drones

ryanshoots wrote in post #17038665
Interesting stuff. In the power lineman scenario I can't imagine drones having enough payload capacity to do what a human in a bucket can.

I grew up out on the prairie where a steady 15 - 20 mph wind was common, can drones used for photography operate in conditions like that?

They're a set of bots really. Some for lifting/hauling cable, and then other 'pole toppers' that climb and clamp to the pole itself.

Drone aircraft can come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and capabilities. One project that I've had a passing involvement in included a 'flock' of small basketball sized drones that fly upwind of the main drone and basically map the air currents to feed data back and allow for correction in 90km/h gust conditions so a platform can remain stable relative to the ground.

Another neat project I talked with a developer on was what was essentially a super sized paper air plane with a more refined version of the largest model rocket engines you can buy, all strapped together with some basic electronics and sensors. They were designed to be fired into tornadoes... (And therefore designed to be as cheap and safely disposable as possible...)

ryanshoots wrote in post #17038665
I grew up out on the prairie where a steady 15 - 20 mph wind was common, can drones used for photography operate in conditions like that?

It's all vector math. When there is no wind the flight path is whatever direction you point the device. When there is wind the craft is moving in the direction you point it + the direction the air is moving. If the craft is pointed in a direction opposite the direction of the air movement but has a lower forward speed than the air then the craft will move backwards.

J Michael wrote in post #17039225
It's all vector math. ......

While your statement is technically correct there's more to it than that. Wind near ground level interacts with trees, buildings, hills, etc. and therefore can be very gusty and unpredictable (in other words the vectors are constantly changing). Landing a light plane in gusty crosswinds can be very interesting, a drone would be affected even more because if it's light weight.

I flew mine in strong winds and so long as it had GPS lock, it was quite stable.

What wasn't so stable is the overpriced gimbal's ability to raise and lower the camera. That was not very steady or smooth.

In real life, you normally get stability by suspending a weight making the inertia dampen movements. And by adding rotating weights to get gyroscopic stabilisation.

But a light quad doesn't like heavy weights, which creates lots of issues. It isn't so easy to create a high-speed control loop operating a number of very quick motors and make it optically stable. Even with a wide-angle lens, our eyes are quite good at spotting small rotations. And also spot small movements if being close enough to some reference object.

And it gets even harder if you want to record sound.

MDJAK wrote in post #17039342
I flew mine in strong winds and so long as it had GPS lock, it was quite stable.

What wasn't so stable is the overpriced gimbal's ability to raise and lower the camera. That was not very steady or smooth.

phantom was in a different catagory. most act like this. check the 34 second mark. Im about to do some testing with mine. ill put a video together with it soon.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=aVEDj667DOA#​t=34

groundloop wrote in post #17039302
... there's more to it than that.

There usually is.

a video i put together while testing some new batteries for flight times.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=jGOhUt0H3fw

Nice, except why on such a nice drone is the drone getting in the way of the camera so often? On my DJI Vision 2+, that happened very rarely where you'd see a small portion of the landing gear.

Also, do you have FPV? If so, does yours show the drone's distance from you and height?

And how long flight time are you getting? Which battery? Thank you.

MDJAK wrote in post #17043309
Nice, except why on such a nice drone is the drone getting in the way of the camera so often? On my DJI Vision 2+, that happened very rarely where you'd see a small portion of the landing gear.

Also, do you have FPV? If so, does yours show the drone's distance from you and height?

And how long flight time are you getting? Which battery? Thank you.

Many reasons for that-

1. the tilt on the gimbal was set a couple of degrees off. very easy fix, just not an issue with a video that is more checking quality of picture and frame rate. I have been testing go pro's in settings 4k, 1080 super wide, 1080 narrow, 1080 60fps, 1080 30fps. all have pros and cons. Also that last flight was checking 4 new sets of batteries and getting flight times.

2. phanton gimbal is directly below center. mine was but now is about 6 inches from center more forward. I might go 8. but you need offeset weight which isnt an issue. there are other cons also.

3. the phantom is notorious for catching skids and props more than any other. check utube videos and the multitude of kits made for phantom to cure this issue.

4. it was in 1080 60fps wide for that whole video. with the five different cameras made by go pro, only one has wide angle option. so a VERY high percentage of videos on utube are normal view. But even with using normal view you will still see phantom owners with that issue.

5. phantom owners couldnt shoot wide as normal gives them fits.

6. a lot of that video is at low altitude which means a higher degree pitch angle for camera, thus catching blades. also i was flying around 35mph. phantom max is 33 not recommended. 550's can get 55's stock. more speed, more pitch, more pitch more camera is facing ground. thus you need to tilt up.

7. fpv system is on order. iosd is needed for airspeed, altitude, range, direction, battery level. all sort of info.

8. if i fly her naked newest battery gave 14 min loaded, if naked would hit 20min. i fly at 8 mins to not run risk of killing batteries. use 5000 4s. and seperate battery for gimal and running l.e.d.s.

you might like the phantom vid, im nowhere near at the trust level to try this yet. https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=e4dCvwIjvo0