bought a drone

[Ernie]

... That map makes things much more comfortable for me
Thanks Mags!!
[/quote]
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.
[/quote]
I knew about the option and decided to get the bigger batteries. I don't mind having to register the drone. I am interested in the hubs for the motors and I am getting a more friendly prop strap delivered today from Amazon. The one supplied by DJI is a bit of a pain.
Thanks again for your help.
Ernie

[Mags]

... I am interested in the hubs for the motors and I am getting a more friendly prop strap delivered today from Amazon. The one supplied by DJI is a bit of a pain.
Thanks again for your help.
Ernie

The 'Darkhorse' hubs (motor caps) come in two colors. Red and Black. I wanted black, but they were out of stock at the time. There are other brands of these on Amazon too.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082ZY6D36?re ... tails&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081P ... I162&psc=1

Because I chose to use a tablet with the remote controller I had to buy a tablet holder/mount. It came with a decent length strap.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09H31K55Y?ps ... ct_details

[graywolf]

I been thinking about the Mini 4 bundle also. March, I'll be had my mini 3 years. I think y'all will like them. There's an app, UAV forecast, that is helpful to check weather conditions before flying. Especially wind conditions at different heights.

[Mags]

I been thinking about the Mini 4 bundle also. March, I'll be had my mini 3 years. I think y'all will like them. There's an app, UAV forecast, that is helpful to check weather conditions before flying. Especially wind conditions at different heights.

I got the Mini-3 Pro bundle as a gift, otherwise I would have chosen the Mini-4. Specifically because it has omnidirectional collision detection.
Thanks, for the heads up on the UAV forecast app!

[Mags]

I been thinking about the Mini 4 bundle also. March, I'll be had my mini 3 years. I think y'all will like them. There's an app, UAV forecast, that is helpful to check weather conditions before flying. Especially wind conditions at different heights.

A bit of flack on the internet about UAV Forecast becoming mostly subscription based. The basics are free, but weather forecast ahead more than 3 hours is not. Nor is wind conditions above 400ft. Many other options are also limited without a subscription. I do like the Maps and that is free.

Couple of other weather apps I've tried, DroneWeather and AirData UAV.

DroneWeather is very basic. You get weather conditions and forecast for a week with a time-of-day slider. What I don't like about it, no way to verify if it has the 'Current Location' correct. Will give wind a different altitudes but not in particularly useful granularity. No maps.

AirData UAV. You get weather conditions and forecast for today + 5 days ahead hourly. Wind and Gusts are given at ground level, but have a touch popup that displays Wind and Gusts predicted at different altitudes. Other weather features have their own popups. Much more user friendly that UAV Forecast or DroneWeather.

Hard part is deciding which one to trust. On ideal flying condition days, they'll agree on 'Ok to Fly' but the weather details will differ. Likewise on bad 'Do Not Fly' conditions. On what might be or not marginal days, they won't agree on safe to fly or not.

Anyway some tidbit thoughts.

[Mags]

The video quality is impressive. Here is a sample of 4KHD at 30 frames per second. Some caveats. Youtube may have reduced the resolution on upload. Some parts of the videos may appear blurred due to your download internet speed.

Learning to fly, let along among the trees is a challenge. I'm sure you'll notice my hesitancy at different times. Also, going up when I meant to go down. DJI has their altitude joy stick backwards. Push forward to go up instead of down and pull back to go down instead of up. Same when the camera gimbal.

You don't see it in the videos, but there is a cross-hair in the middle of the pilots screen I use to aim the drone direction.

https://youtu.be/0TGPvW0XBVA
https://youtu.be/uUZK_gmuf4o
https://youtu.be/b1UybA0voNI

[markiver54]

Real nice spot you've got there Mags. I was expecting to see Bigfoot in that first video,
Looks like your drone skills are just fine! Especially navigating through those trees.

[Hatchdog]

Well done pilot. All I could see was the trees and power lines.

Beautiful area and yep, that’s some high quality video.

[Mags]

Thank you for the confidence inspiring comments! I hope one day to be able glide through the trees without the pause and re-aim antics. The collision avoidance does work. You'll notice in one of the videos as I approach the shop the drone stops and rocks back slightly. It detected tree branches. There I lower the drone and fly under them.

[Mags]

...

Ernie, how are things going for you with your drone?

[Ernie]

I too am practicing but I don't have near the trees you have. Wow, that's pretty good maneuvering. I have been flying the last 4 days since the weather allows and I am just attempting to not have to think too much about which control does what. It still spooks me when I can't see the drone and I am flying by the map and camera. Need to do more to get more comfortable.

[Mags]

I too am practicing but I don't have near the trees you have. Wow, that's pretty good maneuvering. I have been flying the last 4 days since the weather allows and I am just attempting to not have to think too much about which control does what. It still spooks me when I can't see the drone and I am flying by the map and camera. Need to do more to get more comfortable.

