Sunday 29 April 2018

Drone repairs The DIY route to a fully accomplished Drone pilot...


https://vimeo.com/channels/cleethorpesdronefilmclub

I have to say that flying a drone can swing from the heights of Ecstasy through to the depth of Hell... What do I mean? well having fun with your drone can be very exciting as you try and pull off a maneuver or go over water and watch the playback and see the best footage you've ever seen sofar... But the down side is the fact you can push the drone too far by trying to go at a long distance with little to no battery power...
http://click.dji.com/AK8MyhdtCInP3RY00eci…Or if you was distracted by someone asking you how much does it cost how far can you go?... The usual questions...
Or even trying to impress your mates by seeing how low you can fly off the floor and can you fly through the tree branch or something....
The end results maybe something of a disaster, as you pick up the pieces of your recently crashed drone... The flip side to this that you are too afraid to fly over water and beyond a few meters making your flying, too tame and in my opinion, and a bit boring...
No one likes a broken drone and there is some sympathy from other people when you post your crashed footage...

But I think everyone likes to rubberneck a accident site and with drones its no exception... You'll even get comments asking how, why did it crash...
It usually comes down to pilot error, some sort of drone fault or external forces like high KP index or radio interference...
Not mater what the cause it is you still need to fix the dam thing... and that can be a headache in itself...
http://click.dji.com/AEZ6irNLYNtb-34SubW2…I have to mention that FPV pilots seem to have greater knowledge of their equipment and fixing their drones is part of their everyday routine... When I am awestruck on their stunts and how they go though race gates and complex flight paths... I can imagine they are on a knife edge of pushing the drone to its limits to get the most out of their drone...

The average drone consumer cant be arsed with the intricate circuits and plugs and wires of the drone... So they happily buy the Refresh and gladly put up with the hassle of waiting for weeks on end to see if they fixed a dodgy connection or unknown fault... Probably early on in the manufacturing DJI pushed out the mavic pro a little too fast... A few people complained how their drone had focus issues or have a motor gimble overload error message... A lot of people complained about this and how the support or repair service sucks compared to other drone manufactures...
https://vimeo.com/channels/cleethorpesdronefilmclub

But having friends with other drones beside DJI, you get the same type of complains no matter what make or model... I was one of the early adopters and probably got one of the first few mavic pros when they were on reserved... I didn't think much of it at the time and was lucky that I didn't have a problem of with the drone...
It was light years ahead of my older inspire and to be honest a little bit better in terms of range and the ability to move at speed with out much gimble wobble...
I flew the Mavic much harder then any other drone and because of that I got the best footage from it... The downside of that is I few it until I crashed it...
So When you you finally crash you kind of ask yourself how much damage is it ?, and how can you fix it...? The thing is the mavic has proven to be a great drone to fly but is it a good drone to repair?...

https://www.instagram.com/mydogisdead414/
Well, its been over a year since the Mavic has been out and sofar there's been a lot of people crying out for spare parts... Thankfully you search for spare parts for Mavic on google to see a lot of places to obtain what you need... The Mavic Pro itself is fairly modular and when you open it up you will see the drone splits into a few boards and if you dig into a teardown video... you will notice the camera section, the main board, the GPS sensor, the ESC array or the speed control board for the drones motors, all have different jobs but can be easily replaced if you know where to shop...
https://youtu.be/mPjaG15VGmE
https://youtu.be/UHYF8HJFrPwMy particular fault was the camera, the ribbon had broken off and I have to replace it along with a Vibration plate that reduces jello vibration in the video feed... The cost of which was about £10 for a new ribbon and £16 for a new vibration plate assembly... I could of shopped around to get a better deal but I went with a reliable eBay store rather then a dealer that was cheap and has a low reputation stats... The package came fairly quickly only missing one weekend  of flying but to be honest the weather wasn't that great... I eventually fixed the broken ribbon and replaced the vibration plate within the hour and had it flying quickly... Besides a gimble calibration and later a forward collision sensor calibration, the drone flew brilliantly...
https://www.youtube.com/c/sliFoxLIVEDRONEBROADCASTCHANNNELI do recommend the self repair route of fixing your drone as I gained lots of knowledge on the inner workings of the drone and its was always fun to piece together the broken parts... Its modular design and its tiny construction, you'll appreciate the drone much more... And fixing the drone it self has its rewards... Granted you'll become a little humble as you take off and fly again but now you've fixed it. it wont be much trouble to repair the drone again should you find that you've crashed it again...

But ultimately to be accomplished in your flying, I think you have to wear many hats or use many skills to get the best footage... Knowing that, I think that the sadness of losing a drone can be reduced by having the skills of doing self repairs and just rolling with the punches as you learn from your mistakes... After all FPV pilots can perform astonishing feats of aerial maneuverability, because they can sacrifice the drone to get the shot or get the best race lap times... I just think if I could be half as bold like that but still maintain the eye and steadiness of a aerial videographer, I could lose the fear of flying in tight spaces or night flying or anything that still scares me...

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