Wish I could turn off VPS

BayouBill · Jul 31, 2016

Yes, I know you can turn off VPS in the app. But that only tells the P3 to ignore it for navigation. The VPS hardware stays powered up and gets really hot. That is a lot of power being sapped form the battery. Anybody been able to turn off VPS hardware?

SnoozeDoggyDog · Jul 31, 2016

Nice bit of information. Mine is never "on" but clearly it's still a little bit "ON"

jonebk12 · Jul 31, 2016

The amount of power being used by the VPS (whether it's on or "off") is probably negligible in the grand scheme.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using PhantomPilots mobile app

SnoozeDoggyDog · Jul 31, 2016

I'm not so sure. Like the OP mentioned the amount of heat generated is quite substantial

BayouBill · Jul 31, 2016

SnoozeDoggyDog said:
I'm not so sure. Like the OP mentioned the amount of heat generated is quite substantial

Yes, heat = energy lost. Plus it heats up the whole gimbal area.

GunnyPapa · Jul 31, 2016

BayouBill said:
Yes, I know you can turn off VPS in the app. But that only tells the P3 to ignore it for navigation. The VPS hardware stays powered up and gets really hot. That is a lot of power being sapped form the battery. Anybody been able to turn off VPS hardware?

Not any substantial loss of power, stability ect.. This platform was built to fly with everything turned on. What concrete foundation can you show all of us that it heats up everything and causes problems. Show me and everyone here.

BayouBill · Jul 31, 2016

GunnyPapa said:
Not any substantial loss of power, stability ect.. This platform was built to fly with everything turned on. What concrete foundation can you show all of us that it heats up everything and causes problems. Show me and everyone here.

Not going to waste time arguing. I just want to turn it off and I thought maybe someone had succeeded in doing that.

GunnyPapa · Jul 31, 2016

BayouBill said:
Not going to waste time arguing. I just want to turn it off and I thought maybe someone had succeeded in doing that.

Then just turn it off missy

WetDog · Jul 31, 2016

Are you sure it's the VPS? On the pro, the top of the gimbal gets warm (hence the fan). I've not noticed the VPS heating up. It's just a pair of ultrasonic transducers - they don't burn much power. Yours could be wonky. You probably just can unbolt it. I recall someone doing that to save weight (every nanogram helps, I suppose).

Oso · Jul 31, 2016

BayouBill said:
Not going to waste time arguing. I just want to turn it off and I thought maybe someone had succeeded in doing that.

Are you sure its the VPS board getting hot and not the Lightbridge board directly under the VPS?

FYI that you can physically remove the VPS board if you want, but you have to put it back during FW updates. Obviously you need to leave the Lightbridge board intact, but you can put the white cover back on with no VPS in place.

For me it seems like a lot of trouble for what is probably little gain. Cheers!

WetDog · Jul 31, 2016

Oso said:
Are you sure its the VPS board getting hot and not the Lightbridge board directly under the VPS?

FYI that you can physically remove the VPS board if you want, but you have to put it back during FW updates. Obviously you need to leave the Lightbridge board intact, but you can put the white cover back on with no VPS in place.

For me it seems like a lot of trouble for what is probably little gain. Cheers!

The only thing that SHOULD get warm is the box on top of the gimbal that houses the video chips. I'll have to check mine out with an IR thermometer but I've never noticed anything remotely warm underneath.

Oso · Jul 31, 2016

WetDog said:
I've never noticed anything remotely warm underneath.

I havent either.

BayouBill · Jul 31, 2016

WetDog said:
I'll have to check mine out with an IR thermometer but I've never noticed anything remotely warm underneath.

Just try touching the VPS transducers.

Digdat0 · Aug 1, 2016

BayouBill said:
Just try touching the VPS transducers.

Have you tried unplugging the Vps from the inside? Curious how the app responds.

Yiannis.B · Aug 1, 2016

The heat comes from the Lightbridge module, above VPS module.
I have already removed VPS module, and re - installed white plastic cover in order to have more fresh air for the Lightbridge module to cool down a bit during flying.
The bad thing is that the fan of the lightbridge module directs hot air to the battery compartment. This is O.K to warm up the battery in cold weather, but has negative effect when the ambient temperature is like 35 degrees celcious like where I live.

Digdat0 · Aug 1, 2016

Yiannis.B said:
The heat comes from the light bridge module, above VPS module.
I have already removed VPS module, and re - install white plastic cover in order to have more fresh air for the lightbridge module to cool down a bit during flying.
The bad thing is that the fan of the lightbridge module directs hot air to the battery compartment. This is O.K to warm up the battery in cold weather, but has negative effect when the ambient temperature is like 35 degrees celcious like where I live.

Wonder if a heat sync or thermal insulation would help there.

Vertigo · Aug 1, 2016

For some perspective, this optical flow sensor uses 115mA @5V:
PX4FLOW Smart Camera - Pixhawk Flight Controller Hardware Project

Ultrasound range finders are in the same ballpark. Its completely negligible, you'd probably save more by turning off the LED's in the arms, and VPS is not the source of the heat. Thats most likely the camera's encoding chip.

BayouBill · Aug 1, 2016

Yiannis.B said:
The heat comes from the light bridge module, above VPS module.
I have already removed VPS module, and re - install white plastic cover in order to have more fresh air for the lightbridge module to cool down a bit during flying.
The bad thing is that the fan of the lightbridge module directs hot air to the battery compartment. This is O.K to warm up the battery in cold weather, but has negative effect when the ambient temperature is like 35 degrees celcious like where I live.

Thanks for this response. This is the type of solid information I was looking for.

DPD · Aug 1, 2016

I am curious as to what you guys think about making the vents on the side of the VPS cover a little bit larger. I have no idea if that would work or not, I have not done any modifications to my P 3P, but looking at the VPS cover, the air vent slats are definitely very small slits in the plastic and IMO could we made a little bit larger with a Dremel tool to allow more air over the lightbridge/VPS module. Of course you would have to take the cover off before you try to make any modifications, but that seems easy enough to do. Just want to know what you guys think about that idea...

WetDog · Aug 1, 2016

DPD said:
I am curious as to what you guys think about making the vents on the side of the VPS cover a little bit larger. I have no idea if that would work or not, I have not done any modifications to my P 3P, but looking at the VPS cover, the air vent slats are definitely very small slits in the plastic and IMO could we made a little bit larger with a Dremel tool to allow more air over the lightbridge/VPS module. Of course you would have to take the cover off before you try to make any modifications, but that seems easy enough to do. Just want to know what you guys think about that idea...

Probably won't get you too far unless you get really radical. In which case, just remove the plastic shell. Which might be a good place to start = that would give you the 'best case' as far as opening up air flow.

I really don't think it's necessary. DJI has gone to considerable lengths to engineer this stuff and heat is a big issue. If the Lightbridge modules were running hot enough to cause early failures, we'd probably see it by now as LB has been up and running for a couple of years. Your module could be faulty - that's always an potential issue, but in general I don't think you are going to help much.

Are you in Dubai or someplace where heat is really a factor?