Happy Tuesday! If you’ve followed this blog for awhile you remember me telling you I was working on a project that required some assembly and wiring. Well this is what I was working on. It is my second Phantom. I know what you’re saying. No there was no need for a second one but I wanted a better video camera than the Vision 2 (which has a great still camera) so this is it.
It carries a GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition video camera attached to a Zenmuse gimbal, which provides for a really stable platform. So no matter what attitude the Phantom is in the camera stays level. I also had to install a transmitter (that’s the white thing sticking out of the back) so that I could communicate with the camera. It took probably a full 8 hours of work to get the thing ready to fly. It was actually cheaper than the Vision 2 but required a lot of set up.
I know, the wiring looks terrible but that is just until I get things configured the way I want them, then I’ll tidy up the wiring.
This is the Vision 2 Phantom (so you can see the difference.) The vision 2 has a dedicated camera and is pretty much ready to fly out of the box. It uses a WiFi connection with an iPhone App to provide first person view (FPV) of the actual flight. There is no gimbal on the Vision 2 so you get a lot of distortion when there is wind (and there is always wind) and when you change direction. It has a 14 mp camera and shoots in RAW so it captures a lot of data.
This is the FPV for the new system. I’m having a lot of problems with it right now and I’m trying to correspond with the manufacturer about the issues. Hopefully once that is resolved I will be able to get some HD resolution video of the flights. The flight below is a 7.5 minute clip of the first flight with this system. It was 22 degrees and like I said I was having a lot of problems with the monitor, not to mention it was as cold as a witch’s heart. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I trimmed out a lot of sitting idle from the video. There still is a bit more than I would like but I was trying to fiddle with the monitor so I just let the Phantom hover.
I still have less than a full hour of practice with the Phantom so I have a lot to learn about controlling it and making it go where I want it to. Jeanne assures me that warmer weather is coming and I can get in more flying time. 🙂
That’s it for today. Thanks for checking out the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
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