Finally exchanged that second P4 of mine

[Jussaguy]

Hey guys.

So anyone that lurks, posts or is generally annoyed by me has seen I had bought a second P4 that was giving me problems (first the connection issue which was finally resolved and not the birds fault), and the bad horizon that required me to calibrate it almost every time but it flew decent and took a pretty good looking picture but the horizon started to become un-fixable and so I finally brought it back for a new one.

The good news:

In general, this one flies better than any bird I've ever had, ever. I include all my Phantoms, my Inspire and all my pro birds. This thing really flies awesome. ***I want to note that when I first calibrated the IMUs that the bird on take off did some sort of weird ascention and bounce and then I re-calibrated in a better area and it made it solid as a rock. The gimbal doesn't make a sound. The sonar does make a bit of that clicking sounds which some people think is the gimbal but it's not and I am not sure how or why there is a variance in the sound of the sonar. Maybe it's just location. But flies beautifully and horizon is perfect and I did one IMU calib and all seems good in the hood.

The "issues":

First, unlike the last one, it does do the drop after a straight away. It's not horrible as some of the ones I've seen but I am picking my battles and I can hack a little drop. I am afraid it's not fixable by firmware though as it would have been by now and also if it was a firmware issue, wouldn't all of them do it? My other one, and my last one did/does not.

Also, and I am not sure what the heck this is, I took it for it's maiden voyage last night and because it was night, I decided to do some long exposure shots, and also in general, when you crank up the ISO, etc in manual mode, even at night, you can see the lights and stuff. However, I couldn't see a thing! Am I crazy or every time I ever took a night shot, I could from the bird get a general image from the TAB (I'm now using an iPad Pro by the way) how exposed the image is. Also, the exposure setting wasn't changing as I made changes to the settings. I'm going to go back out with it tonight and see if I was just doing something stupid that I didn't notice.

It should be noted that the NEW NEW one came with a Part 54 battery (the brighter one) and that it didn't have the stickers and all that. It's time to accept that there is not consistency on the line. I understand production variance but they are a very large company and there should not be this much variance. I could give you 1000 iphones from the last 3 years and I guarantee you will have a hard time finding production variances in the run.

So there we have it. I think I'm pretty happy about it. Get back to you.

 

[John Locke]

I decided to do some long exposure shots, and also in general, when you crank up the ISO, etc in manual mode, even at night, you can see the lights and stuff. However, I couldn't see a thing!

Did you remember to take the gimbal lock off this time? ;-)

 

[RedHotPoker]

Pulling scabs... Here's some salt. Hehe
Give the guy a slap on the shoulder and congratulate him... Umm
He is in our league. FFS!! ;-)
But we love you. Hahaha

RedHotPoker

 

[RedHotPoker]

Hey guys.

So anyone that lurks, posts or is generally annoyed by me has seen I had bought a second P4 that was giving me problems (first the connection issue which was finally resolved and not the birds fault), and the bad horizon that required me to calibrate it almost every time but it flew decent and took a pretty good looking picture but the horizon started to become un-fixable and so I finally brought it back for a new one.

The good news:

In general, this one flies better than any bird I've ever had, ever. I include all my Phantoms, my Inspire and all my pro birds. This thing really flies awesome. ***I want to note that when I first calibrated the IMUs that the bird on take off did some sort of weird ascention and bounce and then I re-calibrated in a better area and it made it solid as a rock. The gimbal doesn't make a sound. The sonar does make a bit of that clicking sounds which some people think is the gimbal but it's not and I am not sure how or why there is a variance in the sound of the sonar. Maybe it's just location. But flies beautifully and horizon is perfect and I did one IMU calib and all seems good in the hood.

The "issues":

First, unlike the last one, it does do the drop after a straight away. It's not horrible as some of the ones I've seen but I am picking my battles and I can hack a little drop. I am afraid it's not fixable by firmware though as it would have been by now and also if it was a firmware issue, wouldn't all of them do it? My other one, and my last one did/does not.

Also, and I am not sure what the heck this is, I took it for it's maiden voyage last night and because it was night, I decided to do some long exposure shots, and also in general, when you crank up the ISO, etc in manual mode, even at night, you can see the lights and stuff. However, I couldn't see a thing! Am I crazy or every time I ever took a night shot, I could from the bird get a general image from the TAB (I'm now using an iPad Pro by the way) how exposed the image is. Also, the exposure setting wasn't changing as I made changes to the settings. I'm going to go back out with it tonight and see if I was just doing something stupid that I didn't notice.

