Mavic Pro advice for beginners-Part III

The Mavic Pro is my first drone, and I’ve had it for about a month.  It’s been pretty easy for me to learn, as long as you take it easy, don’t get too ambitious too fast, and watch a few YouTube videos to get a feel for the various Intelligent Flight Modes. I actually started flying it indoors before even taking it outside, but make sure you have a good GPS lock if you do that, or it could drift into a wall or furniture!

You can join some forum like http://mavicpilots.com/ .

Second watch this video gives you a lot of good info on setting up the Mavic Pro.

Nice Video for learning how to do basic flight:

Never do what this guy does:

Moreover, I’ll give is that you need to decide whether you’ll purchase the ‘DJI-Care‘ insurance plan to cover damage or replacement of your drone during the first year, as soon as you get it (preferably at the time of purchase).  The plan costs $99, and while it looks like it would cover 2 complete drone replacements in the first year, that’s not entirely accurate.  If the amount of damage is bad enough to need a replacement drone, the first one will cost you around $80 more, and the 2nd one around $128 extra.  If you don’t get the insurance within 48 hours of activating the drone, it becomes nearly impossible to buy it later. It is technically possible, but DJI requires that you submit for approval an in-depth demonstration video where you must verify that nearly every single aspect and setting of your drone and controller are working perfectly, before they will sell you the insurance. It has to be done in a single take, with no cuts or editing, and you’d need a 2nd cameraman to document everything, as well as to have a detailed checklist of all of the things that need to be shown, and in what order.

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Any 90% satisfied Mavic Pro pilots?-Part II

The post is an update to the Part I.

# 110% satisfied with my Mavic Pro. Not a single issue that wasn’t supposed to exist anyway. Not perfect, but insanely fun and easy to deal with.

These compact drones with real-time video and GPS and 1000K ballpark are a godsend for us hobbyists used to a lot more trouble. Trouble we love but still in R/C it’s a lot more work and a lot less time flying. Now, work on these toys is fine and fun. But flying and filming is a lot more and what it’s about, that’s my point.

Take your time to learn, start slow and build knowledge and confidence. Be responsible. Many new pilots just rush things and then put the blame on the equipment. In R/C and hobby there’s no such thing as instant gratification. The learning curve is steep, long and expensive. DJI has cut a lot of that in our favour, but still every move right or wrong has a price.

# I absolutely love my Mavic Pro. I used the DJI Ground Station Pro App to take 90 pictures of a large area so I could create my own ‘google maps’ and it worked flawlessly. I used Photoshop to stitch together all the pictures. The video quality is superb. I would invest in the Polar Pro filters to get your shutter speed to double your frame rate for the best cinematic filming.

I also flew mine into a tree by accident. Sent it back to DJI for repairs and surprisingly cost me $103 and I didn’t have DJI Care. No other drone on the market even comes close to functionality and price.

# It’s been a great, capable little drone, and I’ve enjoyed learning about aerial photography. Flew it in wind, cold (within reason of course, cautiously) and found it performed at or exceeding expectation.

No jello in the video for a long time, no firmware updates have failed yet, and even when I lost signal flying it above power lines, it just flew right back within half a minute.
Steady as a rock within 30 feet of the ground, fast as all get out in Sport, and takes great photos as far as I’m concerned.

Grumpy that the plastic gimbal cover broke, but it’s $11 for another one, so… no big deal. Not going to affect my flying.

# 95%, with only one loss of RC issue to go against the many, many positives.

I think the experiences with Mavic Pro are pretty binary so there won’t be many ‘75%’s out there.

It’s like dating a supermodel… You’re on top of the world until it all goes sideways, and then you’re devastated.

# 90%+ satisfied… I had my Mavic Pro for 2 weeks and flown around 5/6 times in the same location at home.

Only issues I’ve encountered are loss of signal to the controller at 900-1000m so I’ve not yet managed any further than 1000m. Didn’t want to go further when I’m struggling to see where I’m flying from my phone.

Then during 1 flight it kept stopping due to invisible objects. The sun was behind clouds so not sure why it was happening.

Other than it’s been fine… just waiting for the weather to improve!!!

# My Mavic Pro is perfect so far …100%…  What blows me away, is that people expect the android app to work perfectly on every single android device available what 24,000 devices all with different versions of android, different versions of manufacture software and different hardware. If your device is not on the compatible list, it may not work correctly and its not a problem with the app. How don’t people understand that ?

How do you like you Mavic Pro? Please feel free to post below.

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Is it a bargain to get a Phantom 4 Pro battery for my Phantom 4?

Many friends expressed their interests since DJI launched Phantom 4 Pro. However, some were paying special attention to the battery of Phantom 4 Pro.

The capacity of Phantom 4 battery is 5350mA, the flight time of Phantom 4 is 28min; while the capacity of Phantom 4 Pro battery is 5870mAh, flight time of P4P is around 30min. So we used P4 battery on P4P and P4P battery on P4.

Theoretically, when Phantom 4 uses the battery of Phantom 4 Pro (with 520mAh more), it should be able to fly longer. Since P4 and P4P have different weights, the battery level does not follow linear change. Here is test result:

Test environment: outdoor, breeze

Test method: P Mode, with forward and downward vision, hover without recording or taking photos until it is forced to land with low battery.

As you can see:

P4 battery（theoretically 5350mAh） P4P battery（theoretically 5870mAh）

P4 26’’ 02’                          29’’24’

P4P 25’’42’                         27’’56’

If you are paying enough attention to picture above, you will find battery level and the number of charge/discharge cycle. As a battery goes through more cycles, its capacity will drop. The capacity could be little higher than official number. So for all Phantom 4 Pro batteries tested, we tried to keep the capacity difference smaller than 100mAh.

