Probably A Dumb Question.... Butttt

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So, I'm a long time civil aviation careerist, and with sUAS the newest officially annointed sector of the global civil aviation industry, I wanna get me some.

I used to periodically get duped into buying one of the really REALLY early versions of quadcopters and coaxial rotor tiny helicopters. Remember, they would last about 20 minutes, which was an exercise in demonstrating what dynamic cascading instability looks like in real life. At the 20 minute point, it usually crashed for the final time.

So, I have and regularly fly a refurbished, slightly misaligned Parrot Bebop 2 which I recieved as a Christmas gift a couple years ago. Based on my experiences with the early unstable quadcopters, the thing literally blows my mind every time I fly it. I'm amazed at how far they've come, and I want more.

Other then the folks at Parrot letting some random 4 year old girl come up with the model designation, the Bebop 2 offers most of what I could want....... Right up to the point where I started watching me some YouTube!

So I've been working in all corners of civil aviation for the larger part of 3 decades, so having the FAA issue me a Remote Pilot Certificate is fairly simple. I also have a couple of small businesses, none involved in aviation, so it looks like I might have an opportunity! Especially when I consider that one of the other businesses is tied directly into the residential real estate broker/ agent community.

Now, a Bebop 2 is great, but certainly not what one would try to build a commercial drone business upon. Given there will be a slight lag in time betwixt right now and when a commercial drone operation would be good to go, I decided to aquire an older version of the drone I will eventually purchase at the most current version. So, onto eBay I went, and dropped a little over $200 for a twice flown DJI Phantom 3 Standard with an inop battery. I've got a replacement being shipped as we speak, but intend on tearing into the inop one to solder a wire, or whatever.

Anyways, whilst I wait, I'm reading all the manuals, watching all the DJI videos, and watching even more reviews on YouTube. I have a question about a certain capability I'm interested in, if not with this one, then with a future drone.

Do these Phantom 3s have the ability to be configured with a slave display? The idea is related to some likely residential and commercial property prebuy roof inspection work. I've done a couple dry runs on my own property, and have found that because of the close proximity of the drone to the roof edge, the randomly shifting wind effect off the roof, and maybe my inexperience at this point, I'm not able to focus on the video feed enough to ensure I'm collecting the required video which can be used by the inspector. If I could slave the video feed to a separate tablet, I could have a video editor name sure we're not wasting our time. If there is a way to delegate the control authority for the gimbal control to this person, that would be even better.

Is there a way to do this with the 3 Standard? How about some of the more recent models now being produced?

Thanks!

BN
 
Um look into litchi which costs money it's for andriod only and free is litchi leash that allows a second device to view what the pilot is doing.

or get a brighter screen/bigger screen. Also what you see on your phone screen is deceiving because once you look at the footage via Computer its put into 2.7k which is 1440p
 
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Bigger screens are airways better, no doubt. I bought an Amazon Fire 7" tablet to act as my dedicated Bebop 2 flight screen. For whatever reason, and despite it offering a couple more capabilities on account of its cell data still free to work, I never liked the idea of having to use my phone as a necessary component.

Whatever I purchase when it's time to go big, I'm pretty certain if not an integrated streaming display, then one prose built like the DJI CrystalView, or whatever it's called.

I'm in no way a DJI brand loyalist, and actually think that the Yunnec line is really impressive. But regardless of what I think looks good, I keep always hearing that DJI takes the title of "Dominant Market Leader" very seriously. People are always talking about how DJI kit is usually a couple steps ahead of those following their lead, insofar as the software and capabilities are concerned.

I'm curious about another dilemma I've been pondering as of late. The community's inputs with respect to the decision for a budding commercial operator to go Mavic Pro 2 or Phantom 4 Pro+ 2.0? I'm literally going to copy and paste that, check THIS action out!
 
So, I'm a long time civil aviation careerist, and with sUAS the newest officially annointed sector of the global civil aviation industry, I wanna get me some.

I used to periodically get duped into buying one of the really REALLY early versions of quadcopters and coaxial rotor tiny helicopters. Remember, they would last about 20 minutes, which was an exercise in demonstrating what dynamic cascading instability looks like in real life. At the 20 minute point, it usually crashed for the final time.

So, I have and regularly fly a refurbished, slightly misaligned Parrot Bebop 2 which I recieved as a Christmas gift a couple years ago. Based on my experiences with the early unstable quadcopters, the thing literally blows my mind every time I fly it. I'm amazed at how far they've come, and I want more.

Other then the folks at Parrot letting some random 4 year old girl come up with the model designation, the Bebop 2 offers most of what I could want....... Right up to the point where I started watching me some YouTube!

So I've been working in all corners of civil aviation for the larger part of 3 decades, so having the FAA issue me a Remote Pilot Certificate is fairly simple. I also have a couple of small businesses, none involved in aviation, so it looks like I might have an opportunity! Especially when I consider that one of the other businesses is tied directly into the residential real estate broker/ agent community.

Now, a Bebop 2 is great, but certainly not what one would try to build a commercial drone business upon. Given there will be a slight lag in time betwixt right now and when a commercial drone operation would be good to go, I decided to aquire an older version of the drone I will eventually purchase at the most current version. So, onto eBay I went, and dropped a little over $200 for a twice flown DJI Phantom 3 Standard with an inop battery. I've got a replacement being shipped as we speak, but intend on tearing into the inop one to solder a wire, or whatever.

Anyways, whilst I wait, I'm reading all the manuals, watching all the DJI videos, and watching even more reviews on YouTube. I have a question about a certain capability I'm interested in, if not with this one, then with a future drone.

