Hi all;
New to this, about 5 weeks.
The last two times I flew my Phantom 3 standard the camera stopped taking vidieo and when reviewing the footage the image begins to pixelate, show squares, and then the camera shuts off.  This is in Pennsylvania in Feb. with the air temp in low 50s. I just hooked up a new phone to my drone it set it up and noticed that the camera was warm to the touch, about 90 to 100 degrees f. Is this normal. It was only on about 5 minutes.
thanks for any input.
BTW, it takes fantastic vidieo when I first flew in Jan.

It is quite normal for the camera to get hot when on the ground, it will be cooler when in the air and the propwash cools it. When you say 'reviewing the footage', are you looking at the file on the SD card or from your phone?

On the ground - I have a 5v PC fan fitted to a stand to blow air over the camera / gimbal..... I don't like heat ... in my mind better safe than sorry.

We demand lightweight small cameras etc - the result is heat !

Nigel

solentlife Posted at 2017-2-24 22:39
On the ground - I have a 5v PC fan fitted to a stand to blow air over the camera / gimbal..... I don't like heat ... in my mind better safe than sorry.

We demand lightweight small cameras etc - the result is heat !

I'm sure you have a better understanding of these things but Isn't this a bit of an "overkill"?   While the PS3 is flying, surely there's plenty of air going over the camera to keep it cool......in fact there's a howling gale under those props and once you land, it's turned off so no problem. Even if its just sitting on the ground turned on, the heat produced is absolutely minimal.... perhaps a couple of degrees at the most, I just tried it. I would have thought that  if Dji considered this necessary, wouldn't they tell us?  Out of curiousity, why would making a camera lightweight and small result in heat? ............. just wondering.  I remember my camera did get very hot once when I first got it.................my son hadn't taken the gimball guard off and I suspect it was the poor gimball motor struggling to get everything in position that was producing the heat........... I blamed my son as he always insisted on never reading instructions  it's all "intuitive" he'd say!!

Mine is not just a few degrees ............ standing on the ground powered up it gets HOT !! Mine is not warm  - it is really HOT !

I have a normal domestic 240v fan I was using ... but having taken this 5V one out of a model powerboat - I had it spare ... with plenty of NiMh around ... its handy and does a great job.

Just for a test - much as I don't like it ... I will record the temps ...

Will get back with temps.

Nigel

With miniaturization and increased power demanded by us the users - its like PC's ... the processor gets more powerful but size does not up ... so we fit fans to cool them down. I bet the Laptop you are using has a silent fan somewhere in it ... and plenty of airvents ... our P3S camera has no airvents nor has the gimbal.

OK ... temps recorded with IR Thermometer ...

Time - Temp in C - Temp in F
1820 - 22.2 C - 72 F .... switch on.
1825 - 28.9 C - 84 F
1830 - 30.6 C - 87 F
1835 - 42.2 C - 108 F .... back of camera is significantly hotter than other which is 32 C
1840 - 44.0 C - 111 F .... even other parts starting to catch up and already 35 C
1845 - 46.5 C - 116 F ... others 36 C

At this I stopped as temp was still rising ...

There was no gimbal or camera clamp fitted. All was as ready to fly. RC and AC on and steady. No movements or commands given.
Basically I let it stand as though it was updating or other act it requires to sit for appreciable time.

I terminated the test at 25mins based on max time I would expect to have it stand even with a slow update etc.

I know 46.5 C is not a serious problem for electronics - but I am not one to accept heating up which it was continuing to do.

When I first noted hot gimbal / camera months ago - it was when trying to get FW working. It stood for maybe 30 - 40 mins and believe me - it was so hot I thought I had damaged it.

As I say - I think better safe than sorry and I know I am not only one who blows cool air over a static P3 camera !!
I don't really understand why anyone would argue against having a cooler ? Whether necessary in their opinion or not - it does no harm. And it can only if anything do good. At least it helps reduce thermal expansion / contraction of components ...

Nigel

Geebax;
I am viewing the sd card.  When first flying I would get 12 to 14 minutes of clear video, now 7 is the most.  I usually now get about a minute or two then it shuts off.  Also while flying the camera is cool so the issue is probably not heat.

jerkweed Posted at 2017-2-25 09:20
Geebax;
I am viewing the sd card.  When first flying I would get 12 to 14 minutes of clear video, now 7 is the most.  I usually now get about a minute or two then it shuts off.  Also while flying the camera is cool so the issue is probably not heat.

Have a look at the card in a PC reader with HIDDEN FILES displayed ... you may have a card that's just full of junk.

My SD card supplied by DJI ... Sandisk Ultra 8gb .. worked fine for a while then failed ... its in the bin now ... nothing could recover it - even Diskpart couldn't touch it ...

Nigel

Thanks for the info, very helpful.
BTW
I changed my phone yesterday and I had a flight log originating just west of Africa and ending in the USA, not only do I have the longest flight but the fastest. By my calculation I was going about 20,000 mph.
Unfortunately the log got deleted.

Nigel;
I switched out the sd card today and it was the cause of my problems.
Thanks for your help.
Jeff

Cameras shooting video generate a lot of heat, the higher the frame rate, the more heat is generated. Professional cimema cameras use heat pipes to conduct the heat away from the sensor and then solid-state Peltier effect devices to dissipate the heat. So a camera getting hot is perfectly normal, in fact the heat problem is one of the main limitations to high frame speed in most sensors.

solentlife Posted at 2017-2-25 08:23
Mine is not just a few degrees ............ standing on the ground powered up it gets HOT !! Mine is not warm  - it is really HOT !

I have a normal domestic 240v fan I was using ... but having taken this 5V one out of a model powerboat - I had it spare ... with plenty of NiMh around ... its handy and does a great job.

Interesting results............. I only left mine sitting for 10 minutes max hence I didn't detect any significant heat. Strange the way the temp suddenly jumps significantly between 10 and 15 minutes.  Fortunately, I don't leave mine standing for more than a  couple of minutes so I can give the fan a miss...........  glad of that as I certainly don't want to be carrying a fan as well.

I only use it basically when doing FW and App testing / updating when the AC is sitting stationary for appreciable time. Some FW changes cam take more than 15 - 20mins to complete for some strange reason ... note the number of people who post failed updates - then they try again and leave AC and Tablet sitting for long time and finally it completes.

I only carry it to flight site to demo it to others when they have commented on our Skype conference site etc, about excessive heat generation. I know I'm not only one to use a fan and not only one to have high heat generation.

After a flight though - she's fine .. as you'd expect.

Nigel