Thermal for the drone

Ratdog68

Ratdog68

LSB Official Story Teller
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LoneStarBoars Supporter
Yup, thermal unit for drones advertisements have appeared on the banner ads here (from time to time).
 
wigwamitus

wigwamitus

LSB Active Member
Dave, which DJI do you have? I am looking at getting one. Inspire looks expensive and seems to be having some teething problems. PII seems like the solid workhorse. PIII somewhere in between.
 
DaveABQ

DaveABQ

Albuquerque, NM
I have the Inspire 1 and the Phantom 3 Professional. I had the Inspire since they first came out. I totaled it once due to firmware issues and Dji gave me a new one. I put it in the closet for a long time because of all the issues. I then bought a Phantom 3 Professional to fly. But mostly have been flying the Inspire now because it is stable.

If I were to but just one, get the Phantom 3 Professional. Basically does anything my Inspire will do at 1/3 the cost. Don't buy with a bunch of junk with it. I have a hard case, 4 batteries, couple micro SD cards, etc. That is still probably going to cost you $1700, but once I added 4 batteries and a different hard case for the Inspire, I had almost $4500 in to the whole setup.
 
wigwamitus

wigwamitus

LSB Active Member
I'm thinking of two drones in the "long run" ... i.e. "two is one" ... so you think the inspire is stable now? Why is it worth twice as much? Struggling with that question! :D
 
DaveABQ

DaveABQ

Albuquerque, NM
It is fairly stable, same with the phantom.

It costs more because it is mechanically more capable for the film industry. The legs lift up so they will never get in the video. It flies faster. The camera setup is better for videos.
 
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wigwamitus

wigwamitus

LSB Active Member
Reading people's complaints on the DJI forum is like reading something on the ar-15 forum ... keyboard commandos pounding away!

So I really appreciate "real world" input!!
 
Oso Grande

Oso Grande

LSB Active Member
LoneStarBoars Supporter
As we've seen with the prices of thermal scopes dropping, we'll see more options for things like this as well I'm betting.

The FLIR Vue seems to be the latest and greatest for this kind of thing and appears to be what DJI is using as well.
FLIR Vue | FLIR Systems

As for some real world input. DJI's stuff work pretty damn well most of the time. There are lots of stories of fly-aways, where the operator for unknown reasons loses control of the craft and it just fly's off. Personally I attribute most of that to the large number of flat out new-never-flown-before pilots who didn't know enough about their craft and caused some method of user error. However, I personally know a couple very experience pilots who have had problems with fly-aways. Fortunately only one of them was unrecoverable.
 
DaveABQ

DaveABQ

Albuquerque, NM
Lol, I watched an inspire fly away video on YouTube, they never did find it.
 
Oso Grande

Oso Grande

LSB Active Member
LoneStarBoars Supporter
DaveABQ said:
Lol, I watched an inspire fly away video on YouTube, they never did find it.
Click to expand...
I tell people, if you're going to fly these things...... you need to understand there is a REAL possibility that sooner or later it won't be coming home with you. That could be from something like a fly away or just a bad crash.

Light enough to fly and sturdy enough to bounce or usually mutually exclusive properties in my experience....
 
wigwamitus

wigwamitus

LSB Active Member
Hence the "two is one" plan :) ... one ready to go into the air ... one ready to go into the shop !

That seems to be how my NV/thermal gear works !!!
 
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