It should be noted that the NEW NEW one came with a Part 54 battery (the brighter one) and that it didn't have the stickers and all that. It's time to accept that there is not consistency on the line. I understand production variance but they are a very large company and there should not be this much variance. I could give you 1000 iphones from the last 3 years and I guarantee you will have a hard time finding production variances in the run.

So there we have it. I think I'm pretty happy about it. Get back to you.

Thanks for the good news. Sounds like you found an Awesome model, much like my Phantom 3 Pro. So I'm wishing you continued success and much happiness. Enjoy!! ;-)

RedHotPoker

 

[TheLightSpeedz]

Jussaguy... Ugh. Five minutes of my life gone forever! lol


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Jussaguy]

Did you remember to take the gimbal lock off this time? ;-)

Hey, the one I forgot to take the gimbal lock off of was my good one. Although I think this one is actually better. Flew it again and it's so good.

Not to put a negative spin on my positive purchase/exchange but it shows were not crazy. Some are just put together better or something. I went crazy trying to make the last one right and it just wasn't.

Funny though, I can take it.

 

[Jussaguy]

Pulling scabs... Here's some salt. Hehe
Give the guy a slap on the shoulder and congratulate him... Umm
He is in our league. FFS!! ;-)
But we love you. Hahaha

RedHotPoker

Ha! Cheers! Thx.

 

[Jussaguy]

Jussaguy... Ugh. Five minutes of my life gone forever! lol


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

Your moniker suggests that maybe you can bend time. If you do, can I get five? I just gave a couple to Red Hot.

 

[Derek Mackinnon]

Good news. Nice to get something sorted after bothering you.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Jussaguy]

Good news. Nice to get something sorted after bothering you.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

Yeah, I am quite please. I went from nutso to pure fun. I can't believe how good this one flies. Lovin it!

 

[r62ewa]

My exchange doesn't seem to have been as smooth. My first one only had the gimbal squeal at startup but the new one has a tilted horizon and at times seems to be in slow-motion in P mode with OA on, going 9-10 mph. Seems like I took a step backwards.

 

[Bigdz]

Hey guys.

So anyone that lurks, posts or is generally annoyed by me has seen I had bought a second P4 that was giving me problems (first the connection issue which was finally resolved and not the birds fault), and the bad horizon that required me to calibrate it almost every time but it flew decent and took a pretty good looking picture but the horizon started to become un-fixable and so I finally brought it back for a new one.

The good news:

In general, this one flies better than any bird I've ever had, ever. I include all my Phantoms, my Inspire and all my pro birds. This thing really flies awesome. ***I want to note that when I first calibrated the IMUs that the bird on take off did some sort of weird ascention and bounce and then I re-calibrated in a better area and it made it solid as a rock. The gimbal doesn't make a sound. The sonar does make a bit of that clicking sounds which some people think is the gimbal but it's not and I am not sure how or why there is a variance in the sound of the sonar. Maybe it's just location. But flies beautifully and horizon is perfect and I did one IMU calib and all seems good in the hood.

The "issues":

First, unlike the last one, it does do the drop after a straight away. It's not horrible as some of the ones I've seen but I am picking my battles and I can hack a little drop. I am afraid it's not fixable by firmware though as it would have been by now and also if it was a firmware issue, wouldn't all of them do it? My other one, and my last one did/does not.

Also, and I am not sure what the heck this is, I took it for it's maiden voyage last night and because it was night, I decided to do some long exposure shots, and also in general, when you crank up the ISO, etc in manual mode, even at night, you can see the lights and stuff. However, I couldn't see a thing! Am I crazy or every time I ever took a night shot, I could from the bird get a general image from the TAB (I'm now using an iPad Pro by the way) how exposed the image is. Also, the exposure setting wasn't changing as I made changes to the settings. I'm going to go back out with it tonight and see if I was just doing something stupid that I didn't notice.

It should be noted that the NEW NEW one came with a Part 54 battery (the brighter one) and that it didn't have the stickers and all that. It's time to accept that there is not consistency on the line. I understand production variance but they are a very large company and there should not be this much variance. I could give you 1000 iphones from the last 3 years and I guarantee you will have a hard time finding production variances in the run.

So there we have it. I think I'm pretty happy about it. Get back to you.