Do these Phantom 3s have the ability to be configured with a slave display? The idea is related to some likely residential and commercial property prebuy roof inspection work. I've done a couple dry runs on my own property, and have found that because of the close proximity of the drone to the roof edge, the randomly shifting wind effect off the roof, and maybe my inexperience at this point, I'm not able to focus on the video feed enough to ensure I'm collecting the required video which can be used by the inspector. If I could slave the video feed to a separate tablet, I could have a video editor name sure we're not wasting our time. If there is a way to delegate the control authority for the gimbal control to this person, that would be even better.

Is there a way to do this with the 3 Standard? How about some of the more recent models now being produced?

Thanks!

BN
If you can get your hands on the NVIDIA K1 Shield, it has an HDMI output. I use it to connect goggles.
 
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I would get a different P3 model if you want to stay with that drone. It is much trickier than the advanced and Pro. Also has less range without modifications. Better yet would be the low priced P4's on the market. They have dropped considerably in price recently especially since the mavic mini was introduced.
 
Giving control of the camera/gimbal with a second RC and display to a second person is doable with an Inspire craft. However that's way too expensive ($6 to 10K) for your objective, I assume. But I seem to remember this capability exists with the Mavic series, which involves connecting two RCs to one craft, one being the master for craft control, and the other being a slave for viewing and controlling the camera pitch and yaw (up to 45 degrees right and left).

I know the Mavic Pro had dual controller support, but I think the Mavic 2 has it too. I don't have all the specifics on this, but if you'd like to explore and confirm this capability, I suggest you visit mavicpilots.com and post this question. I'm sure someone has done this before, if I'm correct, and the Mavic 2 has dual controller, master-slave support. The M2Z with 2X zoom lens would be the target drone I would suggest if you plan to do inspections. The optical zoom is very handy to get closer views without getting closer physically with the drone.

There's one issue with the Mavic2Z. When using the second display and camera control, the pilot has to pilot the craft visually, VLOS, not FPV, since the second controller has control of the camera. The cameraman can have the camera turned right, and the pilot can't see forward through the camera. So it's difficult to navigate FPV like normal. With the Inspire there are two cameras, a navigation camera for the pilot, and the capture camera for the cameraman. Using a Mavic 2, if the pilot flies the craft VLOS, this isn't a problem, as much.
 
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Giving control of the camera/gimbal with a second RC and display to a second person is doable with an Inspire craft. However that's way too expensive ($6 to 10K) for your objective, I assume. But I seem to remember this capability exists with the Mavic series, which involves connecting two RCs to one craft, one being the master for craft control, and the other being a slave for viewing and controlling the camera pitch and yaw (up to 45 degrees right and left).

I know the Mavic Pro had dual controller support, but I think the Mavic 2 has it too. I don't have all the specifics on this, but if you'd like to explore and confirm this capability, I suggest you visit mavicpilots.com and post this question. I'm sure someone has done this before, if I'm correct, and the Mavic 2 has dual controller, master-slave support. The M2Z with 2X zoom lens would be the target drone I would suggest if you plan to do inspections. The optical zoom is very handy to get closer views without getting closer physically with the drone.

There's one issue with the Mavic2Z. When using the second display and camera control, the pilot has to pilot the craft visually, LOS, not FPV, since the second controller has control of the camera. The cameraman can have the camera turned right, and the pilot can't see forward through the camera. So it's difficult to navigate FPV like normal. With the Inspire there are two cameras, a navigation camera for the pilot, and the capture camera for the cameraman. Using a Mavic 2, if the pilot flies the craft LOS, this isn't a problem, as much.
And I'm honored to announce to the long awaited announcement revealing the name of this year's highly sought after and globally recognized designation of "Author of the World's Most Relevant, Comprehensive, Actionable, & Unambiguous Response to a Question Asked Using an Internet-Based Forum" to.......

John Locke (with an 'e')!!!!
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[emoji185][emoji185][emoji185][emoji186][emoji186][emoji186][emoji186][emoji186][emoji185][emoji185][emoji185]

Dude, I like I should be expecting a bill in the mail for Consulting Services Rendered, for that prose you created! I'm no less appreciative of everyone else's willingness and efforts to help me out, but that response you through down with was some next level public service announcement-like "Any questions...?" knowing there wouldn't be, but still asking to further cement your place as the guy everyone knows should never be questioned.

Thanks for all that advice, I'm definitely smarter for it.
 
I would get a different P3 model if you want to stay with that drone. It is much trickier than the advanced and Pro. Also has less range without modifications. Better yet would be the low priced P4's on the market. They have dropped considerably in price recently especially since the mavic mini was introduced.
Thanks Capt KO, I appreciate that.

I was unaware that the different varients of the P3's went that deep. Is the significance of range capabilities where this proprietary DJI RF link system, I think it's called "Lightspeed" something, comes into play?

With the P3 Standard using the two wifi channels, do the other varients use that other system, and is the slaving 2nd screen feature a DJI factory capability baked into the system, or is it just easier because it's the proprietary Lightsaber link system so some 3rd party manufacturers designed an accessory add-on to do it?

For what it's worth, my decision to opt for this P3 varient, not to mention this model series of Phantom was driven in large part by cost, market availability, and with the understanding that it would play the role of training platform and later after I upgrade, as back-up to the more advanced primary model.

Thanks!
 
Yes, Lightbridge is more efficient than standard WiFi. The remotes on the other P3 models are similar or same as the more recent P4 models and are HDMI upgradable. More than worth a few more dollars over the P3S. Good luck and enjoy.
 
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If you can get your hands on the NVIDIA K1 Shield, it has an HDMI output. I use it to connect goggles.
Agreed, I love my Shield. But I think they dont make them anymore ir are hard to find.
 

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