I have been getting qoutes for a drone to add to our inspection business. So far I have quotes from Aibotix, Ascending Technologies, Aeryon and Altus. We currently use a Draganflyer X4. These professional drones have a massive price tag attached to them and I am wondering how they can be so expensive compared to a cinematoghraphy drone thats carrying a red epic camera around a movie set. What makes them so expensive? Whats in there that can add up to 65K. If you ask the manufacturers you get the same answer. There industrial grade, there not mass produced in china, there safer more reliable. yada yada what separates a 65k dollar drone from a drone that can be built with the best motors and best ESC's on a solid platform. Is it the flight controller? Is the flight controller in a falcon x8 or an Altus what separates these drones from the rest? I was wondering if someone could shed some light on this for me.
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The machines you mention are ok but very overpriced. Altus was the worst of the bunch and our local
Manufacturer blew them out the water in a day and night test.
If you want a reliable, powerful machine Xtreme in South Africa make the best multirotor by far, no one is even close and it has a price tag under $10 000 USD.
The manufacturer has been published in Popular Mechanics on many occasions and his machines are used in many different roles.
I agree that 65KUSD is a lot of money but if you are running a dron company, paying people to build these machines, for all the money you burn trying to make a reliable machine, I am not sure it is so expensive. I guess the error is to compare personal build (parts from HK, you can get a good machine at 300 USD) and professional build (maybe also parts from HK) but with all the responsability that the machine will fly more than 1 time.... I personally put a lot of money in my dron company. We loose machines, we learn a lot about this new technology (still learning every day) thank to arducopter community but if I want to sell a machine and get few bucks of rentability, I will need to sell more than a personal build.
Good points worth considering. Ease of deployment (out of a backpack, done), inexpensive, small and light, dead simple to operate, easier to get closer to inspected item (one way to make up for less camera resolution), those are important advantages to consider when thinking ROI.
The downside is relatively low quality camera -especially in less than ideal lighting conditions- no zooming, (yet still decent 4k video and 12mp stills), no upgradability/inflexibility with no room for expansion or modifications whatsoever (can't add an additional sensor, change the camera - e.g. thermal, add auxiliary payload, etc ...), blind trust in DJI "reliability" and firmware update quality, enforced no fly zones, and non commercial/industrial grade support. But this last one can be somewhat addressed by simply buying additional "back-ups", mitigate less quality with quantity.
Depending on photo/video resolution and quality requirements, lighting conditions, etc ... a good option to consider if gopro level quality is enough and better optics and sensors are not required.
btw, Re" you do not need to listen stupid explanation from all kinds of self-called developers". Un-needed and you diminished your credibility with that. But that's just my opinion ..
Maybe you are right about that comment,and also as non native english speaker i guess sometimes don't understand how heavy word stupid is and i would remove it now if i can...but for sure i know why i wrote rest of that sentence...
Can you tell us more precisely what kind of inspection business you need?did i got you right its about high voltage electrical wires?FOR HOW LONG?day or night?environment?humid or no?cold or hot?give us more data what you need..bcs. this way I really can't think of many situations where new DJI Phantom4 (and i am no fan of DJI)can't be used for inspection...
For someone is more important to have it in backpack ready to fly more than 25min,water(rain) resistant..and you can buy 10 for price of expensive dslr drone and employ 10 people to do the job faster...and if something go wrong(and it will go wrong) just go to shop around corner and buy a new one.or use DJI Care protection plan,send it back for new..and you do not need to listen stupid explanation from all kinds of self-called developers,specialist who is trying to convince you to spend 50K or more...and you do not need to read thousands of pages about Pixhawk and how to adjust and fly him properly...and most important,maybe you will not need licence with sub 2kg drone(http://dronelawjournal.com/a-giant-step-for-micro-drones/)....
And then you get to the location you want to work in and realize "oops, DJI won't let me fly there".
And then after you contact DJI they can enable it....a bit complicated but you will need preparation and permission for this kind of location anyway...
Are you sure?
Are you sure enough to base your entire business on it?
If there's one thing that DJI has proven without question, is that they can, and will change the rules however and whenever they feel, and force those rules on you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Just a few months ago they TURNED OFF all waypoint support in their $12,000 helicopter system. Anybody who had built their business around that system, got screwed, and had to scramble around figuring out what to do. Just as one example.
I must admit i am not sure,i base my opinion on example of other people who did it....
And I do not like DJI at all,only have PH3 bcs i could not resist easy of deploy when traveling..
DJI is making rules according to your government decisions and in order to become only allowed drone for masses and to maximize profit they will do anything they asked for..
There's nothing I can do with 3DR decisions too...
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