Responding to another thread got me thinking...

Does anyone know if the antennas are removable be it in any way at all or are they moulded in place?
I am wondering if one could remove them from another pair of arms and connect them externally as a test, perhaps to the underside of the arms or body just to see if there is any difference

I would think the size and weight would not be good for extra stuff added to the drone...

jmb63 Posted at 2-12 06:24
I would think the size and weight would not be good for extra stuff added to the drone...

I highly doubt they weigh that much and certainly no more than the extra the Plus battery weighs... plus, its just a test.

Bashy Posted at 2-12 07:37
I highly doubt they weigh that much and certainly no more than the extra the Plus battery weighs... plus, its just a test.

The tiny antennas in the Mini 3 are in those arms and are very compact and the wiring for them is equally compact and precise.
Adding extra/bigger antennas to a drone (actually any "foldable" drone) would be extremely tedious and labor-intensive even to temporarily plug them in somehow and just strap them on for a test...probably a good thing if someone is bored outta their mind with time to kill?
Something like one of the Phantom models would be a better one to try such a thing and I am sure it has been done.
This is why any of the antenna (better range) mods are done on the controllers.

If you are no HF electronics and EMC crack you will most probably do more wrong than right. Microwaves are nothing to fiddle with as an amateur.

All I want to do is put the exact same antennas on a different place, that's what I said in the 1st post

jmb63 Posted at 2-12 11:00
The tiny antennas in the Mini 3 are in those arms and are very compact and the wiring for them is equally compact and precise.
Adding extra/bigger antennas to a drone (actually any "foldable" drone) would be extremely tedious and labor-intensive even to temporarily plug them in somehow and just strap them on for a test...probably a good thing if someone is bored outta their mind with time to kill?
Something like one of the Phantom models would be a better one to try such a thing and I am sure it has been done.

I would totally agree. Why people think they can do better than DJI amazes me

Bashy Posted at 2-12 12:13
All I want to do is put the exact same antennas on a different place, that's what I said in the 1st post

nice idea Bashy,  see if you can find/buy for little money a crash drone first   to do a pre-make-it-better operation...

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 2-12 12:26
nice idea Bashy,  see if you can find/buy for little money a crash drone first   to do a pre-make-it-better operation...

cheers

That won’t happen

JJB* Posted at 2-12 12:26
nice idea Bashy,  see if you can find/buy for little money a crash drone first   to do a pre-make-it-better operation...

cheers

Thanks, contrary to what some assume, I think DJI dropped the ball on this one else why would the signal improve when you either stop, go very slow or go backwards when you're on the edge of losing the signal when it's flying forwards? That right there tells us that something with regard to the antenna placement is causing premature signal loss.

One wee thing I forgot when I had the idea and wrote the post, I said pair of arms, I was actually only referring to the fronts when in actual fact I would need a full set.

A crashed one would be good as long as the arms are still attached at least by their wiring, failing that i would prob need to buy them new off of Ali, ouch, the cheapest is £40 just for one arm.

jmb63 Posted at 2-12 11:00
The tiny antennas in the Mini 3 are in those arms and are very compact and the wiring for them is equally compact and precise.
Adding extra/bigger antennas to a drone (actually any "foldable" drone) would be extremely tedious and labor-intensive even to temporarily plug them in somehow and just strap them on for a test...probably a good thing if someone is bored outta their mind with time to kill?
Something like one of the Phantom models would be a better one to try such a thing and I am sure it has been done.

I am only thinking on the Mini 3 Pro because this has an issue on the edge of signal loss, playing with a Phantom would not provide any results on the issue at hand.

I do not want to add extra antennas, only moving the original ones is my line of thinking.

Whilst yes, the wires on at least 2 of the antennas will be too short, it may well be 3 of them too short leads me to 2 further questions, i will pose in a separate reply...

SeehawerB Posted at 2-12 11:26
If you are no HF electronics and EMC crack you will most probably do more wrong than right. Microwaves are nothing to fiddle with as an amateur.

One does not need to know rocket science just to move the original antennas to a different location...

As i initially forgot that there are 4 antennas, this poses 2 more questions

1. are all 4 antennas the exact same, just the wire lengths different?
2. do the wire lengths play any part in the antenna tuning or just merely there to connect the antennas?

I am hoping the answer is that they are all the same and wire length has no bearing on tuning, that way one could use the antenna with the longest wire for all 4 arms

The Mini 3 PRO have 4 anntennas and for me its work fine in range test, i dont think we need more than what we have right now , if you have a range issue just verific the enviroment if you have interference , my Mini 3 Pro have a range 2+km with no issues and i live in high medium interference area , mi Mini SE flight almost 1.4km in the same rute area with Yagis so i think this is more than what i need.

AlexPR Posted at 2-12 20:02
The Mini 3 PRO have 4 anntennas and for me its work fine in range test, i dont think we need more than what we have right now , if you have a range issue just verific the enviroment if you have interference , my Mini 3 Pro have a range 2+km with no issues and i live in high medium interference area , mi Mini SE flight almost 1.4km in the same rute area with Yagis so i think this is more than what i need.

