experience with downgrading firmware

[jjoos99]

I have fought random poor video signal with my inspire 1 v2. I decided to try the legacy firmware that Donnie Frank recommends. Went back to the 1.08 firmware. Used Donnie's video on bricking and installing the older firmware. It actually was quite simple and video very helpful. I flew it tonight and the video feed was much better. I was able to leave it on auto for the channel pick which I was not able to do before. I went out to 4k feet before I started to loose signal quality. I live out in the middle of nowhere so no worries of hurting anyone going that far. I have a cell tower about 1/2 mile from my home and still wasnt able to fly very far toward it without loosing signal so that wasnt improved. Two things I did notice on the negative side. I have never had a motor overheat warning before which I received with the older firmware. The rth speed seemed to be quite slow. Not sure if it was really different but took forever to make it back and seemed slower then previously. I would like to add the 32 hack but will have to figure out how to roll back my go app.
Jeff

 

[niki]

I was on this firmware for a while and in the beginning it was looking like there is improvement. At least at home it was working better and I had video feed all around my living place compared to latest firmware with which I was loosing video feed when I go in the next room.
But on the field where I'm practicing didn't found difference as the video signal las lost on the same places where it was bad with the latest firmware. Anyway I decided to give it a chance and left it with the older firmware until something very unusual happened. On a place where I was flying many times before without any problem this time on a paid gig the inspire didn't powered up correctly, the drone started behaving like it is updating the firmware. The camera x5r was looking down like no power on the gimbal is applied and the usual sound of updating di-di-di-di also the light on the back was flashing purple, yellow, red. At the same time DJIGO was saying compass calibration is needed!
I was shoked! Never ever saw something like this and I know there is no firmware file on the sd card but decided to wait and see what will happen. After 1 hour there was no change with the dididi thing and I was digging the internet to found info about but didn't found anything related. So I decided to shut it down. Powered it again after 1 min and the same **** started again.

In the gig I was supposed to shoot some video footage with the x5r camera which unfortunatelly didn't happen but there was a plan to shoot a hyperlapse with mavic and the mavic powered fine and do it's mission without issues while the inspire was dididiing on the ground. So definitelly there was no interference or magnetic disturbance at the place.

So I went home and tested the inspire again on my desk where I have done hundreds of tests and maintanence of the inspire and he did the same didididi updating thing and the compass error on djigo. Then I thought that this inspire have gone and something is burned off or there is disconnected wire. I disassembled it and check for issues but didn't found any visible problem. After asembly I tried it again and the same thing...
This compass error was driving me nuts and I was thinking there is some electromagnetic field or something disturbing the electronics so I went out on the field (in midnight and the inspire powered up as expected there. So I thought it got fixed itself and went back home where he again didn't powered fine and started dididiing and blinking all the colors of the rainbow. I have powered off all electronic devices in my house, actually I've switched the main power off to avoid any disturbances but there was no difference.
THEN i decided to update the firmware back to latest and after that the inspire powered up fine on my home desk. So I decided to stay on the last firmware.

Bought Argtec antenna extensions and modded the RC, now that's a difference! It is working better but not soo much better, still have some signal drops but overal that helped in getting better radio feed.

 

[Donnie Frank]

4 things:

1) You should never fly in HD "Auto" mode. Yes, you can get away with it some of the time, but for the most part, dynamic channel switching wreaks havoc with your video feed, ESPECIALLY in dual operator mode. Think about how many WiFi networks there were 5 years ago vs. today. Not only are there MORE WiFi networks, they are much more powerful than they were 5 years ago. It's a different ball game out there from 5 years ago.

2) Get the 32 channel hack. This will net a real seat-of-the-pants, NIGHT and DAY improvement over the 8 channels DJI allows. It's very easy to install. I don't have any tutorials on this, but I'm sure there are several on YouTube. I may make one if none exists. In a nutshell, you drag and drop the modified .configs file into you the Go App root directory.

3) Manually select a channel at every location. I fly a gig downtown Albuquerque twice a month, and there are literally only 2 or 3 channels (of 32) open at the very bottom end of the spectrum. I use channel 1 and get perfect video feed every time. ANY other channel nets < perfect to absolutely unusable results.

4) All bets are off if you've had your Inspire repaired by DJI. I would never own or buy any "repaired" Inspire 1. The repair lemmings at DJI take a LOT of license with your repair, which includes using parts that are no longer compatible with legacy firmware....essentially turning the Inspire 1 into a useless piece of s***. And the best part, they don't care. No amount of note writing or phone communication will stop them from doing this.

Good luck!

D