Thread: Defenders & Drones

And an electric bike with a 62 mile radius might be a nice addition too.

Ubco | The Utility Bike

Took a drone out through the middle of nowhere with my defender. Kept it safe strapped down in its case. Serious corrugations! But that's not how you will break it.

Mine tipped over on a sand dune at sunset. Motors stuffed with grit. Show over.

Take spares (motor, blades) and some compressed air!

Fun times ahead.

Oh and don't worry about batteries you just charge as you drive. Didn't bother with laptop, look at the vids when you get home and carry plenty sd

Originally Posted by manic

Took a drone out through the middle of nowhere with my defender. Kept it safe strapped down in its case. Serious corrugations! But that's not how you will break it.
Mine tipped over on a sand dune at sunset. Motors stuffed with grit. Show over.

Ah man I know about it. I was shooting an SES vehicle outside of Kalbarri near the Zuytdorp Cliffs when it suddenly dived down into the track. The bulldust got into everything - motors, camera joints etc.

Being an SES vehicle it had UHF radio and who knows what other emergency communication and signalling equipment. I now wonder whether the drone flew into a force field of radio interference and that's why it dived.

Appreciate the tips on what to bring. I think I agree.

I just packed mine into a case from Bunnings



It survived 6 weeks across the Simpson and the corrugations from Mt Dare through to the Colson track plus others.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QoHDtVBqFM[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAwh0PUzT0[/ame]


Martyn

My biggest fear is getting my quad stuck in a tree or some other inaccessible place. I've also learned that it is wiser to drop it to the ground and have something to repair than flying it off into the wild blue yonder whilst trying to figure out which way it is headed. I did that with a tricopter on my maiden flight. Hollywood must've heard about it - they made a movie "Gone in 60 seconds" - quickest 200 bucks I've ever lost

Don't a lot of the newer ones have gps inbuilt so that if they do go out of range they either return to original take off point or just descend? That is what I was told.

Originally Posted by Didge

My biggest fear is getting my quad stuck in a tree or some other inaccessible place. I've also learned that it is wiser to drop it to the ground and have something to repair than flying it off into the wild blue yonder whilst trying to figure out which way it is headed. I did that with a tricopter on my maiden flight. Hollywood must've heard about it - they made a movie "Gone in 60 seconds" - quickest 200 bucks I've ever lost

Originally Posted by CraigE

Don't a lot of the newer ones have gps inbuilt so that if they do go out of range they either return to original take off point or just descend? That is what I was told.

can be set to either.

Drones are great fun, and give you fantastic perspectives which to me are even better than a helicopter.

I have a two DJi Phantom 3s ( one thanks to the insurance when I lost my P2 in the sea) They have around 18-20 min flight time, and I've flown mine over 3.5km away with full signal and video feed to the iPad mini2 I use. The P3 are limited to 500m maximum height, but my P2 was not and I tested it up to 900m on a secluded beach before I chickened out. Spares wise all I have is spare propellers and extra batteries, nothing else can be fixed on a P3 by yourself, hence the need for a back-up drone.

They are also great when you get to place and want to camp - pretty easy to fly the drone up and around to see if there are any good camps sites on the other side of a river or just further up.

Main drawback to me is how noisy they are, whilst it is fun to fly around, it makes a racket, and attracts a fair bit of attention. In the Outback, we could hear it even when it was about 2km away.

My wife flies one as well, and she is getting better but it takes practise and at $2K is and expensive thing to crash.

On our last trip I flew the drone with my wife driving the Land Rover. I could just keep up with the car at 40kph, but that is about it's top speed. Got some great footage, but it is difficult and pretty risky flying backwards down a road at 40kph with trees either side

I have travelled quite a bit with mine, one in a DJI hardshell and the other in a Think Tank Airport Accelerator backpack. They both are quite well protected, but I do make sure they don't get much extra stuff loaded on top of them. I have one of the Bunning's hard-cases as well - they are pretty good and provide a lot of protection, but hard to carry up a mountain

If you shoot 4K video, you will need some ND filters, otherwise the shutter speed will be too high on the video, but if you shoot stills, then you want a high shutter speed, so you end up landing and putting filters on and off. You also need a lot of processing power to edit 4K video - way beyond a normal lap top.

I use one of the Bunnings hardcase for my GoPros and video cameras, and have a Lowepro waterproof back back for the still cameras and lenses.

I have a 2000w pure-sine inverter, and it charges 3 batteries at a time easily, it draws 30A for an hour, so best done when the engine is running. I have two solar panels, which under best conditions put out 11amps, ( 110W + 85W) so I need five hours of sunshine just to charge the 5 batteries, but there is also the fridge, Nespresso, two computers, two iPads, camera batteries and lights to run and charge up as well, so will have a lot more solar power on my Unimog ( 4x85W +250W) it is surprising how much power you use, way more than I initially expected.

Here are a few photos from a recent trip, I'm still editing the video

DJI_0186.jpg

DJI_0246.jpg

DJI_0325.jpg

DJI_0365.jpg

DJI_0218.jpg