I dont have any range issues having done 5.5km in CE, its primarily an experiment to see if moving the antennas saves one having to fly backwards to get the last few hundred meters out of it.

BTW you shouldn't have any either, youre in FCC lol

Im sure the antenna on the Pro were moved to be inside the feet.  Edit watching the teardown thats doesnt appear to be true

Bashy Posted at 2-12 16:22
Thanks, contrary to what some assume, I think DJI dropped the ball on this one else why would the signal improve when you either stop, go very slow or go backwards when you're on the edge of losing the signal when it's flying forwards? That right there tells us that something with regard to the antenna placement is causing premature signal loss.

One wee thing I forgot when I had the idea and wrote the post, I said pair of arms, I was actually only referring to the fronts when in actual fact I would need a full set.

Ofcourse postion of the antennas in a drone had a direct link to signal reception.

Same for  MINI2, fly a slow 180 turn (flying away from your to flying towards you at 1000mtr)
When drone antennas are in the direction  line RC>drone, bad reception.

Guess 'we' need an omni directional antenna as a top ball on the drone  ;-)  and one as a bottem ball...

DAFlys Posted at 2-13 00:51
Im sure the antenna on the Pro were moved to be inside the feet.  Edit watching the teardown thats doesnt appear to be true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQm6eOigiNw

Allegedly they were moved to the feet in the Mini 3, not seen a tear down of that yet, prob in the feet because there's only 2 as its only OC2?

JJB* Posted at 2-13 02:32
Ofcourse postion of the antennas in a drone had a direct link to signal reception.

Same for  MINI2, fly a slow 180 turn (flying away from your to flying towards you at 1000mtr)

Im not sure that would work, i think the RC would need to be omni, that way then it will not matter so much where the drone is, if it was the drone that was omni then you would still need to be directional with the RC. Make sense?

There is deffo sommat impeding the signal when facing forwards, if we could figure out what then we could sort it out, i think its because when the drone is tilted going forwards, its pointing the antennas up to the ISS, going backwards its pointing them down to the ground, thats my thoughts on it...

Bashy Posted at 2-13 04:18
Allegedly they were moved to the feet in the Mini 3, not seen a tear down of that yet, prob in the feet because there's only 2 as its only OC2?

In the tear down it looks like they are in the arms on the M3P there's an extra cable you can see thats pale in colour.

DAFlys Posted at 2-13 05:46
In the tear down it looks like they are in the arms on the M3P there's an extra cable you can see thats pale in colour.

Yeah that's right as then i was referring to the Mini 3, not the Pro, it's got a wee connector that's generally used for antennas, your laptop wifi card has the same connectors too well, not sure about apple stuff, but certainly real laptops :p

Would love to see a tear down of the Mini 3 just to see if they are in the feet or still in the arms, but we do know there should only be 2

You can also see the wee connector for the leds too.

Hi. Did anyone disassembly arms or have video's of it? My Mini 3 Pro was bitten by a neighbour's dog.. the most damaged are case covering top sensors and two rear motors, they are distorted and dont spin. I bought a not working drone propably found by some random guy, and want to take a parts from it. The thing I would love to avoid is disassembling my drone, because to change motors I need to change whole arms, what means that ESC board is waiting for me.
For now I unglued this sticker under rear motor, removed 3 screws and pulled the motor. I see few centimeters of wire, and theoretically now I can cut it and solder wires of the new one, but I dont know what is happening with antenna right now. Pulling this wire wasn't easy, I felt resistance. I know there are only 3 wires from the motor, antenna begins somewhere deeper in the arm, I dont know I haven't destroyed it etc.
Just need to know how it looks inside.

djiuser_M6SntrqHer3l Posted at 3-6 23:09
Hi. Did anyone disassembly arms or have video's of it? My Mini 3 Pro was bitten by a neighbour's dog.. the most damaged are case covering top sensors and two rear motors, they are distorted and dont spin. I bought a not working drone propably found by some random guy, and want to take a parts from it. The thing I would love to avoid is disassembling my drone, because to change motors I need to change whole arms, what means that ESC board is waiting for me.
For now I unglued this sticker under rear motor, removed 3 screws and pulled the motor. I see few centimeters of wire, and theoretically now I can cut it and solder wires of the new one, but I dont know what is happening with antenna right now. Pulling this wire wasn't easy, I felt resistance. I know there are only 3 wires from the motor, antenna begins somewhere deeper in the arm, I dont know I haven't destroyed it etc.
Just need to know how it looks inside.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out and we're deeply sorry to know what happened to your unit. In this case, you may consider sending in the unit for proper diagnostics instead of doing DIY repair as we cannot guarantee that the unit will return to its normal function. If you decided to send it in, you may contact our team at https://www.dji.com/support to start a ticket case. We appreciate your understanding and support.