Subj : New (for me) drone
To : All
From : Digital Man
Date : Fri Sep 01 2023 09:47 am
Last week, just before leaving fir an island vacation, my wife suggested I bring my drone (a DJI Phantom 3 I got as a Xmas gift from her in 2015) to take awesome airial videos of our adventure. That drone is pretty big and heavy and I hadn't flown it in years and (unbeknownst to me at the time) the battery pack was totally dead (won't charge due to bad battery maintenance). So I said I do it, but only if I could buy a new smaller DJI drone - she relented.
So I rushed over to Costco and purchased whatever DJI drone they had for sale: the DJI Mini 3 combo (comes with a 64GB SD Card and some ND filters) for $429. Without opening the box or setting it up or testing anything, I brought it with us and the second day of the vaca, I took it out and flew for the first time. Wow! It was so easy setup and fly and the photos and videos are incredible (both 1080/60 and 4K/30). It weighs less than 250g, which apparently is a magic number these days, so you don't have to register with the FAA or use the RemoteID broadcast/transponder thing. I took it up to 1000ft above sea level and flew over some neighboring islands a few thousand feet away until the video feed started to cut out - but that's way further than I could maintain FPV with my Phantom 3. And everything was just much more slick and quicker/easier to start flying each time. More fun!
As a result, I bought a couple new battery packs for the old Phantom 3, tested it out to make sure it was still working (like new), upgraded the firmware (what a pain in the ass that was) and gifted it to a family friend. I wasn't ever going to be flying that old tank again!
I did buy an extended battery pack (increases max flight time from 38 to 51 minutes), but that also takes you over the 249g weight so the drone starts broadcasting RemoteID (if you care).
I'm thinking of getting the DJI controller with the built-in FPV display (rather than attaching your phone), but other than that upgrade, it's hard to imagine it gets much better. But of course, DJI makes many more feature-full and expensive drones (which I'm sure are awesome), but I don't think they're under 250g. If I were to get another DJI right now, I might consider the DJI Mini 3 Pro (longer range, better collision avoidance, better video), but I'm very happy with the Mini 3.
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digital man (rob)
Breaking Bad quote #10:
Get a big old raging hard-on at the idea of catching this piece of shit! - Hank
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