Tag: Phantom

Phantom flies onto White House lawn

Phantom flies onto White House lawn

January 27, 2015 13:24 | By | Add a Comment

A quadcopter enthusiast apparently lost control over his DJI Phantom, which proceeded to fly over to the white house and crashed onto the lawn, where it was found and recovered by Secret Service agents.

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Folks, there’s two lessons here:

1) Flying any RC craft, regardless of whether you do it for recreation or not, within D.C. is illegal. There’s a 10nm FRZ (Flight Restricted Zone) which prohibits, among other things: balloon operation, model rocketry, model aircraft operations, UAS, test flights, private aircraft operating from a ship or private/corporate yacht, etc.

2) If you own a Phantom or Phantom 2, and you haven’t replaced the compass mounting on your landing struts yet, you risk your quadcopter flying away uncontrollably. This means your quadcopter may start flying into a random direction once you enable position hold or return home modes, with it not obeying any no-fly-zones programmed into the firmware. It will also not obey any user-defined geofencing or range limits.

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If your screws or the metal mounting mechanism is magnetizable, you run the risk of compass decalibration, even during flight. If you fail to do this, you run the risk of damaging other people’s property or lives.

In all the Phantoms we examined, the screws were magnetizable and the reason why compass calibration was lost. We recommend you replace them with non-magnetizable screws, for example, brass screws as used by Horizon on their 350QX.

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DJI Phantom 2 with H3-2D Gimbal Review

DJI Phantom 2 with H3-2D Gimbal Review

May 12, 2014 22:34 | By | Add a Comment

The Phantom 2 is available as a complete package complete with 2-axis brushless gimbal. The price for this combo started out at over $1000.- but has recently come down to a more manageable $680. Magazine reviews are glowing, but few of them have any comparisons to make. Is the Phantom 2 combo offer worth the price of admission, or should you look elsewhere? Find out in our review!

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Flying through Fireworks

Flying through Fireworks

April 26, 2014 9:24 | By | Add a Comment

Gasper’s buddy flew his Phantom through some fireworks, resulting in this awesome video.

Of course, repeat at your own risk 🙂

 

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Have a DJI Phantom? Install a proper radio system

Have a DJI Phantom? Install a proper radio system

December 20, 2013 13:12 | By | Add a Comment

If you’re a lucky Phantom or Phantom 2 owner (or perhaps you’ll get one this Christmas, hint hint), please do yourself and the FPV/multirotor community a favor and install a proper RC radio system. This helps preventing you from making the news because your phantom flew away on it’s own. These are not isolated incidents either. As a poll on RCG shows, there is a considerable number of people who experienced a total loss of control coupled with the Phantom taking off and just zooming away. DJI recently acknowledged that they are working to fix this via firmware upgrades, but the fact of the matter is: Their radio system is not the best, and no firmware update will change that.

So please, pick a solid frequency-hopping system (Spektrum DSMX, Futaba FASST, Multiplex, Jeti, HOTT, FrSky, just to name a few), stay away from systems that lack frequency agility or antenna diversity (DSM1, DSM2, ISM, XPS, Walkera) and make sure to check that your failsafe is not set to give full throttle. If your multirotor is equipped with GPS, set failsafe so that return-to-land is activated in case of signal loss.

If you own a Phantom, get a better RC radio and fly safe.

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DYI DJI FPV remote kit comes in 2 sizes

DYI DJI FPV remote kit comes in 2 sizes

December 17, 2013 16:07 | By | Add a Comment

Remember that Phantom Ground Station that puts your Phantom transmitter guts into a new case and adds an LCD screen?

Goodluckbuy is now offering two versions of a similar product: Coming in 5 inch as well as 7 inch variants, these are kits that require some assembly and soldering – as well as disassembly of your phantom controller. Price is $330.- for the 5 inch model, or $370 for the larger 7 inch one. The case is made of carbon fiber, and the screens are reported to be IPS with a high brightness and contrast.

These kits are a bit more pricy than the ground station, but they’re also larger and look rather nice. Still, we can’t help but wonder if your money isn’t better spent on a proper RC transmitter, with the screen mounted on the handle.

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DSLRPros offers a turnkey DJI Phantom FPV set

DSLRPros offers a turnkey DJI Phantom FPV set

December 2, 2013 9:38 | By | Add a Comment

DSLRPros is offering a range of complete sets centered around an upgraded DJI Phantom. Basically they upgrade the motors and props, and add everything you need for FPV flight including gimbal, GoPro 3 camera, 5.8GHz video system, several batteries, a balancing charger, as well as a Futaba 8FG instead of the standard DJI Transmitter.

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The ultimate set costs over USD $3,600.- although smaller sets are available for as low as $1,355.-

On one hand their marketing is a bit too rich, with them selling a “fluid pan mode” that is really just a dual-rate setting for the yaw axis, or the fact that their 5.8GHz system is “tuned to not interfere with GPS”… on the other hand, they offer some useful extensions for the Phantom like a battery tray that takes up to 4800mAh batteries, and a complete package means someone else took the guesswork out of the equation for you.  Whether or not that is worth the asking price  is up to you of course.

Click on “Read More” to check out the marketing video.

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Syrian rebels claim to have downed Syrian Army Drone

Syrian rebels claim to have downed Syrian Army Drone

November 15, 2013 14:57 | By | Add a Comment

The “Free Syrian Army” has apparently downed a drone operated by the Syrian Army. And while you might scoff at this drone being just a DJI Phantom, at the very least it’s indisputably a much more cost effective system than what some other governments spend fortunes on.

Allegedly, the drone was brought down by signal interference. Considering the sometimes spotty RF link performance of the DJI Phantom, that’s not too hard to believe. Still, it makes a lot of sense to use such COTS RTF Drones instead, especially when on a budget.

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More pictures after the break, showing the massive amount of damage to the city of Homs. And regardless of what side one considers themselves on, this is a very interesting, and horrifying birds-eye look at what war looks like these days.

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