New out for actual recovery in a crash

install video



testing video

Hmmm. How does it affect flight time and stability in wind?

Looks very interesting as I do a lot of low flying along a local river here in central Florida looking for gators in the weed beds. Only scary thing for me is if I had to land (for whatever reason) it would look like a tasty morsel floating in gator country

Weight does not seem to be a problem ( probably a little less battery time), it will definitely effect the performance & steadiness even with a light to moderate breeze, but still would be good on a calm day.

Still an innovative way for a water save!

Montfrooij Posted at 2017-10-16 12:01
Hmmm. How does it affect flight time and stability in wind?

I have been flying with them all summer and have not noticed much in the way of loss in flight time. Wind does not seem to effect it. I usually do not fly in high winds nor am i trying out for the leader board in distance. I made two version. one being a custom form fitting one that wrap around the drone. (cant land with that one on water) The other in the link is a  pontoon design. spent a lot of time coming up with something that will stay in tacked in a crash. I notice when testing it off the boat the Mavic legs bust off on impact. if you have the float balls on the legs they will not do much good. I do not think you can send just the legs back to DJI and get a new drone or recover your data. I have a lengthy thread on another popular mavic forum that detail's the whole project. Material cost add up on making them but a necessity if you want to have something that survises impact. if all goes well i plan on dropping these from 400ft into the water attached to the test mavic. goes well should make a good video and want to make sure they can survie a extrem drop

fans48d34f9f Posted at 2017-10-16 12:51
I have been flying with them all summer and have not noticed much in the way of loss in flight time. Wind does not seem to effect it. I usually do not fly in high winds nor am i trying out for the leader board in distance. I made two version. one being a custom form fitting one that wrap around the drone. (cant land with that one on water) The other in the link is a  pontoon design. spent a lot of time coming up with something that will stay in tacked in a crash. I notice when testing it off the boat the Mavic legs bust off on impact. if you have the float balls on the legs they will not do much good. I do not think you can send just the legs back to DJI and get a new drone or recover your data. I have a lengthy thread on another popular mavic forum that detail's the whole project.

"I notice when testing it off the boat the Mavic legs bust off on impact" is this testing it on a full impact free fall? Have you tested it with something like a Low Battery self initiated landing?
From your video it looks like you conquered that problem by strapping the floatation directly to the body?

QuadKid Posted at 2017-10-16 12:55
"I notice when testing it off the boat the Mavic legs bust off on impact" is this testing it on a full impact free fall? Have you tested it with something like a Low Battery self initiated landing?
From your video it looks like you conquered that problem by strapping the floatation directly to the body?

yes the main body strap is key. The other help. If all goes well i plan on dropping the test Mavic with floats from as high as i can. It was windy this weekend and was to difficult from the boat in the wind. hopefully this weekend i can

fans48d34f9f Posted at 2017-10-16 13:05
yes the main body strap is key. The other help. If all goes well i plan on dropping the test Mavic with floats from as high as i can. It was windy this weekend and was to difficult from the boat in the wind. hopefully this weekend i can

Good Luck with it, for me it is definitely worth taking a second look at it, think I would have to paint the pontoons black  or camo for my use

Lucky you, the mavic does not drop upside down.

Hmm, to be honest, and don't diss me, we don't suggest mounting any third-party accessories to the drone. It might avoid warranty if something unexpected happened. Please keep flying safely.

fans48d34f9f Posted at 2017-10-16 12:51
I have been flying with them all summer and have not noticed much in the way of loss in flight time. Wind does not seem to effect it. I usually do not fly in high winds nor am i trying out for the leader board in distance. I made two version. one being a custom form fitting one that wrap around the drone. (cant land with that one on water) The other in the link is a  pontoon design. spent a lot of time coming up with something that will stay in tacked in a crash. I notice when testing it off the boat the Mavic legs bust off on impact. if you have the float balls on the legs they will not do much good. I do not think you can send just the legs back to DJI and get a new drone or recover your data. I have a lengthy thread on another popular mavic forum that detail's the whole project. Material cost add up on making them but a necessity if you want to have something that survises impact. if all goes well i plan on dropping these from 400ft into the water attached to the test mavic. goes well should make a good video and want to make sure they can survie a extrem drop

Thanks for the reply

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-10-16 20:01
Hmm, to be honest, and don't diss me, we don't suggest mounting any third-party accessories to the drone. It might avoid warranty if something unexpected happened. Please keep flying safely.

If you ever lost a drone you would understand. i had a brand new P3A drop from the sky into the inter coastal. No pilot error on this one.  it took over 6 moths with you guys to determine it was a defective unit. Your company did take care of the situation and was great full  but had i had the drone it would have been a lot easier and possible quicker.

