Okay, got the ribbon cable today. Could have been packaged a bit better. Came in a regular envelope with a small piece of bubble wrap around it. Fortunately, it didn't get mangled up in a sorting machine or something. Took a little to install it, unlike the video floating around here, my main board doesn't "tilt up" as easily or as far as the one in the video. My rear motor wires must be shorter than the ones in the video.
Because the ribbon cable is limp, I can't get more than 1/16 - 1/4" space between the board and the shell. The HDMI connector on the board is pretty far back, it took a bit to get the connectors lined up and pushed into place. I used a pair of tweezers on the corner of the HDMI connector board of the new ribbon cable to hold it in place so I could get my fore finger up in through the gimbal bay to push it into place. The rest of the install was pretty easy.
You need to take care when putting the battery bay back into place as the ribbon cable could get pinched. It could pinch right at one of the battery bay screws posts. The one where the battery connector is located. If not paying attention you could poke a hole in it when reinstalling the screw.
Installing the gimbal end is a piece of cake. The cable, very noticeably, relieves a lot of pressure on the gimbal and certainly makes for a much cleaner install. Unfortunately, you've still got the very rigid gimbal data cable to deal with. Now that all of the pressure is relieved from the OEM HDMI cable, the rigidity of the data cable becomes much more apparent and noticeable. I played around with it a bit but I'm concerned about damaging it by doing too much to it. If I still have issues after some testing I may try to cut the sheathing away on the data cable to relieve some more pressure.
I did a quick bench test and the video feed looks good but I can't test it in flight because of the weather here. I'll do so as soon as I get the chance and report back on this thread.
IMHO, the original design of the HDMI and gimbal data cable and connections could have been better. It seems like something that 3dr could and should revise in future productions so newer (and repeat) purchasers don't have to deal with this issue.
Anyway, just thought I'd drop a note and give everyone the skinny.
Jerry
Because the ribbon cable is limp, I can't get more than 1/16 - 1/4" space between the board and the shell. The HDMI connector on the board is pretty far back, it took a bit to get the connectors lined up and pushed into place. I used a pair of tweezers on the corner of the HDMI connector board of the new ribbon cable to hold it in place so I could get my fore finger up in through the gimbal bay to push it into place. The rest of the install was pretty easy.
You need to take care when putting the battery bay back into place as the ribbon cable could get pinched. It could pinch right at one of the battery bay screws posts. The one where the battery connector is located. If not paying attention you could poke a hole in it when reinstalling the screw.
Installing the gimbal end is a piece of cake. The cable, very noticeably, relieves a lot of pressure on the gimbal and certainly makes for a much cleaner install. Unfortunately, you've still got the very rigid gimbal data cable to deal with. Now that all of the pressure is relieved from the OEM HDMI cable, the rigidity of the data cable becomes much more apparent and noticeable. I played around with it a bit but I'm concerned about damaging it by doing too much to it. If I still have issues after some testing I may try to cut the sheathing away on the data cable to relieve some more pressure.
I did a quick bench test and the video feed looks good but I can't test it in flight because of the weather here. I'll do so as soon as I get the chance and report back on this thread.
IMHO, the original design of the HDMI and gimbal data cable and connections could have been better. It seems like something that 3dr could and should revise in future productions so newer (and repeat) purchasers don't have to deal with this issue.
Anyway, just thought I'd drop a note and give everyone the skinny.
Jerry