Hi everybody:-- this is what I’m trying to do.
A few months ago, I bought and successfully rebuilt a Phantom 3 pro drone, that had been crashed. After a dozen or so wonderful flights, it ran into a cluster of tree branches and suffered another mishap, but not nearly as bad of its original owner, who sold me everything for $300. The shell is just that, as brittle as eggshell~~ if you look at it off kilter, cracks appear, and the chintzy little clips, and dozens of even cheaper screw anchors in the body, snap off. 40+ years ago when I was a kid, “made in Japan” was the kiss of death, a hallmark of crap quality, crap design, crap materials, and crap overall product. Today, after the admitting of China to the World Trade Organization, that country has now assumed that roll, flooding our markets with counterfeits end merchandise, and milking our economy by selling garbage products at prices one should expect to receive the best for the buck. China isn’t doing this:~~ poison dogfood and children’s toys loaded with lead paint to make every little boy’s and girl’s Christmas just as merry for Chinese kids aside, I’m addressing the quality and design of a $1,000 adult toy.
With respect to this product, it becomes immediately evident that in the event of a crash, the Phantom 3 is not engineered for viability of repair. It is a throw-away product, designed to shatter to bits even after falling from 3 meters onto soft dirt, as did mine after clipping a small outcrop of leaves from a nearby tree. I lost one propeller, OK- but the body was reduced to its eggshell constituency. The electronic systems seem able to endure light to moderate stress~~ not so the battery, because it was non-functional after the event. The compartment was fully intact, and I powered up the gimbal and control circuitry, all without incident....
I paid $58 for a new shell, $9 for screw set [because when an eggshell body held together by tiny hex-key bolts being threaded into tiny plastic anchors molded into flimsy little pegs that snap off, screws do tend to go missing.]~~
Factory landing gear??-- a joke! It would be better made from bamboo, rather than their eggshell plastic. Boil used chopsticks.... not sarcastic; bamboo is a practical, stronger material~~ economical for one and all.
I’ve rambled on long enough about the Phantom-- and what I love the most about this drone is the 2.4gig Lightbridge FPV platform. So much so, that I purchased DJI’s Lightbridge AIR module, hoping to integrate it into my 3DR x8+/Pixhawk build, and be able to fly both drones from the one DJI Phantom Pro controller, sparing the cost of another tx radio. As I kill two birds with one stone, I fly two birds with one drone controller...
The x8+ came with a 10,000 mah lipo flight pack, and I bought 2 more, Venom flavor 12,000 packs. On Youtube, I watched a disastrous video of Venom 13,000 pack frying at least one arm of this exact same drone, and I believe it also took out one motor and more than one esc.....
I know my electrical theory very well, but I don’t know what wattage the factory esc’s are rated to handle. I would much rather tear down every last little bit of this $kilobuck+$ drone and replace 8 esc’s, than risk an engine fire or electronic frying ceremony.
Next comes the ever-flaming pain in the ass, cabling. The pixhawk isn’t so hard to figure out, but then comes the Lightbridge[1] air module. There are all kinds of wiring diagrams posted everywhere, but I can’t find a reference to simply tell me which cables to buy, where they’re supposed to plug in, so I can understand exactly what each one is supposed to do when everything is connected properly.
My options for FPV remain open:~ Lightbridge does it all at 2.4gig. I’ve had issues with range on the Phantom 3 pro, though I know of configurations of tx/rx amplification, ground stations, directional antenna & tracking systems; it is within my means to set up a fully portable ad hoc facility capable of 50 kilometer range:-- joystick control, powerful computers both on the ground and in the air, 4K/30fps video or 1080p/60fps w/stereo sound, solar power, bank of deep cycle batteries, and a 900 watt gasoline back up generator...
When I set my mind to flying, I’m going to do it right, or not a all. At first, an ilook+ 12mp, 1080p/camera will be sufficient -- once I have this system set up and tweaked, I’ll consider going up to 4K.
This drone has two [redundant] GPS/compass modules mounted on masts that rise several inches above the main body.
3DR’s factory landing gear is crap. I just bought a set of retracts for another drone that doesn’t fit~~ so I’m hoping to be able to adapt it for use there....
Getting all the wiring right is only the first half of the battle. Next comes the proprietary firmware dedicated to both Pixhawk and Lightbridge, then both devices’ software, necessary to make them work with each other, and then communicate properly with my Phantom 3 pro controller.......
Other alternatives do exist. I have a mothballed/destined for Ebay TaliH500 hexacopter, with 4 lipo flight packs and a Devo f12e tx, new 2200mah litho battery, extras beyond belief..... I’d love to be able to use that transmitter to control something else, with its big 5” FPV screen built in, but there arise a few problems with frequency:-- as in, 5.8ghz. You can buy it all, gimbal was disassembled, no camera $750, or $850 w/ilook+; shipping on me...
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