I have had the DJI Phantom 3 since 2016, and I have successfully flown DJI Phantom 3 with Litchi many times in 2016. I had a different Android phone back then. I stopped flying for an number of years and now would like to fly in 2024 with the Litchi app as the pilot app. The batteries, drone and remote controller is in very good condition still. As notified by DJI they have suspended support for Phantom 3 Pro in Apr 2017. And today (2024) the current Android 12.9 will not allow either the DJI-GO-3 or DJI-FLY applications to be installed because they both don’t support Android privacy protections. I don’t like the DJI fly applications anyway, and would rather fly with Litchi. So I have installed litchi v4.26.9-g on my galaxy A53 without the DJI-GO-3 application, and the Litchi application does not show the remote controller connected. Is there a way to fly Phantom 3 today?
It should work.
I have no problems flying the Phantom 3 Pro with Litchi installed on a Samsung Galaxy S20+ (Android 13).
I can think of 2 possible causes:
-A faulty USB cable
-“Dry” or “Cracked” solder joints on the USB-connector of the RC (a known problem with Phantom controllers):
Easily fix a ‘dry’ or broken solder joint on printed circuit boards | by Ian Anderson | Medium 2
Repair a “Dry solder”, “Cold solder” or “Cracked Solder Joint”.
Thanks for the good tip. I visually inspected the USB connections and found them still sound. However, your experience on flying the Phantom 3 with Litchi on Android 13 gave me hope that my investment was not lost. The connection problem is now solved, I can connect phantom 3 pro to Litchi on Android Galaxy A53. The solution required that both the old “DJI-GO-3 for the phantom 3” AND the Litchi applications must be installed to connect phantom-3. My mistake was that I did not install the older DJI-GO-3 application for phantom 3 because I encountered the “unknown apps” install protection, and the “google play protect privacy” protection. One can disable both of the protections on Android (in two different settings) and then install the old DJI-GO-3 application on Android 12.9. Then after the DJI-GO-3 installation the Android “protections” can be restored. So now I can fly the phantom 3 again with Litchi.
I don’t have any DJI app installed on that phone.
A 3rd cause could be a dirty USC-C port on your A53.
Dust and/or lint inside the USB-C port can prevent the connector going in all the way, it can be a matter of only 0.1mm, where the power pins (which are slightly longer) do connect but the data pins do not.
TriBar you have been very helpful, and totally instrumental in helping me figure this out. To your point I will keep my cables and connectors clean and stable and monitor them. Thank you. I think it is important to note, the fact that you are using Litchi on your Android 13 without having an installed DJI app, and you are able fly the phantom 3 with Litchi fine. For me I only got the Litchi to connect after I successfully installed the DJI GO application. I went a step further; while keeping Litchi installed, I UNINSTALLED the DJI GO application and yes I am still able to connect Litchi every time with the phantom 3. So this matches with your observations; one does NOT have to have the DJI GO application installed for Litchi to work. For me, since I installed then uninstalled the DJI GO 3 application to get Litchi to connect, I am guessing that the DJI GO 3 installation process did something to my Android 12.9 (that was not cleaned up on the DJI GO uninstall) to allow Litchi to connect for me. I really don’t know anything about the Litchi or DJI software details so I really cant provide insight or root cause this baby any further, I can only tell what I tried and how it worked or did not work. Anyway I am so happy to get additional life out of this discontinued phantom 3 bird. Its a good bird. Again thanks for your help. Cheers.