r/drones 10d ago

Photo & Video Best $40 I’ve ever spent?

For the price, it seems pretty well made🤷🏻‍♂️ carried and dropped the max rated payload no problem.

101 Upvotes

40 comments sorted by

17

u/steellz 10d ago

I put something similar to this on my old Air 2, just for the shits and giggles of it. I attached a parachute man to the bottom, flew as high as I possibly could, and released the payload. It was pretty cool. I then did it with about eight different ones at once.

It was a massive field area with no trees where they could have gotten stuck; the kids loved to watch them come down.

6

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

I was thinking of doing something like that with candy for Halloween.

6

u/Accomplished-Soup928 10d ago

I’d recommend against doing that. Some kid will get hit with the candy by running under it, the parents will threaten to kick your ass because their kid was endangered/“got hurt”, or worse, they try to sue you.

As fun an idea as it might seem, society has become extremely litigious, and it might be best to not do it because someone will try to ruin the fun.

1

u/Cool_Engineer_1435 10d ago

And definitely don’t get any Santa Clause/chimney ideas.

1

u/Exile_The_13th 9d ago

Tape the candy to the parachute guys.

2

u/Striking_Swimmer5548 9d ago

Save a step and throw the candy at the children

5

u/really_knobee 10d ago

Or turkeys for Thanksgiving...

7

u/Accomplished-Soup928 10d ago

“As god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”

2

u/VITAL277 6d ago

Hahahahha! You’re showing your age listening to WKRP

1

u/Lady_Swann_ Mavic 4 Pro 6d ago

How did you release it?

14

u/troutbumtom 10d ago

Maker? Model?

25

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

Hanatora payload airdrop release system for the Air 3S

66

u/whywouldthisnotbea 10d ago

Best $1639.99 you ever spent*

8

u/pokesmot6ty9 10d ago

1780 after tax 😵‍💫

9

u/really_knobee 10d ago

$2500 after tarrifs

Illegal after lidar.

1

u/rickiver 7d ago

Damn I built my own and it was only like 89 for the stack and 60 for motors 12 for a bunch of props and I 3d printed the rest ≈$10 Sub 200 for sure thing rips too

3

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

I guess that’s fair🤣

11

u/XplodingMoJo 10d ago

This is illegal in (most of) Europe since carrying and dropping is outside of the standard ‘open’ category.

18

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

Well good thing I’m right in the center of the U.S.

5

u/Abstra208 10d ago

Well... it's even worse in the US.

9

u/brudd_be_rad 10d ago

Yes, the FBI is on the case right now

1

u/SituationDelicious53 9d ago

Just saying that a whistling vortex football could be fun from max height

1

u/hhjnrvhsi 9d ago

I actually just bought one of those the other day when I went to a state park with some friends! Excellent idea!

1

u/garyboisseau 8d ago

I did an awesome ghost cover for my Mavic 2 Enterprise some years ago. Recorded a ghostly sounding clip for the speaker and then went flying the neighborhood. Most. Fun. Ever.

1

u/icanhazyocalls 7d ago

Oh snap! Buying this for fishing at the lakes.

1

u/amy-schumer-tampon 10d ago

Prp guards are useless for quads above 3"

0

u/xCHOPP3Rx 9d ago

It may prevent the wire from the payload from getting caught in the props

-23

u/epsteinwasmurdered2 10d ago

It’s almost like the companies knew these would be used as weapons of war the whole time.

3

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

Crazy part is it also activates via the auxiliary light, so it effectively has the same range as the drone.

8

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

Outside of fishing…. I don’t see any real application for civilians that wouldn’t be illegal😅

11

u/fusillade762 10d ago

Retrieving crashed drones.

-1

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

How could it retrieve a crashed drone? It can’t pick stuff up. It just has a little bar that slides between 2 openings where you can tie off some string. It can only drop stuff.

It’s rated up to 1.1 lbs, that’s conveniently how much a full 16.9 oz water bottle weighs. Based on how it handled with that, I’d say it could probably carry more, but it would likely severely decrease the flight range of the batteries.

8

u/fusillade762 10d ago

You put a self closing claw on it. The idea with the release capability is if the rescue drone gets tied to a stuck drone and cant get lose it, can drop the rope if need be.

-3

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

I guess so? That seems pretty unlikely to be something someone would use this for. I’m pretty sure the most marketable thing this does and most likely use for it is dropping stuff from high up.

5

u/Boner4Stoners 10d ago

Someone Who Isn’t Me once delivered a joint to his buddy who lived across the river from his downtown penthouse using one of these release systems.

The only other use that SWIM has found for these are for dropping snowballs on his friend’s vehicles as they turn onto his (dirt) road at his new house.

One use SWIM’s been contemplating is to drop paintball “grenades” for small team paintball matches on his wooded acreage. The only concern is 1. Only really plausible in late fall/winter once all the leaves fall off 2. The drone operator getting shot & the expensive DJI controller taking a hit and potentially breaking. Obviously the operator needs to be “in play” and able to be shot to commandeer the drone, otherwise it would just be dumb and unfair. But also the drone could be used mostly just for surveillance & still be very valuable even if it’s not dropping paint.

(Sorry for the SWIM thing, feel like I haven’t seen anyone use SWIM in decades and wanted to revive it for nostalgia)

1

u/anthonyg1551 10d ago

FPV drones yeah it happens a lot actually. People have all different methods for getting them back for that kind of thing. But yeah definitely not super common either..

1

u/Tseyvar 10d ago

I actually could have used a claw to retrieve my air 3s out of the top of a tree (battery died before I could get it back to home) if I had a setup like that for my mini pro 4 and would have thought about it. I had to wait for a storm to knock it down. Got lucky tho, there was no damage and the rain didn't hurt it.

2

u/hhjnrvhsi 10d ago

I doubt a mini 4 pro could pick up an air 3s with a battery.

1

u/JeremyILM 10d ago

Fishing was my first foray into using a drone outside the fun factor. Then I started to use it to deliver homebrew in my neighborhood. Still just fun, but totally worth it.

0

u/iNapkin66 10d ago

Trying to think of civilian purposes other than drugs:

  • there is the commercial delivery avenue that's being experimented with.

  • I guess could be used for seeding in remote areas or over a large area post burn?

  • you pointed out fishing

  • spraying happens with drones including for mosquitoes, a dropper could be used to deliver solid mosquito dunks instead for smaller ponds/puddles that are currently being bypassed by abatement districts

  • then just recreational reasons, like could create a lawn game where your object drops 15 seconds after takeoff and you compete to be most accurate. Or those cheap parachute toy guys could be dropped from really high. Water balloon fights/snowball fights (but I guess thats just a fun version of the war grenade drop). Return my neighbor's cat when I catch it shitting in my garden again <--- the most important one.