Beard
lvl.1
Flight distance : 28871 ft
United States
Offline
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All very good responses. Impressive! A little background first...my department was tasked with utilizing absorption spectroscopy and "drone" technology to detect fugitive methane emissions at company processing facilities and pipelines. We do use it for some simplistic photogrammetry missions. After researching for 4 months I finally selected the M600 as the platform to carry the spectrometer and associated components due to its payload capacity, endurance, and price. We have had the system in operation for 3 months and it is no doubt an impressive machine but the following is summary of the items that should be improved before I will buy another one. I will definitely overpay for a Microdrone, Steadidrone, or other, for our next platform(s) if these things are not addressed. Some of these items overlap with what has been mentioned above while others may not involve the M600 but rather the mobile software. This platform is okay at best but has the potential to be the best.
1) Bugs, Bugs, Bugs-Good grief! I cannot quantify how many times we have had software issues, premature maintenance warnings, connectivity issues, firmware issues, etc. So many that I gave up speaking to Support and now just find "work-arounds". This system needs to be reliable and capable of being placed into operation quickly everyday. This is after all marketed as a "Pro" or commercial system.
2) Carrying Case- This is a bulky machine so I'm not going to make the recommendation to decrease the size of the case as that is impossible. However, the fit needs to be improved. We feel like we are damaging something on the system every time we take it in and out.
3) Data Port and Cable-Provide a longer cable upon purchase and relocate the port to somewhere more accessible.
4) Software-This is a biggie. DJI Go is fine for what it is intended do. DJI really should consider dedicating an exponentially larger amount of resources into GS Pro. They have the potential to corner the market and are not seizing this opportunity. A) GS Pro should be focused on autonomous flight primarily, photogrammetry secondarily, with the two integrated seamlessly B) I advise integrating the use of a digital elevation model or allowing the user to import one so that the aircraft can autonomously follow a flight path that can stay at the same altitude AGL not altitude above home point. Currently this is not possible in GS Pro. We have manipulated it by precalculating altitudes but obviously a negative altitude is not possible nor is anything above 500 m....from home point. We work in mountainous terrain and this is currently not a good solution. Also, GS Pro should be associated with your DJI account and/or allow for transfer of preplanned missions to other mobile devices/an account/exported and imported. It stinks to spend hours meticulously planning flight plans and not be able to ensure that it will always be stored and available for future missions. GS Pro should allow for the import of flight plans created in other softwares in shapefile or KML file formats. Third party alternatives to GS Pro provide minor advantages but they suffer from the some of, or all, the same limitations.
5) Customer Service-The primary issues we have with DJI customer service is expertise and language barriers. I find that 9 times out of 10 this forum understands the M600x systems a multitude times better than the people that have to deal with the issues over the phone or through email.
6) Yes, I agree with above. ADS-B Out and In (or another sense and avoid technology), will likely become very important in the coming years especially if one requires FAA 107 waivers to airspace and or BVLOS.
We have a fixed-wing system for photogrammetry and this company has zero issues associated with 1-5 and are heavily involved in R&D for item 6. It is beyond me that a company of DJI's stature is so behind the game. DJI-don't settle for complacency because it you can be passed in the blink of an eye. There are several companies that out there targeting these weaknesses and will corner the commercial market. If you, however, are happy with just catering to the recreational market then you are headed down the correct path. |
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