Hi folks.

I've got an Inspire V1.  I bought it pretty soon after it was originally released, it's probably around 20 months old.  The X3 camera is a good little cam, but I tend to not use it as much as the X5 camera on my Inspire Pro these days.  However, it does well as a backup.  I did look at selling the Inspire with the X3 camera a while back, and a couple of low offers (£800!) which I decided that I would rather keep it at that price.

So, I'm looking at the possibility of converting the V1 inspire 1 to a V2, so that I can mount the X5 camera on it.  Can anyone tell me if there is a guide to doing this?  I understand that the vibration isolation plate requires changing to the newer, larger one.  Are there any other components required to convert over?  I've also been told that the motors differ slightly?  I can see they look a bit different, but is that going to be a major issue?

I should add, that I mainly use the aircraft for surveying, and stills, and not so much video (and if I do, it's rarely high speed tracking video) so having masses of power is not such an issue really.

The other modification I'm looking at doing, is adding a nose mounted FPV camera, that can link down to a seperate monitor for the pilot.  Do people normally use a seperate battery to power this on the Inspire, or is there an easy place to pick up a power feed from under the "nose" cone plastic part?

Cheers
Andy

Aside from the X5 vibration absorbing plate the only thing needed is the landing gear risers. Personally, I don't like the double stick tape method of mounting them. See: http://forum.dji.com/thread-51280-1-1.html
I did this 7 months ago and have had zero problems.

There is no suitable way to tap into the power of the bird that I am aware of. I saw another thread where someone asked about 12V and DJI Jamie chimed in. http://forum.dji.com/thread-76240-1-1.html

I joke my inspire 1 is now V1.7 and I have converted a lot of items, The differences are... 1) props and prop mounts. Only difference is a more secure way to lock the props in place. 2) Vibration absorption board. Handles the extra weight of the X5 3) riser land gear feet. Adds extra room under to craft for the X5 when on the ground and 4) Larger motors with only slightly more power. To change the motors also requires new electronic speed controllers (ESCs) Yes, you can change them out but 4 motors and 4 ESCs are pretty expensive.

So, in my humble opinion, you can upgrade everything except the motors and ESCs for cheap and have yourself an Inspire 1 V1.7. If you are mainly doing stills, the little added power of v2.0 isn't really necessary.

For the FPV, there are a few aftermarket kits that pop into the nose of the aircraft and place a transmitter behind the battery pack. With the drone racing hobby taking off, there are a lot of options for FPV. The easiest is to find a system that uses a tiny 1 cell LiPo battery. That way you don't need to start soldering into you Inspire.

Aeromirage and Cat brought up a lot of great points. Like Cat and Otter, I've flown an Inspire V1 with just the basic X5 Vibration Absoption Board and riser upgrades and that has been plenty to fly the X5 without an issue.

I did everything you're talking about with my Inspire 1 V1.0 and had the ESCs and motors upgraded (by DJI)... I didn't get the X5 in the end, though. The mounting plate is better whichever camera you're using and the new prop locks are worth it but I honestly can't see the point in getting the new ESCs and motors, it made no difference and I have seen a comparison of the X5 with the 3510H motors and 3510 motors (my friend originally got an early Pro that came with 3510 motors not 3510H) and... The results were visually identical, no easy way to tell the difference. Unfortunately for me, I saw that comparison after I'd done the, "upgrade".

So, given how expensive and hard it is to get the upgrade done (doing it yourself isn't too hard but you're out of warranty if anything goes wrong), given the fact it makes no noticeable difference anyway (perhaps at the edge of reasonable wind conditions combined with fast adjustments for whatever reason...) and you certainly wouldn't see the difference in the film... I'd say upgrade the other parts but leave out the motors and ESCs, as Cat and Otter says.

Cheers guys.  So the minimum required parts are the gimbal mounting plate, and landing gear risers.

I've not had any issues with the V1 issue props that mount like what the Phantom props do.  I do check their security as part of the preflight checks though, and if they feel loose, they get replaced.

Running a separate power supply for the FPV nose shouldn't be an issue.  I wanted to add a couple of LED strobes too, so it makes sense to power that from the same source.

Andy

Andy LIS Posted at 2016-12-16 16:28
Cheers guys.  So the minimum required parts are the gimbal mounting plate, and landing gear risers.

I've not had any issues with the V1 issue props that mount like what the Phantom props do.  I do check their security as part of the preflight checks though, and if they feel loose, they get replaced.

I've seen a few threads where they added lights to the Inspire, you can probably look around and find some non invasive ways to get what you want.

Hi,  KlauGeomatics has announced a new PPK GPS technology for accurate aerial surveying using DJI drones without placing ground targets. See https://www.veritypositioning.com/ for more details.

I have just done the upgrade for the motors and ESC. I have an Inspire 1 v1 and later on I have changed the vibration board in order to attach X5 camera. After flying that configuration for couple months, i have found that Inspire One is a bit wobbly with X5 camera. X5 camera is way heavier than X3. So when you want to change direction, you will find that the copter is not or hesitant to take the camera with it. If there is a sudden burst of wind, you can see Inspire One seems to loss balance momentarily. Now with the upgrade with the motors and ESC, the whole thing is much more sure footed. I flew the last 2 days with strong wind, and believe me, you have a better grip of the flight and especially maneuvering in the wind. So if you can afford, upgrading the  motors is essential. Now, riseabove.com.au has the prices reduced by more than 50%,  good for someone who consider the upgrade.