With similar wear rates, we found a Phantom 4 can fly around 30mins with a P4P battery, extending the flight time by 3 minutes; while a Phantom 4 Pro flies about 26mins with Phantom 4 battery inside.

Phantom 4 Pro battery costs $10 more, but extends Phantom 4’s flight time by more than 2 minutes. If you have got a Phantom 4 and want to stick with it, it’s quite a bargain to buy some P4P batteries.

If you plan to buy Phantom 4 (aircraft and one P4 battery) with $1099, you may want to add 2 more P4P batteries. Total cost is: $1099+$169*2=$1437 , making it much cheaper than P4P.

 

 

 

 

 

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Can an Inspire 2 fly stably when all vision sensor are covered?

The newly released Inspire 2 is equipped with many sensors, the front vision sensors, vision positioning system, infrared sensors, dual GPS and more. Advanced hardware combining with intelligent software empower the Inspire 2 to fly and hover stably.

We want to see how these sensors work with each other, do they work well independently?

Fly with the front vision sensors only

We first covered Inspire 2’s GPS modules, vision positioning system and the infrared sensors, only flew with the help of front vision sensors.

Then we began to take off. A small reminder for every pilot, only after the landing gears retract do the front vision sensors start to work, so never rush forward as soon as the aircraft takes off.

When the front vision sensors start to work normally, it will sense the surrounding environment by building a 3D map.

Test result:  The aircraft could hover stably using the front vision sensors only. But it failed to do so when it was too far away from obstacles (estimated 7 to 8 meters away from obstacles)

Fly with vision positioning system only

Next we covered the GPS, infrared sensors and front vision sensors, only flew with the vision positioning system.

The vision positioning system includes two cameras and two ultrasonic modules, the aircraft uses the photos captured by the two cameras to analyze the current position for precise hovering, while the ultrasonic modules are used to measure flight altitude, they help the aircraft hover stably by emitting and receiving ultrasonic.

Test result:  The Inspire 2 could hover stably only with the help of vision positioning system, but when the flight altitude is over 10 meters, the aircraft began to drift.

Fly with GPS modules only

Last we covered all vision sensors and only flew with the dual GPS modules.

When flying in open areas with good GPS signals, the Inspire 2 could positioned and hovered in place by using dual GPS modules only.

But we were not going to stop there, we wanted to see what would happen if we cover all sensors.

After all these tests, we can see the Inspire 2 can still position and hover in place when using front vision sensors, vision positioning system and GPS respectively. So we can draw a conclusion that all these sensors and modules are powerful on themselves, they work together to empower the Inspire 2 amazing flight performance. However, we DO NOT suggest everyone to fly the aircraft if any of the modules are damaged, safety is always the top priority.

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Will you buy DJI care for you Mavic Pro?

DJI Care is a service plan that provides you with peace of mind, covering damage to your DJI aircraft, gimbal or camera sustained during normal use.During DJI Care’s period of validity, if accidental damage occurs during normal use, repair fees and related costs will be covered by DJI.

So should you add refresh if you buy the Mavic Pro? It’s essential to read on before you make decision.

WHAT DJI CARE WILL COVER

Basically, the plan covers damage to the drone and it’s camera/gimbal, so in most cases you will never have to worry about crashing. Here are some examples of things that DJI Care will cover.

• If you’re out at the park and someone throws a baseball, knocking your Mavic Pro out of the sky, it’s covered.
• If you accidentally crash into the roof of your house while taking your first flight, it’s covered!
• Perhaps you’re just trying out the Follow Me mode and your Mavic Pro decides to follow you into a light poll (because it doesn’t have obstacle avoidance). Again, this isn’t a problem if you have DJI Care!
• Maybe you’re out on what seems like a perfectly normal day, but what you didn’t know is that there’s a massive amount of radio interference from a solar flare, causing your Mavic Pro to mistake a tree for a landing site. No problem.

WHAT DJI CARE WILL NOT COVER

Here are some of the most important things that DJI Care will not cover. There are a few other things that DJI doesn’t cover, but these are the things that we found to be the most important to know.

• Intentional accidents. One example would be, If you decided to shoot a video of yourself lighting your Mavic on fire to get lots of hits on Youtube.
• Any repair fees resulting from or following water damage. Sorry swimmers, surfers, and sailers. If your Mavic Pro falls into the lake, or lands in the swimming pool, you can’t get it repaired for free.
• Personal injury and/or property loss to the customer or any other people caused by the aircraft. In other words, if you hurt yourself, someone else or maybe even crash into a Ferrari , you’re still responsible for your actions.
• Lost or partially lost aircraft and accessories. If you plan on flying far away and loosing your Mavic Pro, you better be able to find the remains or it won’t be covered. Buying a GPS tracker could be a good idea for long range missions.
• Stolen, forgotten, or abandoned your Mavic.
• Damage caused by flight under unsuitable conditions.
• Stolen, forgotten, or abandoned aircraft.
• Repair fees for remote controller and modification accessories.
• Abrasions and shell damage that do not affect the performance of the Mavic Pro.
• Direct or indirect losses caused by force majeure.
• Repair requests for damage incurred outside the period of validity.
• Extra fees resulting from technical enhancements or performance improvements.
• Damage resulting from circuit restructuring not in accordance to manual recommendations, or the use of incompatible batteries and charger.
• Damage resulting from the use of third party accessories, batteries or software.

With DJI Care, you can fly with complete confidence. Click here to see DJI Care coverage plans…

 

 

 

 

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