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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No, I am not on a hobby level and that's the problem I am having. The electric utility industry is very conservative and their tolerance for safety is stringent. I can't have a drone fly into an energized piece of equipment or randomly take off on its own free will, or have a motor failure and dive into the ground as did with the Draganflyer. I also don't believe what they are charging for a so called industrial drone is worth the money. I have no idea what is inside that thing. If they are selling an amazing product that had better technology then we could find on our own why wouldn't they be on here telling us about it. I need a solid reliable piece of equipment that wont take off on its own, that won't have premature motor failure, that has high wind capabilities and It needs to be able to carry DSLR of my choice and have 1080 back to me. It needs to have above average flight times.
Wow, you pretty much just specced out a helicopter. :)
What exactly does "above average flight times" mean? Typically DSLR-carrying multirotor flight times are about 15 minutes max. Might be able to get that up to 30, but the size, cost, and battery weight (and charging implications) would become substantial.
Now, does it have to be a "real" DSLR? I currently have an Octocopter that flies for 25 minutes with a Sony Nex5. Could also use an a6000, which I would put up against any DSLR, unless you have a rigid requirement to use specialized lenses only available to Canon DSLR.
I could tell you all about helicopters, of which I'm the lead developer. But I'll wait until you're interested.
My (obviously subjective) opinion ...
They are no more "industrial grade" than a well build custom drone. Nor safer, nor more reliable.
As far as the quality of the flight controller code, since it is closed no customer can have an idea. And since they can't have the sort of massive user testing that Ardupilot, or even closed DJI has, I actually think they may be less reliable.
They ask 65k for them because ... they can. Just like that run of the mill hex that was sold $35k for a police department here:
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/hacker-says-can-hijack-35k-police-dron...
Some agencies, corporate entities, etc ... swear by the "you get what you pay for" rule. That statement is usually true, yet when it's not it's still a safe bet . And if a few 10's of thousands is no big deal, why challenge it?
So I could build myself a comparible inspection drone with the finest over the counter parts and pieces I can find and end up with something just as reliable as one of these 65k dollar units? I like what your telling me here John.
@High Voltage: Definitely, if you have the experience. But don't forget the price you put on your time, research, testing, quality of *all* components (reliability is only as good as the weakest link, e.g. PDB, current sensors, structural integrity, ESCs, motors, etc ... etc ...) and support as you'll be on your own ...
On the higher end realm of things, with a $10k budget you can build something as reliable as the most expensive "$65k" drones out there, (or more, since we don't even know how reliable they are and don't know how they've been tested), and way more reliable than just about any RTF (maybe not all) sold in that price range.
@Marc: Agree.
Well it sounds like I need to start educating myself on how to build my own custom built unit and I need to get started ASAP. Any suggestions where I might start. I would spend 10k building myself a drone all day everyday over the price tag there putting on these units like the Aeryon Sky Ranger and the Trinity Falcon 8
There is still a virtue to buying RTF and paying extra as it does take time to make something reliable (and time is money). There are Pixhawk powered RTF commercial options. For example for 4-5k you can buy a Steadidrone Mavricks for example, which is powered by Pixhawk or an Action Drone AD1 (also Pixhawk powered) for probably even less. Both support a wide variety of sensors and have good GCS options. Both of these companies would put together a custom system and support it for a fraction of the cost of a fully proprietary platform.
Although Ascending Technologies do have some excellent EMI hardened, dual redundant IMU platforms.
I have no problem paying someone to build me a RTF unit thats what i will probably do. I agree time is money. I guess my hangup was the price seperation of these units and the only thing I could see that might create this gap was the flight controller. I was wondering if the A2 or Pixhawk would be reliable enough to put into commercial use where crashes could be dangerous and costly.
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