bought a drone

[Ernie]

One of the people at the Christmas gathering had a drone and I was watching the screen on the controller and was very interested. He was filming a video across the river valley into town, what an interesting perspective. Afterward I was talking to his sister who is a firefighter that uses a drone at fire locations and she showed me some videos she had taken at Lake Michigan. Now I am more interested. Decided to think about it for a while. I was at a friends shop last Saturday talking about the drone I was thinking about and told him he should talk me out of it. He grinned and said " I'll drive ". I bought a DJI Mini Pro Fly More Combo. It is basically a very nice camera with video that has smart tech. I have been watching tutorials and reading the manual ever since. This drone connects to GPS and has a Return Home option that will bring it back and land if it is running low on power, has exceeded the controller signal or if I tell it to. It had obstacle avoidance and each battery lasts 30 - 40 minutes. It can do several things hands free but the return feature is my favorite so far. I flew it for the first time today for about 15 minutes and it is still in one piece. Now it is back to reading the manual and gathering knowledge to learn more of what it can do. I am not that familiar with cameras so I need to better understand shutter/ video speed, f-stops and other conditions I can control and get more comfortable with flying so I can use the camera feature better.
If you let the controls go, it will just hover so it is much less stressful than flying a radio controlled plane. The drone folds up to about 8"x5"x4" so it is very portable and can be launched for any firm surface (a piece of carpet or board) so I would like to check out several areas locally. I am pretty thrilled with this drone so far and will be getting more flying time to get better with it and hope to use it for some interesting (at least to me) pictures and video.
Any one else using a drone?

[Sir Henry]

I want one I can send to the store for a gallon of milk.

[Vaquero]

I want one I can send to the store for a gallon of milk.

RP

[Mags]

I got one for Christmas. DJI Mini-3 Pro Drone Bundle, includes the fly more kit batteries and charging dock. It did not include the greater than 30W charging adapter. I had to buy that separately (60W). It came with the RC1 (non-display) controller, so Christmas day I was digging through old tablets to use as a flight control display, iPAD Air 2. I also bought separately motor caps to minimize dust and moisture intrusion into the motors.

Today I spent most of the day trying to figure out why the real-time video feed looked like crap. Heavy blue/green over saturation. After many hours of trying different settings and no help google searches, figured out the iPAD Air 2 can't properly handle the video feed from the remote controller. When I download the video and picture files from the SD card to my PC and look at them there they are fine. Actually excellent looking. Now I have another reason for my dislike of Apple iPADOS products. I'll be looking for an Android tablet to use as a display.

More about the drone. Overall I really like it. It fly's really well. At this time, I fly it in Cine (gentle response to the controls) mode. Someday when I have more confidence I may switch up to normal mode. Probably never use sport mode (too fast and skiddy slippery in the air for me). The Return to Home feature is very nice to have. While I was fiddling around with video setting today I had left the drone out a ways from the house in a hover. Kinda forgot about it in my video debug efforts. The low battery return to home notice startled me. It came home and hovered about 3 or so feet from the takeoff point. It gave back control and I moved it over and landed it.

About collision detection. That is also very nice necessary feature. Unfortunately it's not 360. It only has detection front, rear and downward. There is no detection side to side or upward. So flying sideways for making panoramic videos can be risky. No upward detection for me is a bummer. I live under a tree canopy, so I have to be very careful about climbing. This is also a risk for the return to home function. Some of the return to home scenarios cause the drone to climb and fly across to the home point descend and then land or hover near the takeoff point. Today's live return to home scenario started about 15 feet off the ground and about 100 or so feet out. The drone came straight back to the takeoff/home point without climbing (whew). I'll be buying the DJI Care flight insurance because of my crash risk.

Well, enough for now. I suppose both Ernie and I will have more tales to tell.

DJI Mini-3 Pro Bundle.JPG

[markiver54]

I would hate to crash one of those given what they cost. Would be like throwing a new Henry out of a plane.
Congrats guys...Ya'll don't mess around when taking on a new hobby. Please share with us, about some of your future flights. Don't think I'll ever own one myself.

[Hatchdog]

Interesting subject, I’ll be following along.

[Sir Henry]

I think I would enjoy owning one but right now I have too much going on. Once I get my two garages built I’ll have time. Keep posting.

[BrokenolMarine]

I wouldn't mind having a drone with live video to the laptop so that we could fly the pastures to check for intruders, check the fence lines and the like, and take aerial photos, but I think the really quality video isn't cheap. I figure if we bought one we would want the features listed above. Return home, the avoidance features, etc. The intruders we'd most be concerned with would be four legged predators....

[Mags]

I would hate to crash one of those given what they cost. Would be like throwing a new Henry out of a plane.
...

That's why I'll be buying the insurance. $79 for 1 yr or $125 for 2.

[Mags]

I wouldn't mind having a drone with live video to the laptop so that we could fly the pastures to check for intruders, check the fence lines and the like, and take aerial photos, but I think the really quality video isn't cheap. I figure if we bought one we would want the features listed above. Return home, the avoidance features, etc. The intruders we'd most be concerned with would be four legged predators....

