Inexpensive after market accessories.

[Cirdan]

I have been looking for after market accessories for my MA 2 and found many inexpensive gear on some particular, well known, Asian
websites. The accessories look good and genuine but comparatively inexpensive which make me wonder about the quality of this gear. I now get bombarded with on-line advertising and emails from these same websites to lure me into purchasing.
What are other members experiences of the after market accessories, from on-line websites such as this?

 

[halifax]

I typically only get landing gear extensions and strobe light carriers, and typically those from Pgytech and like sellers on Amazon with very high product ratings. I fly from a lot of rough sites and need the extra clearance afforded by leg extensions.

 

[NLOL]

I've bought stuff online, from websites in many countries with no problems - with care. Lately I've seen several good looking but certainly fraudulent websites. They appear to be in the US, Canada, and other generally trusted companies. Whois verifies these registrations. Three things characterize them:

1)Prices half or more off for items not widely sold - the expensive mechanical/electronic/optical gear that you rarely see. The reason such fraudulent sites get to your attention is that there aren't many google searches for such items so it's easy to get to the top of the search list. These sites though have extensive lists of low cost - often oddball items - to look good.

2) Contact information is lacking. No mailing/shipping/legal address, no phone number usually no email address either - just a "contact us" box for your message.

3) They show Paypal as an accepted payment method, but if you click on Paypal, nothing happens. If they have a proper Paypal relationship there is no need to enter any billing/shipping address information - Paypal already has it. That click should transfer you to Paypal along with appropriate purchase information. Paypal will verify their legitimacy, your legitimacy and send them the money - if both you and the website are recognized and otherwise pass all Paypal security/screening checks.

So, number 1 says 'be very careful. number 2 says 'no', and number 3 says "No, no, no!'

Be aware though, that if anyone asks you to sign into paypal and send money via paypal, that paypal will let you send money to ANYONE - it's just like you writing a check and putting it in the mail. Be sure you understand the difference between this and 3 above.

 

[boblui]

The majority of these stuff are useless other than adding weight hence reducing flight time and impariring stability of the craft. I use none on my M2P.

 

[Yeunglings]

I would look at it this way. If the price is too good to be true it probably is and if whatever accessory you're looking at could directly impact the flight profile or safety of the drone/yourself/ property or others then steer clear. Anything lightweight that is unlikely to come in contact with the props if they fell off would probably be fine but if it could fall off and hurt someone or get tangled in the drone making you lose control of it then don't bother. Even a cheap skin with poor adhesive on it could peal off, get stuck in the props and make it fall. Now you have an $800 570g rock falling out of the sky. So if that was my baby I'd go with a $40 wrapgrade instead of a $10 option from Alibaba. Someone who's going through landing extensions like crazy because of terrain may choose to go the $5 set vs the $13 pgytech. Each piece is light enough not to effect the flight too much or hurt someone if 1 dropped off and they are under the AC if it does let go.