DJI Phantom - Entry level Quadcopter/UAV - made with the GoPro in mind

[P13]

I've just got my hands today on the brand new DJI Phantom Quadcopter and the Go Pro Hero 3 Black Edition.

[See update below, I was hoping to post a positive review of my time using the Phantom, it's a nice concept but the GPS mode is erractic]

Here's a taster from some recent video posted to YouTube:

 

[David W. Jones]

The system I was looking at is close to $15K to carry my camera of choice.

 

[P13]

I should add an update to this and add that with hindsight I would not recommend the Phantom even as practice kit. I practiced with the newly launched Phantom for a number of weeks alongside an experienced RC flyer for guidance, I could fly it confidently and had already upgraded to a hexacopter so I could make use of a decent camera gimble.

However, I found a serious issue with the Phantom, with the Phantom the compass has been moved to the legs of the copter whereas in other such models it’s contained with the GPS in a module above the copter’s electronics. I suspect this could be the cause of a problem, where under partial autopilot control in GPS it can develop “a mind of its own” in my case I found the Phantom to climb and it wasn’t responding to the transmitter to descend, I had no choice but to engage the failsafe by turning off the transmitter (it has a return to home failsafe which is only engaged if the transmitter signal is lost), however, the failsafe did not work and the Phantom carried on regardless, literally up into the clouds (with a new GoPro Hero 3 as well). With hindsight a manual or altitude descent would have likely allowed me to bring the copter down but the instructional videos (and good past record on the Naza which is the autopilot hardware/software) caused me to put faith in the autopilot.

There's multiple concerns where a software/hardware combination seems iffy, in that apart from the loss of gear with aerial photography you run a serious risk of damage or injury to people and property. My concern is compounded as the manufacturer deleted a bug report from another user of a similar issue from its Facebook page, it's generally not responding and even asking for detail where users are reporting problems.

Thankfully in my case my insurance was better than I thought and I was covered for this loss (I was also covered if it had landed and caused damage and reported the incident to the police).

 

[David Saraceno]

Were you able to recover the Phantom?

And did it accelerate skyward with no input by you?

And then come straight down?

 

[P13]

No I wasn't able to recover it, I was only doing a straight forward climb but was close to full throttle, incidentally it had full GPS lock with more than 7 satellites and had gone through the IMU warm up sequence.

I was intent on keeping the Phantom within clear visible view, so was throttling down gradually but it wasn't responding, it also seemed to be drifting rather than keeping a solid lock, I tried to initially bring it under control with course lock but with no success given it was still climbing and I didn't want to risk it gaining more height I saw no easy option so opted to power off the controller to engage failsafe, but then it kept climbing and appeared to be moving forward (i.e. away from me). I covered the area which was mainly fields for 5 hours with help, but had no luck with the recovery.

It climbs very fast about 10 metres a second, so when something goes wrong you don't have much time to correct it.

 

[Kellar42]

I'm waiting on a preorder list for a $5,000 6 rotor thing with a gimbal for the GH2 but I've been waiting so long I'm tempted to pull the trigger on one of these litter guys and see if I can strap a 5N to it, haha. Just not as stable....*sigh*

 

[David Saraceno]

No I wasn't able to recover it, I was only doing a straight forward climb but was close to full throttle, incidentally it had full GPS lock with more than 7 satellites and had gone through the IMU warm up sequence.

I was intent on keeping the Phantom within clear visible view, so was throttling down gradually but it wasn't responding, it also seemed to be drifting rather than keeping a solid lock, I tried to initially bring it under control with course lock but with no success given it was still climbing and I didn't want to risk it gaining more height I saw no easy option so opted to power off the controller to engage failsafe, but then it kept climbing and appeared to be moving forward (i.e. away from me). I covered the area which was mainly fields for 5 hours with help, but had no luck with the recovery.

It climbs very fast about 10 metres a second, so when something goes wrong you don't have much time to correct it.

Did you discuss this issue with the company you purchased from?

BTW, where did you purchase?

And may I ask why you feel it is the compass placement on the landing gear that is the issue?

 

[P13]

I purchased the Phantom in the UK from one of the larger RC outlets. Funnily enough on an early flight I felt the copter wasn't behaving and was drifting sometimes sharply upwards, they advised a compass recalibration (incidentally DJI's manual has the process illustrated wrong), it seemed to behave after that.

The reason I suspect it could be the external compass, is that the Naza controller is well established and used in a number of copters (up to hexacopters) without many issues reported that I've seen, the impression I'm given is that it's reliable, the Phantom runs this same software/hardware, but according to a DJI official forum post I've seen they found there was interference using a conventional GPS/Compass module in such a compact design, so they moved the compass to the legs (hence this is a change in design from their current Naza modules which we know work).

