticks and gimbal control and restarted the AC. Seemed to work okay after that. So I took it up for a short flight.

As the AC behaved nominally, I decided to go for a little excursion about 2500' and come back. I noticed that at the edge of the signal coverage zone, I got the red warning about weak video transmission, but the video feed was not breaking up. I turned the AC around and started to return, but he weak transmission message didn't go away like it normally does when I start to return or raise altitude. It remained on until I got within 1400' of the takeoff location.

The other thing I noticed is more pop up warnings about wind, air space, etc. Usually, these would clear on their own after a minute or so, but not this time. They started to become so numerous that they obstructed my screen view and I had to manually cancel them one by one.

Other than I don't like that hysteresis on the weak signal warning (that should go away as soon as signal returns) I noticed no serious issues. I used to use the weak signal warning as a means of determining my safe flying radius, but now it just gets stuck on once it triggers, so I have no idea if I returned to a strong signal area or not.

Oh, one other thing... it took MUCH longer than usual to acquire enough satellites to fly. After a minute, usually it has 12-13. This flight, under blue skies, it only had 6 satellites after a minute. 3 minutes passed before 11-12 and the status went green. I've never seen it take this long to acquire GPS. Usually it takes 30 -40 seconds to get to 11-12 and ready status. That's annoying for those quick deploy by the side of the road and fly situations where you want to get airborne as quick as possible. Having to set there 3 minutes as the battery drains down, until you get GPS is not all that good.

And one last item: the unit boots up with the red head lights on. Even though the switch is in the off position. It is necessary to toggle it to shut off the arm LEDs.
Thank you for the update, I appreciate it, because I'm saving up for one. I notice on my Mavic PP, that with Ocusync, the video feed deteriorates gradually, sort of a fading away, rather than just dropping out all of a sudden. Even if the range isn't any better than the P4P, I'm getting the V 2.0 just for Ocusync.
 
Well it's hard to say about the Occusync. When I fly to the edge of my radio signal coverage, I see the picture usually break up and freeze a bit, along with the 'weak signal transmission' warning. Normally, I just raise the craft a few dozen feet and return to normal status. On this test flight with the new firmware, it remained "weak signal" for almost the entire return trip, which I have done a half dozen times before on this particular vector and always got normal status as soon as I flew 100' toward home point or raised altitude.

I have only one flight on this firmware, so not enough data to determine if a quirk or not.
 
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Today I took the second flight with the new firmware. This time the head LEDs were off on takeoff, like they should be.

We noticed that the camera had reverted to 4K 30 mode again, despite my setting it to 4K 24 after the firmware update.

The alarming part was that while my wife was setting up Active Track, the AIRCRAFT DISCONNECTED. Battery was at about 53% when it happened. It was about 40' away at the time. She handed the RC to me and I found that I could still control it, but not completely. For instance, I pull back on the right stick and the AC would not go backward. I tried rebooting the Crystal Sky, but it never reconnected. Then I tried shutting off both the CS and the RC and restarting both, but again, it never reconnected. Had the drone been a mile or two off in the distance, I can see how a pilot would lose the drone.

I was finally able to manually land it, but the inability to go backwards to line up with the landing pad was disturbing.

We rebooted the drone and the RC/CS and finished up our training for the day on the remaining 45% battery.

I'm planning to shoot the fireworks tomorrow night in town, with a ground camera that is recording sound, plus the P4P 2.0 in the air for an alternate angle, but this disconnecting problem has me debating whether to ground the aircraft until the cause is found and corrected.


Looking at the log, there's no hint of a problem. The last entry is P-GPS, 16 satellites IMU alt is 22.3' VPS is 24' speed 0mph, home distance 81.6', battery 64%, no messages. So the AC disconnected and the log on the CS ends there with no hint of trouble.
 
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