But yes agreed its fine line. if i can save it from sinking and not have to go through the return process great.  Flying over water you have zero chance. I have had it happen and have seen it before when the drone wants to auto land and you are over water!!! for me i had the landing protection on and the bottom sensors which i now know is a no no over water

Hmmmm you know what...I may even consider some of these for that oops moment..hey you never know.   

fans48d34f9f Posted at 2017-10-17 04:38
If you ever lost a drone you would understand. i had a brand new P3A drop from the sky into the inter coastal. No pilot error on this one.  it took over 6 moths with you guys to determine it was a defective unit. Your company did take care of the situation and was great full  but had i had the drone it would have been a lot easier and possible quicker.

But yes agreed its fine line. if i can save it from sinking and not have to go through the return process great.  Flying over water you have zero chance. I have had it happen and have seen it before when the drone wants to auto land and you are over water!!! for me i had the landing protection on and the bottom sensors which i now know is a no no over water

Sorry to hear about your loss. Had you got the proper solution in this case? And please kindly note that the downward sensor might not work very well when flying over water or transparent surface. Please fly with caution.

Used them on my houseboat trip this summer and saved my MP from drowning. Also T/O and landing was possible with the floats.

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-10-17 22:54
Sorry to hear about your loss. Had you got the proper solution in this case? And please kindly note that the downward sensor might not work very well when flying over water or transparent surface. Please fly with caution.

Yes you guys did eventually but that is in the past.

Also i have heard that if you turning off the landing protection will help with the drone not trying to land itself out on the water for no good reason. A few YouTube vid's out there on this one

lastly when you do a firmware update it resets all of this correct? in that you have to go back and turn it off again

fans48d34f9f Posted at 2017-10-18 08:26
Yes you guys did eventually but that is in the past.

Also i have heard that if you turning off the landing protection will help with the drone not trying to land itself out on the water for no good reason. A few YouTube vid's out there on this one

Firmware updating or refreshing might reset the settings, so once you changed some setting as your preference before, we recommend checking it after you did an update.

Have you tested this to make sure it is not interfering with the downward sensing, IE: Precision Landing? I can see that they are not blocked but the may be seen by the sensors.

Just read in an other post where even the smallest landing gear extensions are causing the Mavic to land when not commanded to.

https://forum.dji.com/thread-116890-1-1.html

QuadKid Posted at 2017-10-19 14:23
Have you tested this to make sure it is not interfering with the downward sensing, IE: Precision Landing? I can see that they are not blocked but the may be seen by the sensors.

Just read in an other post where even the smallest landing gear extensions are causing the Mavic to land when not commanded to.

I do not think so. I believe the cone angle is two degrees. But yes this is worth checking into. other than checking the height on the app to see if it changes with your actual movement is there a way of reading the flight log to see if they are working?

As a note though i have read and DJI has chimed in that you should not have the bottom senors on when flying over water. That would include turning off the landing assistance.

As indicated i can check but would like to know a definitive way of checking this.  
EDIT - i read the post in its entirity and will perform the check. I see this is a issue as well on line even without a attachment on the mavic. that is my biggest fear watch it sink its self on its own. Well other than when my P3a dropped like a brick into the ocean (mottor failure mostlikely)

confirmed with that landing gear. around the 3:30 mark. his solution was to turn off the assisted landing. I have had mine turned of. I never do a auto take off or landing i like to have control. as indicated i will check and share but the pontoons do not have the high colar around the rear cameria like the landing gear that had the issue. in general it is best to have things idoit proof so we cant make a mistake and lose out stuff

Isn't a splash in salt water going to kill the drone anyway from corrosion, are these just for AC retrieval for DJI refresh purposes

lannes Posted at 2017-10-20 09:01
Isn't a splash in salt water going to kill the drone anyway from corrosion, are these just for AC retrieval for DJI refresh purposes

Any salt water infusion in any electrical component spells death to the Mavic, freshwater on the other hand you got a pretty good chance of drying it up if you can get to it quick enough. It has been demonstrated in many you tube videos.

testing landing on clam water and shuting down.



Also check the bottom camerias on DJI assistant II. i did not see any sign of them in the cameria view

for some reason the same picture posted twice

Does it cover up the battery indicator?

Boston_H Posted at 2017-11-6 10:58
Does it cover up the battery indicator?

yes the third and forth but with the white velcro strap you can see the light shine through it. i ussually look at the app for the battery percent but yes you can still see the LED lights