Phantom Menace

Burntpixel

Member
I decided to paint my Phantom. It was not as easy as I expected. I had to tape off the lights,motors and some screw holes. It did turn out nice in my opinion,but I would not try to paint a pre-assembled Phantom again. What is far easier is to paint a Phantom shell. I have one and painting it was a breeze. i will post pic,s once the build on that quad is done!

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I flew the Phantom this afternoon in its pictured configuration. The Zinger props work pretty good. I will attach my GoPro Hero3 and test for balance/vibration,but the props being balanced are far stiffer than the stock DJI "white and black props". I would expect the resulting video to be jello/vibration free.

I have removed the nylon string seen in the pictures looped through the prop guards. The string sagged during flight,so I just took it off. It could also cause vibration due to downward prop wash and forward motion. I didn't want it to get all tangled up in the motors/prop,s. :highly_amused:
 
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iceman17

Member
Wow now that looks good, you did a great job and by painting two of the blade guards red it has to help with orientation much better than the stickers they supply.
 





Burntpixel

Member
Paint = weight
Correct. Yet by my stop watch,I had 11 to 12 minutes of flight time fully loaded on a "Stock" DJI battery. I fly for video,so speed is not in the equation. Nice smooth fly by,s of the subject matter @ 60 Frames per second. I also fly with a anti-vibration mount and Gopro Hero 3 Black in its case. Stock batteries work just fine for my purposes.
 

Burntpixel

Member
Guards = Weight
Guards are very important for "Interior"video work. The added weight is not an issue. I really like the guards to be honest.I come in "Hot" way to many times on landing and the guards save the tips of my wooden "Zinger" 8.5 props.


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OneStopRC

Dirty Little Hucker
Just curious to all these weight comments. Did you weigh before and after? would be interesting to see how much "weight" was added if very much at all.

Ohh, it looks much better then the white ones.... I like it and I am not keen on Phantoms. Good job on the paint.
 

Burntpixel

Member
Just curious to all these weight comments. Did you weigh before and after? would be interesting to see how much "weight" was added if very much at all.

Ohh, it looks much better then the white ones.... I like it and I am not keen on Phantoms. Good job on the paint.

About weight,I know it is of concern to some,but I want to have fun so do not pay to much attention to it unless I think whatever I add to the quad would somehow negatively harm its operation. I do weigh things that I add to the Phantom on a small digital kitchen scale before mounting those parts. I do it more out of curiosity than anything else.

173.5 Grams- GoPro Hero 3 Black in its factory polycarbonate housing with the long black factory handle with included steel screw and nut.

21.2 Grams -The DJI GoPro support cradle with included aluminum bolt and nut.

88.5 grams- The Gopro Hero 3 in its factory "Naked Frame" .

21.2 Grams- Aluminum anti-vibration mount with 4 rubber isolation balls with mounting hardware.

72.0 Grams- The DJI prop guards.

What may be of interest to some of you is what performance and handling issues I had when flying with the full GoPro Hero 3 package and the DJI props. I had an issue yesterday with maintaining constant hover and recovering from steep angle of attack. It turns out that the weather here played a big part in the performance of the quad. We have a major weather front moving through our area. The temp,s were in the low 80,s with close to 90% humidity. That high humidity played a big part in how the quad responded to throttle.

Now about paint. Another kind poster informed me about something I really never thought about. As I used "Tamiya Color" spray paint for plastic/styrene, most of the weight comes from the solvents that deliver the pigment. Those solvents evaporate. So in reality the paint,s weight added to the quads body is very,very small!

I think performance wise the Gopro Hero in its factory "Naked Frame" works best weight wise,yet leaves you with zero lens protection. I do believe the quad with 181.70 Grams of added weigh ( DJI prop guards,Anti-vibration mount,Gopro Hero 3 and naked frame) will not affect overall performance.
 

CrashMaster

Member
I think you were just having your leg pulled. The Phantom is an excellent bit of kit for the price:
It is less hassle and more reliable than it's bigger cousins.
It never complains about being thrown in the boot (trunk) along with the shopping or fishing gear.
It pops into the air as it should every time.
It flies with little or no glitches and is so stable you would have to tripple the price to get to other machines which even try to compete with it's competence.
Even if you do plant it the damage is not so eye watering either.
Above all it only weighs in at 1KG with my GoPro 2 axis gimbal, OSD, 5.8gHz A/V downlink and Lipo alarm all hanging off the frame.
It even does't even mind a new coat every so often.

Mine gives me 9 mins with DJI 2.2Ah Lipo and 11 mins with Turnigy A-Spec Nano-tech 2.2Ah Lipos. With the Lipo alarm I can run them down to within 20% capacity reliably every time giving me time to land too without running any cell below 3.3v.
 

Burntpixel

Member
5.8gHz A/V downlink and Lipo alarm all hanging off the frame.
Which A/V downlink do you use? I'd like to explore FPV and want to do it right without a bunch of wires hanging all over the place.I am also interested in this lipo alarm you are talking about. As of now I have been lucky and been able to see the flashing red lights on the Phantom when the battery is about to die. How does the alarm work?
 

CrashMaster

Member
I have an ImmersionRC 25mw 5.8 GHz running directly from the spare power lead in the Phantom.
Do a search on eBay or Amazon do Lipo alarm, there are lots of them they just plug onto the balance lead during flights. You can set the minimum voltage per cell and when one cell hits the limit off goes a very loud alarm. It is more reliable than the built in system because it just uses total voltage and not individual cells. Also you can hear it going off 200 yards away.

This is the one I use on all my machines:- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Free-Ship...sGames_RadioControlled_JN&hash=item4d0d686845
 
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Burntpixel

Member
Thanks CrashMaster! Here is a very basic test I did with the Zinger props and DJI prop guards installed. Nothing fancy,just some footage @ a very wet football field.

 
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shepk9

New Member
I wouldn't be concerned so much about the weight of the guards, but the phantom by design was already a kite. Adding the guards only increases the "sail" effect. Make sure you put yer phone number on it with a reward.

Does look purdy however ;)
 

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