Help! Intentionally flying without gimbal - Parrot Sequoia attached

[goingoutofstyle]

I couldn't find this topic anywhere else, apologies if it's been covered.

I'm a graduate student looking at modeling wild pig damage on crop fields using a newly acquired Phantom 3 Standard and Parrot Sequoia. I'd like top fly the Phantom without the standard gimbal camera attached, and have mounted the Sequoia in its place using some 3D printed parts, wire, and zip ties.

The way the Sequoia is mounted to the drone, they do not connect with each other electronically (I'm running the Sequoia off of a USB power supply). The big issue I'm having is getting any flight planning software to connect to the drone without a gimbal attached. This seems to be an issue with every planning software I try: DJI Go, DroneDeploy, Precsionflight, and UCGS.

The drone will connect to all of the apps, but when I try to upload a mission, it times out. If I try with the gimbal attached, it works. I'm worried that it's a hardware issue and the planning apps simply MUST communicate with the gimbal for some reason. Am I missing something simple? Is the GPS located in the camera/gimbal setup?

I could attempt to hardwire the drone to the Sequoia, but it was a step I was hoping to skip.

Any advice that could be offered would be excellent.

Thanks!

 

[WV. Rootman]

I'm not tech like you, but will tell you what I know, if it helps. GPS is on top of the p3. Grey and black wire to gimbal are the WiFi antennas that transmit video and P3's stats. 8 wire ribbon has 4 - 12 volt wires beside each other and 4 grounds.
I learned that from the school of hard knocks. Sorry, that's it.

 

[120CCPM]

The WiFi module of the AC is in the gimbal: if you remove it, any feature that relies on the WiFi link (including loading missions, I assume) will not work.

 

[RodPad]

Yes, I agree, the mission would never load, no gimbal, no data coming back to mobile and app. No way the software would know it loaded or not.

Rod

 

[120CCPM]

Yes, I agree, the mission would never load, no gimbal, no data coming back to mobile and app. No way the software would know it loaded or not.

It's not just that "the software would not know it loaded or not". If the 2.4GHz link is down, the software would not have a way to send the mission up to the AC. The 2.4GHz is bi-directional: while it's mainly used to send video and telemetry from the AC down to the app, all camera controls and some in-app settings (like RTH height) travel in the opposite direction. I assume waypoint missions are also part of this small set of data that travel to the AC via 2.4Ghz.