Out, Sleep, Back???

[audiomatt]

Hi all. I'm a field recordist researching the use of drones for my work. My basic practice is to go to a fun location, leave my mics somewhere for as long as possible (15 hrs?) come back and review the material (usually 95% boring).

I'm wondering if there are any drones I could fly a small (100g) field recorder somewhere, leave it there and fly it back the next day. It appears that the DJI Mini, which looks perfect, only has a physical power switch. I find this sad since, for 99 percent of this mission, I'll need no power at all.



Thoughts? Any solutions to this? I'm a drone noob.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Welcome to the forum audiomatt . . . an interesting job. I can see a solution for what you are attempting to do. Since its in the public I don't see an invasion of privacy issue (a battle we here fight daily). It may be a bit creepy but we get that label too .

So to fully understand, you want to fly a mic'd drone into a location and power it off (except a live mic) . . . after hours of gathering public conversations you'd power it up and fly it out of there, correct?

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Not easy as you’d need a system to put the recorder on the ground, and pick up again reliably later.
Exactly executed.
The mini would not be right for the job.
Use a drone with occusync connection, as wifi would not give you enough lower altitude reliability, you lose signal and the drone would (if lucky) return to home.
Even with a Mavic Pro, Pro Platinum, or Mavic 2 Pro or zoom, it’d be hard to fly some distance, with trees, terrain etc, and get low enough to lower a device.
An automated control app may do it, Litchi, Drone Deploy, etc, I have never used one, but think they too would not handle the fine drop and retrieve operations.
You probably need to advise weight if recorders, how placed (if correct orientation matters) on the ground, type of topography, nature of local trees, foliage etc, and distances concerned to get any more info there.
Some sort of basket with some type of firm plastic net to hook onto from above might work if you can get a hook below the drone to it.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Since you are in the audio recording realm then you'll have to supply us with some mechanical criteria of the recording device and mic. Is there a mic and recording device that has sufficient battery power to record for the length of time you require? If so . . . is it bulky and how much does it weight? We cannot alter the center of gravity of the aircraft so this would be key initial obstacles to overcome . . .

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Not easy as you’d need a system to put the recorder on the ground, and pick up again reliably later.
Exactly executed.
The mini would not be right for the job.
Use a drone with occusync connection, as wifi would not give you enough lower altitude reliability, you lose signal and the drone would (if lucky) return to home.
Even with a Mavic Pro, Pro Platinum, or Mavic 2 Pro or zoom, it’d be hard to fly some distance, with trees, terrain etc, and get low enough to lower a device.
An automated control app may do it, Litchi, Drone Deploy, etc, I have never used one, but think they too would not handle the fine drop and retrieve operations.
You probably need to advise weight if recorders, how placed (if correct orientation matters) on the ground, type of topography, nature of local trees, foliage etc, and distances concerned to get any more info there.
Some sort of basket with some type of firm plastic net to hook onto from above might work if you can get a hook below the drone to it.

you beat me to it . . .

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Leaving everything else aside, I am not aware of any drone that can be powered on and off remotely. Also, that is a very interesting job you have

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Leaving everything else aside, I am not aware of any drone that can be powered on and off remotely. Also, that is a very interesting job you have

I misunderstood and now realise the op wants to leave the whole setup there.
Not only the connection issues, but shutdown and restart too, which I’m not aware can be done with cheaper consumer drones.

I think leaving a device and retrieving later is more possible, but still with some connection problems.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Leaving everything else aside, I am not aware of any drone that can be powered on and off remotely. Also, that is a very interesting job you have

I agree. I can see a drone dropping a recording device (in bushes or trees) with an attached tether for retrieval but the nature of such a mission is problematic. It's interesting even speculating on a solution . . .

 

[bumper]

As stated, no easy way to have the drone shut down and then auto start (even with a timer or any other method I can think of). There is a relatively easy way to fly in, release the payload, and fly out. The M2 will lift 2.2 pounds, barely, and probable only at a reasonably low altitude. Best if the payload is well under that.

Use a fixed wire loop on the payload harness that is directly over the payload. Us a treble hook on a length of line from the drone center of lift. Experiment with line length to avoid oscillation (I haven't tried this). The line will need to be long enough so the downward facing camera can see the hook.

Good luck!

 

[audiomatt]

Thanks for the responses!

Re creepiness: On the whole I hope they don't become too common place in society between the sound, the eye in the sky and the appearance of the sky itself. But I guess I'm part of the problem.Tragedy of the commons I guess

But I'll be doing this in the rainforest so very few humans to spy on.

