Updating Z3 camera firmware

Hammer_155 · Sep 25, 2016

AnzacJack said:
interesting comments about various skills etc being the cause of the camera problems.
Ive been an aircraft engineers for over 30 years and a Commercial pilot for close to 15 years. Ive been flying quadcopters for around 5 years and have over 500 hrs logged in my inspire. I also instruct the Cert 3 Aviation - Remote Pilot - Line of sight and deliver the course for drone operators to get their CASA Controllers Certificate. I dont consider myself a "noob" nor do i think it is my lack of skills causing my problems with the Z3 camera.
Yes the footage taken from the camera is fine and I am more than happy with this. I only shoot in 1080.
However,
1/ My gimbal often does not self centre without me giving it a nudge (a small issue i agree, but this thing costs around $1600 in Australia)
2/The video feed is inconsistent, laggy and will tend to drop out all together at a range of around 100m (i only shoot at 1080, and this poor signal is not while i am recording)
3/ When pointing the gimbal straight down, it becomes very shaky to the point of the gymbal gyros "toppling" and becoming unresponsive.

For the cost of this camera, I dont expect my experience to have been degraded and the capability of my inspire to be significantly degraded. The problems I have highlighted here are not uncommon and there are many many reported instances of the same problem. If DJI were to come forward and acknowledge these problems and say they are working on a solution, i would be patient. But nothing has come from DJI, and now I read of all these pro operators" that are having no problems with their Z3 and are completely happy. I am now wondering if maybe there has been a bad batch and some of us have bought lemons. This being the case, no amount of waiting is going to help us.

Im going to be contacting the brilliant team at Rise Above in Australia and returning my camera. It doesnt seem a fix is going to be in the near future. For those planning to buy this camera, best of luck with your roll of the dice and getting a camera that will add to your investment

I honestly feel like our inspire pro is a lemon. Video drop all the time and a few months ago our Inpire dropped like a rock from 30ft hover with zero warning. We had it fixed under warranty but still lot of transmission issues. All dji can recommend to us was try reinstalling the app. Seriously? This isn't my first drone. I've been flying drones for over 5 years

AeroMirage · Sep 25, 2016

Thanks for the reply. I will hold off on a Z3 until they finish debugging it.
I had a P3S, then P3 Pro and now I1Pro.
I have had zero problems with my Inspire Pro, but stopped doing FW updates several months ago.

Hammer_155 · Sep 25, 2016

AeroMirage said:
Thanks for the reply. I will hold off on a Z3 until they finish debugging it.
I had a P3S, then P3 Pro and now I1Pro.
I have had zero problems with my Inspire Pro, but stopped doing FW updates several months ago.

Ya we might downgrade the FW to 1.8 my partner always keeps everything up to date cause he doesn't want to show up on site and have the drone say it needs FW update before takeoff.

AeroMirage · Sep 25, 2016

Mine always says it needs a FW update, which I ignore.
The details of my issues are here: Firmware Downgraded on X5
I haven't done any FW updates since and everything works perfectly.

Hammer_155 · Sep 25, 2016

AeroMirage said:
Thanks for the reply. I will hold off on a Z3 until they finish debugging it.
I had a P3S, then P3 Pro and now I1Pro.
I have had zero problems with my Inspire Pro, but stopped doing FW updates several months ago.

It sure is nice to be able to zoom into a subject though. We were shooting g at a logging trade show with live demos in the woods this past weekend. We streamed the footage into tv's in the companies booth while they operated the heavy equipment. We used the z3 so we could get in close while they were falling trees without putting the drone at risk. They were roughly 100-200m away from us and the signal was really intermittent. We ended up sticking with the x5 most of the time.

There was a lot of wireless equipment around as well as 2 other drones at the show which could have made things worse. That being said we have had the exact same issues with video drop on the Z3 in the middle of nowhere with no interference

Hammer_155 · Sep 25, 2016

AeroMirage said:
Mine always says it needs a FW update, which I ignore.
The details of my issues are here: Firmware Downgraded on X5
I haven't done any FW updates since and everything works perfectly.

I'm gonna give that a try.

AnzacJack · Sep 25, 2016

I've had no problems with my inspire (other than a prop issue when new) and absolutely love it. But the money spent on the Z3 was and absolute waste as it is unusable in its current form on my inspire. I swapped back to the x3 and I have no problems at all

Richard M · Sep 26, 2016

I did a job yesterday with the X3 and it had none of the issues that I experienced with the Z3. Same software in DJI GO, IOS 10 in both iPads, and same firmware in aircraft and controller.

AnzacJack · Oct 1, 2016

ok some good news
firstly i tried with the new MaxxRange Antenna and it didnt seem to make a great differenve with the Z3. (It was great with the X3)
RichJ53 from another forum made some comment about the image transmission and for some reason it is defaulting to the worst channel.
I went out today, and changed from the auto mode to the manual mode and i selected a strong channel.
Unbelievably I flew a mission and the Z3 seemed to work with no issues. I then selected back to auto channel select and it continued to work without incident.
I am reporting here on 2 flights, but this is certainly the first time i have come home happy with the performance with the Z3.
I also noted that the transmission quality setting was set be default to absolute lowest setting.

I would like to hear if anyone else could try playing with these settings and are finding an improvement. If it is as simple as these settings then surely this will be fixed with a simple firmware tweak.

i look forward to hearing others experience with this
cheers

Chas · Oct 1, 2016

NH Phantom said:
Got it

So what was the solution? I may have missed it. I have a z3 on a Matrice 600 but cannot figure out how to update the firmware. I have searched for instructions, checked the manual etc. but have nothing

Thanks
C

Chas · Oct 1, 2016

I should have been more clear sorry. Can anyone tell me the procedure for updating firmware in the Z3 and if I am using the iPhone 6 through the usb port what I should use for proper settings or bandwidth allocations etc.? I am flying the Matrice 600 which is LB2 and A3.

Thanks again

BR\\

C

AndrewM · Dec 3, 2016

Good suggestion on taking off auto and finding a better manual channel for video transmission. Solved most of the lag and drop problems. Still have not seen how to successfully upgrade camera. Have tried everything. Took a while to get master, slave and inspire1 all on the same page. Was nowhere near automatic. A lot of trial and error and no decent tutorial. Need to have transmitters with same updated firmware, then at least the camera works. Not like my x3 and x5 which were seamless installations. Why not have one of the prior cameras like x5 work with the inspire2. That would at least take a little of a bit out of the transition cost. I'm not a professional photographer, but do enjoy flying the most up to date drones. Just not ready for $7K for this hobby.

marg2 · Dec 11, 2016

oblivie said:
You must be a DJI Z3 VIP lol.................everyone has issues with this camera Returned
mines back today

Thanks for the advice almost buy yours today lol

Updating Z3 camera firmware

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