The campaign is off to a good start on Kickstarter. I totally need one of these. APM-powered and appears well designed. Backed!
The Splash Drone is a fully waterproof quad copter, packed with useful features and capable of landing and floating on water. This drone is designed for the outdoor type who uses a GoPro camera to capture their adventure on water or land.
The Splash Drone comes in two flavors, traditional remote control or app based control to unlock its autonomous features.
Standard Remote Control Version: Allows you to fly in GPS assisted mode, attitude mode, or hover over one position to capture your action. It also has return to launch location and automatically lands at the flip of a switch.
App based Control: Your Android device allows you to use the Splash Drone's autonomous features with an app that lets your fly a mission on a set path of activate the Follow Me mode.
The Splash Drone's payload release mechanism is a blast! Drop water balloons or a bottle of water to your thirsty friends across the lake. It comes equipped with an emergency flare carrying system that can be used in real life situations.
I have been working on drones since 2007, way before most people knew what they were. Back then I was a video producer at a TV station, but my obsession with drones lead me to a career change. Along the way I've met some incredible people. After forming a team of like-minded drone geeks, we've successfully made and brought to market our own On Screen Display (OSD), a Long Range System (LRS) and other drone accessories.
We always knew that we wanted to make a waterproof drone, but it needed to be practical and easy to fly for first time users. So with our combination of experience in both manufacturing and drone design, we started working on a concept. After tons of feedback and several iterations, the Splash Drone was born. Above all, the most difficult challenge was developing the waterproof gimbal. We started with a clear dome, but quickly realized that we needed a gimbal that could touch the water, uncovered.
After many iterations, tests and sleepless nights, we have completed the tooling, injection mold and design of all the major components.
The Splash Drone is designed for filming your aquatic adventures, without the fear of loosing your drone.
- Fully integrated design
- Internal 5.8ghz 600mw video transmitter
- Self Tightening Carbon Fiber Props
- Payload Release Mechanism
- Emergency Flare Carrying System
- Autonomous Flight Controller
- Waterproof Gimbal
We have done the necessary work to make the Splash Drone reliable, easy and fun to film with. We have completed the injection mold, identified manufacturers that can supply the necessary part and built several prototypes that meet our quality standards.
At this point, all we need is your pledge to start manufacturing the Splash Drone. When we meet our goal, we will be able to make it available to everyone.
Comments
I have Mariner from January 2015. I have installed initially Pixhawk with 2x4200mAh batteries, now upgraded to 2X5200mAh batteries. It flies very well, even with NEO8 installed inside.
Currently using with Tarot/GoPro for "dry" shoots and with Go Pro case for simple water shoots.
Wanted to buyome s spares and waterproof gimbal from "And Multicopters" shop, were I bought initially the Mariner, they got the money but no any response for two months now....
Does anybody knows the exact guys to talk/buy ?
Hey everybody, I work with Urban Drones and I just wanted to give you all a quick update. Our CEO Alex is in China overseeing the production process and all seems to be going well so far. We have over a hundred units already made and it looks like we are going to meet our June shipping date.
Hi Kristian -
We changed the 40 amps ESCs to have faster refresh rate for more stable flight. We also changes the motors to be better quality and more efficient. They're 680kv now. The frame has a watertight hatch now to allow for the video signal and gimbal wires to go in the frame.
Hope this answered your questions.
Thank you Kristian!
Hi, thank you for the quick answer.
I'll use my own flight controllers, so my question was about the case, motors and ESC. Are they the same, and if not, what's the difference?
Regards,
Kristian
Thank you Robert for the feedback. If you have any more feedback, we're all ears. Your feedback is what makes the copter better.
Just watched your gimbal test on kickstarter updates section. Great to see your progress. I would highly reccomend using a basecam/alexmos 32bit controller rather than the one your are using now. you should get much much better performance, especially if your run autotuning on it. Hope that helps. and looking forward to seeing your 3 axis tests!
Hi Kristian -
We added several changes to the new frame. The new version also has different internal components and flight controller. We also added a payload release mechanism, and a waterproof camera gimbal. We took all the feedback from the mariner and made a much better version, which is called the Splash Drone. The mariner is discontinued.
Hi,
Is the frame the same that is sold on fpvfactory?
http://fpvfactory.com/component/jshopping/product/view/1/134.html?I...
I managed to put together a very similar copter about a year ago with waterproof gimbal. It works great but it's certainly not as slick as your project. It's great to see someone put it together properly and offer it to others. I posted a build log here but I closed my account once and it got lost.
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