An Update:
I installed several combinations of components in the ION L1 in an effort to best determine which component(s) may be causing the issue. It should be noted the L1 I am working with has an additional problem related to the gimbal performance.
To resolve the controller/video freezing part of this camera's problems, several components were temporarily swapped with a working C23 (The closest thing I have available to an L1):
- Main Camera Ribbon (Hub to gimbal board)
- Spiral Ribbon (aka: front main, power, short main, etc.) (hub to camera board)
- SD card reader board (installed C23 SD card reader board)
- Lens board and Lens assembly (installed C23 Lens board and Lens assembly)
- Gimbal board (Installed gimbal boards from C23 and E90)
The only things that helped the card reading, the ability to take photo/video and the ability to swap between photo/video modes (generally, screen freezing) were all associated with the SD card system:
- Replaced the SD card. Had problems with all the original cards. Purchased one new card and saw an improvement. Still had lots of problems, but the system worked a lot better.
- Cleaned the SD card reader. Saw some improvement by cleaning the reader via the usual methods while still installed in the camera. Improved again, but again still had problems. The card reader was then removed from the camera, hosed out thoroughly with lots of contact cleaner/compressed air. This almost fixed the problem but would still experience occasional hang ups.
- Finally replaced the SD card reader board. No problems have occurred since replacing the board. Replacing the reader board also allowed this H3 to display the autopilot revision number on the ST16.
This ION L1 has unrelated problems with its gimbal board. Since neither C23 gimbal boards nor E90 gimbal boards will accept L1 firmware, I could not permanently substitute a working gimbal board.
This H3 originally had an issue with doing Autopilot updates. Due to the sequence of parts changing, I am not sure whether the resolution was associated with the SD card reader board or with the Spiral Ribbon.
And by the way, here is a comparison of a C23 to an Ion L1 with the skin off. Not much real difference:
