Most bleeding-edge folks will buy the new Phantom 2, but I
am still practicing with my Phantom I.
I have put a GoPro Hero on it, set to take still images every 0.5
seconds, and I’ve flown it a couple of times in the very basic GPS mode near my
house. I had good luck, but I
don’t want to lose a $500 machine (well, $800 if you count the GoPro) just yet. When the drone gets too high or far
away, it is dang hard to tell whether it is coming at you or going away when
you move the controls. It is
difficult to tell where the nose and rear of the drone is when it is far
away.
To solve this problem, the Phantom has a more advanced mode
called IOC or Intelligent Orientation Control. If you choose Home Course Lock, then pressing the drone to
go forward will make it go forward in relation to where you are. I have yet to try this, but it sounds
great. If the drone gets too far
away from me, I’ll just pull the control stick back to make the drone go
backwards, and it should come back to me.
Forward or backwards becomes in relation to me rather than how the nose
happens to be pointing.
For some reason, in order to enable IOC (which actually has
two modes, course lock or home lock), you have to connect the Phantom to a PC
via a USB extension cable, power on the transmitter, power on the Phantom, and
then install their Naza M Assistant software. Once inside the Assistant software, you navigate to the
Advanced tab and click on a box enabling IOC.
I tried this on Sunday, when I had some free time. I list the steps and problems below for
anyone else going through this.
I. Initial
problems.
Remember to always turn on the transmitter first. Then turn on the Phantom drone
itself. This is a hassle when you
are in an office at a computer.
I downloaded the Naza Assistant software and drivers, but I
was unable to enable the IOC. At
some point, a message came up and forced me to download the new firmware
4.2. I did so. I was then able to go into the software
and enable IOC. However, I
remembered a message that after installing the new firmware, I needed to
install the new parameters file (I still don’t know what this does). After I did this, I could no longer
enable IOC!!!
After installing the new parameters file, the GPS mode as
indicated in the Naza Assistant software was always set to failsafe. Normally, I could click the GPS/ATT
toggle switch from GPS to ATTI mode, and the software would show this
change. Once the new parameters
were installed, however, I could not switch to GPS or ATTI mode using the
transmitter. I also could not
check the box next to “enable IOC”.
After reading the manual and some forums (for some reason,
on this Sunday, DJI very helpfully removed all the video tutorials that talked
about the IOC modes and calibration software from their website, and I could
not find the tutorials on YouTube or anywhere else), I decided to start from
scratch and recalibrate the compass on the Phantom manually. Unfortunately, since the video
tutorials were removed, I had to rely on memory. It’s taken me a couple of days now, experimenting, before I
finally got the compass recalibrated.
Of course, this morning I discovered that this procedure is pretty well
documented in their Naza user guide (not the place you’d expect to find it, in
the Phantom Quick Start guide).
Here are the steps:
1. Do the
usual: turn on transmitter first, then the Phantom.
2. Toggle the
transmitter’s top right toggle between GPS and ATTI ten times. The Phantom will go green on its
LED.
3. Holding the
Phantom horizontally, pick it up and rotate your body clockwise 360
degrees. The LED should go green
again.
4. Hold the Phantom nose down and rotate it 360
degrees. The LED should go
off.
If the Phantom’s LED blinks yellow-red, then the compass has
not been calibrated properly, and you need to repeat the process above. I may have gotten the lights and beeps
wrong; check the manual.
The first time I did this, the Phantom flashed yellow-red-red
and the propellers would not start up.
I gave up for the night. I
got flashing yellow lights at one point also, which meant the same thing, I
think.
At some point, I was able to go back into the Assistant
software and enable IOC. I
think.
The next day, I tried contacting DJI’s California office for
help. You can see my email to them
below. In short, don’t count on
DJI for good technical support.
After some more reading of forums and their manuals, I
decided to try recalibrating the transmitter. There’s a description of how to do this in their Phantom
Advanced Manual. I did this
twice. The transmitters LED used
to be red when I turned it on in the beginning, when everything worked. It was green when I had trouble. After re-calibrating the transmitter
twice, it was red again. I have no
idea if that is the way it should be or if this just means that my transmitter
batteries are low. Whatever. After recalibrating the transmitter, I
could once again get my Phantom to fly.
Now I have to go through the manuals and figure out the technical stuff
involved with IOC.
Some notes I collected:
PPM is usual transmitter mode which is set in Naza
Assistant Software.
Some forum comments:
Question: Everything seems fine, but the motors wont start.
I have checked almost everything that I could find on the internet about this
problem, but no one seems to have this problem.
Answers:
This sometimes can occur if your sticks are out of
calibration. Hook up the NAZA assistant and run the calibration routine to make
sure your control sticks are properly registered.
did you pull both sticks down to the bottom corners and
hold them there? That should start them up.
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