I have a $180 HolyStone drone before this one. The video out of it was pretty good. But it did not have any device safety features. Not even land on signal loss. It's Wifi based so the range was limited to a couple hundred feet. I was very worried about fly away on signal loss with it.

As for flying the DJI Mini 3 Pro, the radio range is rated in single digit miles depending on obstructions and interference. Yesterday I was controlling from inside the house where it was warm. Despite the messed up color in the live video stream I had very good clarity. Today I ordered a Samsung Tab S6 Lite to replace the iPAD Air 2.

Live video directly to laptop might be possible if that laptop can run the DJI Fly app. Maybe an iMAC or ChromeBook connected to the flight controller. Not sure how someone would do it to a MS Windows laptop. DJI doesn't have an app for that OS.

[BrokenolMarine]

Thanks for the feedback. If I plunked down the cash for a drone, guess I'd cough up the cash for the tablet. LOL.

[Ernie]

My controller has its own screen which is very sharp and clear so I avoid the extra phone connection. Just ordered a SD card reader for the I phone or computer and I also had to purchase a 30 watt charger. I purchased service or replacement coverage through Best Buy where I purchased the drone. DJI care refresh charges $249 for replacement of my mini 4 pro. Still reading the 117 page manual and it's raining so I can't fly it anyway.

[Ernie]

I want one I can send to the store for a gallon of milk.

All mine could do is take a picture of some milk. You would want something a. little bigger.

[Ernie]

Took it up this afternoon for about 15 minutes up to 70 feet and cruised down the street and then over to the river. What a view. Thought I was getting video but once down I see I had shut it off. Will try tomorrow. It will take some getting used to being small it when I look at the screen on the controller then back to the sky I can't find the drone so I orient by the screen to return. Kind of spooky but I will get more comfortable with it with use. I need to figure out how to activate the GPS screen, back to the manual.

[Mags]

... I need to figure out how to activate the GPS screen, back to the manual.

Lower left corner, looks like to google map. Tap on that twice. The first tap enlarges the map. The second tap switches it to a radar like screen.
[Update: That brings up the compass and I thought I remembered seeing GPS coordinates there. Not so. "Find My Drone" shows GPS coordinates]

[Ernie]

Thanks Mags, I will try it tomorrow.

[daytime dave]

I'm glad you are enjoying the drone. I enjoy hearing about your learning process.

I attended a class to prep you for obtaining an FAA drone license a few years ago. I learned a lot about what was required then.
Do you even need a license now?

[Ernie]

As a recreational user with a drone over 250 grams I just need to register it with the FAA. Cost $5 for 3 years. Was also required to pass a certification test online that you can't fail. Shows a couple of paragraphs then 4-7 multiple choice questions then more information etc for a total of 27 questions. Instructions said if you get one wrong the relevant information will be shown highlighted and you answer the question again until you get it correct. It was very basic and I did not have to repeat any questions.

If you are using a drone for any commercial use then the process is different but I don't know any specifics.

Put SID card in controller then used WiFi to open a map and scrolled it to where I am flying. Turned off WiFi and shut down the controller. When I turn it back on and tapped on the map in the corner the map expanded and showed my drone at Home (takeoff area) and the direction it was pointing relative to North. When I took off the drones position on the map was an arrow icon pointed in the direction of travel and a line indicating where it had gone and another line between the drone and Home which would be how it would travel to automatically return if told to or if battery reached 3 minute remaining level. That map makes things much more comfortable for me
Thanks Mags!!

[Mags]

I had little mishap a couple of days ago. I just gotten the Samsung Tab A6 Lite and had USB cable connected it to the remote controller. When I bought up the Fly App, it wouldn't connect to the remote. It keep wanting to go into Quick Transfer mode (download pictures from the drone, bypassing the remote). I spent a good part of the evening going through tablet and Fly App setting to figure out why. I even disconnected and reconnected the USB cable from the tablet (at the tablet) a few times trying to trigger the tablet into recognizing the remote. No luck with that. I finally opened the User Manual and found out that Quick Transfer is the default mode in the Fly App when it can't connect to the remote. OK. So maybe I have a new but bad USB cable. I tried the shorter version of the USB cable I had and wha-la, the tablet and remote connected. I then retried the longer cable. It also now worked. SO what was the problem originally? The USB connector in the back of the remote is awkward to get to. I figure I had the USB cable plugged in askew not really connecting. It would have been nice if the Fly App had popped up a message saying "no remote found, check both ends of the USB connection" instead of just going into Quick Transfer mode.

[Mags]

As a recreational user with a drone over 250 grams I just need to register it with the FAA. ...

... That map makes things much more comfortable for me
Thanks Mags!!

You're welcome!

Not that it matter now, but there is a Mini-4 bundle with lighter batteries that weigh in with the drone at under 249 grams. My mini-3 weighed 247 grams with those batteries. I had enough head room on weight to add dust/moisture resistant hubs to the top of the motor stubs. With the hubs I'm right at 249 grams.