my quad evolution so far
- Thread starter sdtag
- Start date
sdtag
Active Member
I bought my Phantom on 3/16/15. I've had it for a little over a month now. DJI P2V+ V3.0
I bought extra batteries and props. I am still on the original props, no crashes or tips yet. I've opened her up and checked her out. (several times) I think I have the latest and the greatest.
I did the external antenna mod on the range extender. I got the cable I needed, and the antenna, from an old Foscam IP camera. The pigtail is pretty short and it fits nicely.
I started to buy a gimbal saver for 50 bucks, then I looked at it closely and I made my own. (I’m a mechanic) It came out nice and now I am thinking about mass producing and selling them. I could probably sell them for 10-20 bucks or so.
I own a vinyl plotter/cutter and have made some nice Phantom window stickers. I have some vinyl that looks like carbon fiber and I made some new arm stripes and the DJI logo for the quad. It looks nice with the darker stripes. I re-purposed an old tool box. It’s like a big Pelican case, but old and beat up and bright yellow! I like it because it gives no clues about what’s inside. I did the foam cut outs and it’s perfect.
I have downloaded and installed some different aps, DJI Vision, DJI Ultimate Flight w/GS, Drone Deploy, and FPV Booster. I use Vision and Ultimate Flight. I haven’t tried the other two yet. Now I have downloaded DashWare and started fooling around with that. The results are pretty cool but it sure is time consuming.
I live in La Habra, California. For those who have never been to So Cal, it is like one big giant city. Basically you can go 50 miles east from Los Angeles and never see an open field. All the cities blend together and you never know when you leave one city and enter the next.
La Habra is in Orange County, but it is right next to LA County. I just saw an ordinance for LA County that states that you cannot fly anything (r/c) in any park in LA County. And I read a story about one guy who got caught, his Phantom was confiscated and he was thrown in jail for 2 days. And LA County jail is NO FUN at all. Don’t ask how I know. When he got out they did not give him his Phantom back. That seems kind of harsh and he must have been a real dick to the cops for them to go that far.
After reading all of that I got kind of nervous/paranoid/frustrated. I think if it was me in that situation I could joke around and get on their good side and probably be let go with a warning. I am one of the nicest guys in the world.
My other source of paranoia came from flyaways and glitches. A motor wire breaking and sending the quad into the ground. That’s why I originally took it apart, to check the motor wires. All the negative stuff I have been reading made me wonder why did I buy this stupid thing?
Then I found my answer.
Anybody with quad problems goes to the forums. People with no problems have no reason to go to the forums. The forums are very lopsided with negativity. IMHO.
I don’t know how true this is but I heard that DJI sells 20,000 P2V+ a month. 20 THOUSAND!
So what, that means that there are 250,000 of these flying around? I met the owner of a hobby store and he said that sounds about right. He told me that when Amazon places an order for these that they buy 2 to 3 thousand at a time.
So the bottom line is about 1/100th of 1 percent of P2V+’s have some kind of problem. The VAST majority of them do not. I think the majority of the flyaways are due to operator error. There may have been a couple of legitimate flyaways due to compass and GPS not playing well together, but I think these are very isolated incidents.
So now I feel better about the reliability of the quad, but I am still leery about where can I go to fly? I am getting tired of flying at the school by my house. I joined AMA and went exploring at some nearby clubs. I flew at Whittier Narrows a couple of times now. I tried to get in Santa Fe Dam but I couldn’t find the entrance. I saw a dam worker and asked him and he was a dick. He knew where the entrance was but he wouldn’t tell me. He said it was a private club. Dickhead.
My other problem, and this is the least of my worries, is that whenever I fly people always want to come talk to me. I have an agenda in my head of what I want to accomplish, but that all goes right out the window and I end up talking more than flying. ARGH! Real nice relaxing FRUSTRATING hobby I chose! Haha It’s still fun though.
So now this is where I’m at. I want to fly and play and video and photograph and have fun, but I am worried. This weekend was the Long Beach Grand Prix, but I never even thought about going. That would have been great to video.
I can fly around my house but that is getting old too. And I don’t want to piss off my neighbors.
I don’t want to just fly at sanctioned AMA fields. What fun is that? I want to video stuff, life. I have been very careful about not crossing property lines, but I think I am changing my mind about that. I’m not there yet but I am thinking about it.
So are any of you who are reading this in Southern California? Where do you go to fly? Are you as worried/paranoid/frustrated as I am? Am I worrying too much? Have you heard about the LA County park ordinance? It’s actually posted on the Whittier Narrows club site.