Good. I'm glad you are getting flight time. Mostly been too rainy here.

As shared before my drone doesn't have side to side or upward collision detection. I'm not familiar enough with the controls to not accidentally go sideways when I meant to turn left or right. So I have sideways flight disabled to so as not to bump into trees.

I also changed the joy stick from the default mode 2 configuration to custom, moving the steering function to the same stick as forward and reverse. So now all level flight is done with one stick and the other stick just for altitude changes.

[Ernie]

I could use some assistance. I am unable to save any videos to SD card although the card is acknowledged by the controller and I formatted them in the drone. I have video in cache and can watch on controller but I am unable to download anything to my phone of computer with cable or card. I get the message that no photos are available.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Ernie

[Mags]

I could use some assistance. I am unable to save any videos to SD card although the card is acknowledged by the controller and I formatted them in the drone. I have video in cache and can watch on controller but I am unable to download anything to my phone of computer with cable or card. I get the message that no photos are available.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Ernie

Video and photos are stored on the drone SD card (or drone internal memory). I don't know of a way to copy them from the drone SD Card to the Controller SD Card.
Things to try.
. Swap the SD Cards between the drone and controller, then retry the download to the phone or computer from the controller.
. Don't swap the SD Card. Instead connect the drone to the phone or computer, downloading directly from the drone. You'll need to download this way if the video/picture was saved to the drone's internal memory instead of the SD Card.

My understanding is that the video/picture that you might be seeing in the controller is just a preview version of what is in the drone. That preview version isn't at full resolution, so you want to save the one in drone anyway.

Also, on the controller make sure to use the USB port on the right. The USB port on the left is for external accessories.

[Ernie]

Not using a controller SD card. I can download from the drone cache to the controller cache but nowhere else. The SD cards in the drone show no memory used even though they are selected to receive the video.
Connecting to the drone will not download anything to my phone.
Used and external card reader on phone and computer but says nothing is available.
Slot on the left on the controller is for a SD card but as you say a download to the controller is lower quality but I can't download to my phone from the controller cache.
Since my controller has a screen I do not use my phone to fly.
Maybe I will get and try another high speed SD card.
Looked on the internet and found some advice on the DJI forum but it has not worked.
Thanks
Ernie

[Mags]

Not using a controller SD card. I can download from the drone cache to the controller cache but nowhere else. The SD cards in the drone show no memory used even though they are selected to receive the video.
Connecting to the drone will not download anything to my phone.
Used and external card reader on phone and computer but says nothing is available.
Slot on the left on the controller is for a SD card but as you say a download to the controller is lower quality but I can't download to my phone from the controller cache.
Since my controller has a screen I do not use my phone to fly.
Maybe I will get and try another high speed SD card.
Looked on the internet and found some advice on the DJI forum but it has not worked.
Thanks
Ernie

I also found some info on the DJI forum.
The internal cache in the controller is not accessible via the controller USB port. The cache video has to be saved to an SD card in the controller to be accessible through the controller USB port. Also, the drone has to be powered on to see the cache on the controller via USB. The cache is a real time image of what is in the drone memory.

When using an external card reader, you are aware the pictures and videos are buried in subfolders on the card?

[Mags]

For anyone interested even in passing.
Drone Laws USA.
https://drone-laws.com/drone-laws-by-states/
Drone Laws Rest of World.
https://drone-laws.com/
Explained.
https://drone-laws.com/drone-laws-explained/
USA Hobbyist.
https://drone-laws.com/the-usa-hobbyist ... implified/

[Ernie]

Had help figuring out my video storage problem and started saving video last weekend after it quit raining. I am practicing flying using the video and information on the screen instead of relying on eye contact only and checking out spots I can't get to by walking. It is kind of scary. Last Saturday I went to a nearby park because I wanted to see the work done on the creek where a dam had been removed and the creek bed had been restored . I have not had a chance to kayak this stretch since the work was completed. Set up and started the drone up stream under the bridge and North into the unseen area following the creek. It is very open and I was not worried about trees but the further away it got the more paranoid I became until I just had to turn around and bring it back. When I downloaded the video to my phone last night I got a real shock when I discovered that I had flown between phone and electrical wires strung across the creek from one house to another. I am taking missing wires by inches. That would have been the end of that drone crashing into the creek. I did not see the wires while flying and there were no poles on the banks to indicate they were there. The wires were too small to be detected by the obstruction sensors on the drone so I learned an excellent lesson. In unknown areas do a careful fly over and examination first before attempting this close to earth examination because I doubt I will get that lucky ever again. When I figure out how to post video I will show you some of the area where I live. This truly has a remarkable camera and I hope to get better at using it.

[markiver54]

Close call...happy for a good outcome!

[Mags]

Good to see you are getting flying time in! Glad you didn't hit the wires too.