You really believe the P4 flies better then an Inspire 1. You are entitled to your opinion, but Imo the I1 is way better flying machine, hands down.
I like my P4 but it's no I1

 

[Jussaguy]

You really believe the P4 flies better then an Inspire 1. You are entitled to your opinion, but Imo the I1 is way better flying machine, hands down.
I like my P4 but it's no I1

Well it depends what I am doing. If I am flying my Inspire, it's not for fun, it's for a shot (and only with the X5, not the X3). I find the X3 to be almost identical if not identical to the Phantoms 4K and UHD format. That h.264 is just a pain. If they would just give me ProRes, I would use it for commercial use.

Outside of looking cool for people around which is admittedly fun, I MUCH rather would fly my formally P3 and a working P4 of which I finally have 2 of (the joy was admittedly being sucked out of me with the issues on my last one) but yeah, not even close. The P4 is much more nimble, and fun to fly for me. I only own Phantoms for fun actually. I really don't have any way of making money with them aside from a low budget wedding or something but that's desperation money which I am not above, believe me. Especially while my bread and butter is on hiatus at the moment.

But like you said, to each his own. I can't lie though. The whole look of taking off, raising the gear, etc is very cool.

To be honest, I am not a fan of the pivoting camera for pans either. I find it very robotic and less organic than just rotating the bird like you have to do with the P4. I've said this before on here but when you are on the ground and you are sitting on a camera (if you're a camera op on a big rig) you don't turn on the middle pivot, you rotate it on the dolly which is exactly the same as what a rotating bird does. For example, to mimic a rotating 360 camera, to use the ground camera analogy (if it's an analogy, excuse my literary mishaps), you would have to put a giant wheel in the middle of the camera rig and rotate it on that to pan. Nobody does that and it would look weird if you did. Granted, it's on the ground with a 15 foot focal length instead of infinity, but you get the point. Always thought the 360 was gimmicky. For the same reason, unless telephoto, optical zooms while at infinity is a purposeless desire that everyone wants.

When I am flying a bird with a camera with an optical zoom, I would never use it. I would fly.

 

[Dacon Productions]

Whaaaaaaaat? No gimbal squeal noise? ever?
That drone is totally defective, send it to me for extensive and prolonged testing
Enjoy it and take good care of it.

 

[Justgregg]

I pull my inspire1 out when its too windy to film with the p4. But I sure like that little p4.

 

[Stealthmatt]

I pull my inspire1 out when its too windy to film with the p4. But I sure like that little p4.

I sold my Inspire 1, the Inspire 2 is coming out shortly, I estimate Q4 this year (Same time as the first inspire 1 came out).

Also I didn't use it much, after the P4 came out it was the go to drone. Easy to fly in 1 minute flat!

The next Inspire is rumored to have dual batteries, and front and back obstacle avoidance sensors and possible a camera option of 360

 

[John Locke]

My new one has a tilted horizon and at times seems to be in slow-motion in P mode with OA on, going 9-10 mph. Seems like I took a step backwards.

Hey, I've got the same symptom with OA enabled in P mode, it's dog slow, 13 to 15mph, so I typically disable OA. I've had it refuse stick commands to descend also. I had to switch to S mode to bring it down.

Lately I've developed a 40' yoyo effect, going up and down 40'with no stick command. I'm pretty sure my craft has gremlins. I gotta send it back for a tune up.

 

[Dacon Productions]

Did you download the new GO app?
Did not fly mine in over a week, only has 2 flight on it, first maiden flight over 7 mi round trip, second only up/down for 1 min.
Slow fly I like since is way better for video, I was looking to slow it down anyway.
Bopping 40 ft??? That is a crash waiting to happen.
Try an IMU calibration on the ground and outside if your initial IMU calibration was done in the house. My friend had the same up/down problem and IMU calibration outside help his.

 

[Dacon Productions]

Altitude is maintained by barometer (why not GPS since is not susceptible to atmospheric changes???) and with low air pressure (storm coming) the drone believes is too high (less air - low pressure - high altitude) and descends...
At sea level under ideal conditions (temp at 65F, 45 deg lat and calm) the barometer is 29.92"/Hg. The higher you fly the lower the barometer reading (less air pressure, Hg is dropping) and the drone believes is too high, hence the drop. Also could be a bug in the operating protocol and all of the will drop like flies...

 

[Dacon Productions]

Just got word of a friend of mine went outside (AZ) to check the stability of the P4 and the drone fell into the garbage can. He will post the video soon. Pissed...