For being a laid back California old ex hippy kind of guy I sure come across as being wound too tight don’t I? haha I sure hope somebody from California can put me at ease.
Thanks in advance.
I bought extra batteries and props. I am still on the original props, no crashes or tips yet. I've opened her up and checked her out. (several times) I think I have the latest and the greatest.
I did the external antenna mod on the range extender. I got the cable I needed, and the antenna, from an old Foscam IP camera. The pigtail is pretty short and it fits nicely.
I started to buy a gimbal saver for 50 bucks, then I looked at it closely and I made my own. (I’m a mechanic) It came out nice and now I am thinking about mass producing and selling them. I could probably sell them for 10-20 bucks or so.
I own a vinyl plotter/cutter and have made some nice Phantom window stickers. I have some vinyl that looks like carbon fiber and I made some new arm stripes and the DJI logo for the quad. It looks nice with the darker stripes. I re-purposed an old tool box. It’s like a big Pelican case, but old and beat up and bright yellow! I like it because it gives no clues about what’s inside. I did the foam cut outs and it’s perfect.
I have downloaded and installed some different aps, DJI Vision, DJI Ultimate Flight w/GS, Drone Deploy, and FPV Booster. I use Vision and Ultimate Flight. I haven’t tried the other two yet. Now I have downloaded DashWare and started fooling around with that. The results are pretty cool but it sure is time consuming.
I live in La Habra, California. For those who have never been to So Cal, it is like one big giant city. Basically you can go 50 miles east from Los Angeles and never see an open field. All the cities blend together and you never know when you leave one city and enter the next.
La Habra is in Orange County, but it is right next to LA County. I just saw an ordinance for LA County that states that you cannot fly anything (r/c) in any park in LA County. And I read a story about one guy who got caught, his Phantom was confiscated and he was thrown in jail for 2 days. And LA County jail is NO FUN at all. Don’t ask how I know. When he got out they did not give him his Phantom back. That seems kind of harsh and he must have been a real dick to the cops for them to go that far.
After reading all of that I got kind of nervous/paranoid/frustrated. I think if it was me in that situation I could joke around and get on their good side and probably be let go with a warning. I am one of the nicest guys in the world.
My other source of paranoia came from flyaways and glitches. A motor wire breaking and sending the quad into the ground. That’s why I originally took it apart, to check the motor wires. All the negative stuff I have been reading made me wonder why did I buy this stupid thing?
Then I found my answer.
Anybody with quad problems goes to the forums. People with no problems have no reason to go to the forums. The forums are very lopsided with negativity. IMHO.
I don’t know how true this is but I heard that DJI sells 20,000 P2V+ a month. 20 THOUSAND!
So what, that means that there are 250,000 of these flying around? I met the owner of a hobby store and he said that sounds about right. He told me that when Amazon places an order for these that they buy 2 to 3 thousand at a time.
So the bottom line is about 1/100th of 1 percent of P2V+’s have some kind of problem. The VAST majority of them do not. I think the majority of the flyaways are due to operator error. There may have been a couple of legitimate flyaways due to compass and GPS not playing well together, but I think these are very isolated incidents.
So now I feel better about the reliability of the quad, but I am still leery about where can I go to fly? I am getting tired of flying at the school by my house. I joined AMA and went exploring at some nearby clubs. I flew at Whittier Narrows a couple of times now. I tried to get in Santa Fe Dam but I couldn’t find the entrance. I saw a dam worker and asked him and he was a dick. He knew where the entrance was but he wouldn’t tell me. He said it was a private club. Dickhead.
My other problem, and this is the least of my worries, is that whenever I fly people always want to come talk to me. I have an agenda in my head of what I want to accomplish, but that all goes right out the window and I end up talking more than flying. ARGH! Real nice relaxing FRUSTRATING hobby I chose! Haha It’s still fun though.
So now this is where I’m at. I want to fly and play and video and photograph and have fun, but I am worried. This weekend was the Long Beach Grand Prix, but I never even thought about going. That would have been great to video.
I can fly around my house but that is getting old too. And I don’t want to piss off my neighbors.
I don’t want to just fly at sanctioned AMA fields. What fun is that? I want to video stuff, life. I have been very careful about not crossing property lines, but I think I am changing my mind about that. I’m not there yet but I am thinking about it.
So are any of you who are reading this in Southern California? Where do you go to fly? Are you as worried/paranoid/frustrated as I am? Am I worrying too much? Have you heard about the LA County park ordinance? It’s actually posted on the Whittier Narrows club site.
For being a laid back California old ex hippy kind of guy I sure come across as being wound too tight don’t I? haha I sure hope somebody from California can put me at ease.
Thanks in advance.