Following user reports of Phantom problems DJI put out a video saying the compass could go way "out of whack" and gave a procedure to correct it. Now the Phantom should do a red and yellow light if the compass is off which mine wasn't doing but DJI themselves say on the video if the compass is not working correctly the Phantom will not know which way to travel so clearly it has a huge bearing on the copters ability to navigate.

 

[P13]

I've done some more investigation since I tried to start this positive review, despite being a new model to market (approx 6 weeks) there are some worrying reports in a very short time, for example BBC Radio Shropshire has assisted in the recovery of a Phantom despite the failsafe crashing 1.2 miles away from the user, there are a number of failsafe videos showing the Phantom flying off in random directions and crashing to ground from as high as 300 metres. It's a credit to the strength of the GoPro evidence is making it to YouTube.

On this basis I totally withdraw my initial positive comments which I've now removed. I'm now concerned use of the Phantom could damage the reputation of aerial photography and worse could result in injury to an unsuspecting member of the public. I'll go further and add I'm not in the least bit impressed by DJI removing a bug report and failing to effectively engage users trying to report problems.

 

[P13]

I appreciate aerial photography here is a crossover subject, i.e. it's half RC flying, half photography, but I'd appreciate discussing matters here as I believe DJI sponsor some RC flying forums (so could undermine or ask for deletions of negativity) and so I'm hoping here I can discuss aerial photography matters without bias.

I've forwarded a concern about the Phantom to the UK's Civil Aviation Authority.

 

[P13]

Another day and another user reporting a fly-away meeting with DJI denials this can happen.

Also, from a few days ago, I noticed an RC forum member pointing out failure reports are coming from experienced quad flyers.

 

[P13]

DJI have now deleted my fault report and have hidden/deleted my posts summarising other reports from the internet and blocked me from interacting with their Facebook page. My conversations were adequate in courtesy and politeness but I'm not surprised by the action as they won't want to lose sales, it's a shame they didn't just DM or use e-mail so I could have simply forwarded on the problems.

I think they need to get some customer service tips from the likes of the excellent SmallHD.

 

[Grug]

When it comes to rigging up a camera to something with as many potential dangers and concerns as a quadcopter - I'd be extremely hesitant to use anything 'cheap' or 'entry-level'. There are times and places to save money, but with so many concerns involved - I don't think quad/octocopters are one of them.

 

[maranfilms]

Sorry to hear about your lousy experience with the phantom, I'm just glad you had insurance. Could have been a really serious issue had it hit someone. It's to bad the company is so irresponsable about it's product. Time to boycott the wonderful power of the internet

As far as the footage goes, It was wobbly, not very smooth looking. Unless shooting just for fun, I think you would have had a hard time collecting from clients with footage like that.
Not from your skill, you seem like your perfectly capable to fly with precision and accuracy. I just don't think the copter has that same ability.

 

[j]

I gotta say, I love the audio!

Thanks for posting these...

 

[P13]

When it comes to rigging up a camera to something with as many potential dangers and concerns as a quadcopter - I'd be extremely hesitant to use anything 'cheap' or 'entry-level'. There are times and places to save money, but with so many concerns involved - I don't think quad/octocopters are one of them.

This was purely for training purposes, for example if you were doing your car driving lessons as a learner you'd do them with an instructor in a typical family car, you wouldn't begin by driving a Bentley, likewise with quad flying I started off with a budget model (even still £850 of equipment) learning alongside an experienced RC flyer.

When this quad went wrong, ironically I was only flying it and recording footage to list it on eBay as I was already investing in better gear. If there was ever a definition of Sod's Law this was the moment.

For serious work, an octocopter is, as you suggest, the ideal choice, as it's more stable and can fly even if a single motor fails.

 

[P13]

Sorry to hear about your lousy experience with the phantom...

As far as the footage goes, It was wobbly, not very smooth looking. Unless shooting just for fun, I think you would have had a hard time collecting from clients with footage like that.

You're correct about that, one point to consider is much of the quad videos online are put up by RC flyer's that know little about video. I'd actually come up with an idea, which seemed to be working, I'd used acoustic dampening foam to prevent vibrations from the quad transferring to the GoPro, even still I think its uses would have been limited.

One thing I would add, I looked at the progress of a video person, who had spent 3 months with a budget practice quad before he went to a package which I imagine is costing in the £5k mark, before selling and upgrading his, he made a short showreel on YouTube which shows even budget gear in the right hands can be used for some good shots.