Leaving everything else aside, I am not aware of any drone that can be powered on and off remotely. Also, that is a very interesting job you have

This was exactly what I was hoping to to do! That's quite disappointing. (and thanks!)

My primary thought was the canopy, thought about landing on a large branch (away from leaves). Perhaps the next best idea getting rotor guards and running fishing line as a hoist. It looks as if small drones would do that trick.

Mote: The recorder I was thinking of is roughly the size of a deck of cards: the recorder I was thinking of is roughly the size of a deck of cards.

 

[audiomatt]

As stated, no easy way to have the drone shut down and then auto start (even with a timer or any other method I can think of). There is a relatively easy way to fly in, release the payload, and fly out. The M2 will lift 2.2 pounds, barely, and probable only at a reasonably low altitude. Best if the payload is well under that.

Use a fixed wire loop on the payload harness that is directly over the payload. Us a treble hook on a length of line from the drone center of lift. Experiment with line length to avoid oscillation (I haven't tried this). The line will need to be long enough so the downward facing camera can see the hook.

Good luck!

This is a super idea, will try!

 

[midi459]

if you are creative enough ... ever thought of using another transmitter to activate a switch wired to the power ...an rc transmitter for like a plane or a car ..how u get the servo to do the work would be interesting but im sure it could be done ..and i hope ur recorder is like 1/2 or 1/4 of a pound ....does the mini have the muscle ? id try a phantom plenty room under the drone for stuff and id think the motors would be a bit stronger ...interesting thought

 

[LazerMan]

Is it really that hard for an engineer to figure a way to remotely power down and power up a drone. With all the modes I've seen people do to these things I would think it that it can't be that hard to do this.

 

[audiomatt]

Is it really that hard for an engineer to figure a way to remotely power down and power up a drone. With all the modes I've seen people do to these things I would think it that it can't be that hard to do this.

I haven't bought it yet. I've been looking at tear downs. Looks like I can maybe pull off the board with the power management and hook a relay up to it with an arduino. Seems like overkill but I guess this is a nonstandard use?


And, for the record, what I was asking was if there was an off the shelf solution. This is my first drone ever. I have no clue how extensible the software is and I'm not interested in spending 400 bucks to find out I have an annoying loud toy that I'll never use.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I haven't bought it yet. I've been looking at tear downs. Looks like I can maybe pull off the board with the power management and hook a relay up to it with an arduino. Seems like overkill but I guess this is a nonstandard use?


And, for the record, what I was asking was if there was an off the shelf solution. This is my first drone ever. I have no clue how extensible the software is and I'm not interested in spending 400 bucks to find out I have an annoying loud toy that I'll never use.

Anyone know how long the Mini battery will last if simply left on after landing? It could record everything in between, on an audio recorder, and then be remotely relaunched and return to home. Or, does the internal battery shut off on its own, if no activity on the ground, within a specific time frame?

 

[midi459]

I haven't bought it yet. I've been looking at tear downs. Looks like I can maybe pull off the board with the power management and hook a relay up to it with an arduino. Seems like overkill but I guess this is a nonstandard use?


And, for the record, what I was asking was if there was an off the shelf solution. This is my first drone ever. I have no clue how extensible the software is and I'm not interested in spending 400 bucks to find out I have an annoying loud toy that I'll never use.

u do the surgery open the battery connect a switch controlled via another remote transmitter and u got ur wish ...it is the push release push hold . and not a relay (hint

 

[LazerMan]

I know you guys can figure it out, just need a little pushin

 

[midi459]

I know you guys can figure it out, just need a little pushin

ok u need another transmitter for cars or planes u disect the battery u figure out with is witch when u take it apart theres a trigger there ...the button u push cut the wires and wire them to a switch thats connected to a servo operated by the other transmitter ya u wanted an answer old school mechanical switch tied to a servo from an airplane ...cool i think

 

[Johnmcl7]

Is it really that hard for an engineer to figure a way to remotely power down and power up a drone. With all the modes I've seen people do to these things I would think it that it can't be that hard to do this.

It would be technically possible to implement but it's just not viable. The problem is the drone can't fully power off because it needs to have some hardware active to receive the signal to power the drone back on and with the range of the DJI drones that's going to be a reasonable level of power consumption. With the size and complexity of the Mavics it's not going to be viable to fit an additional system to handle this so you're going to need to use the core systems and while it can save power with the motors off and potentially other systems like the GPS, you can't avoid it using a reasonable amount of power. As an example with GoPro action cameras it's possible to enable wireless on them to remote control them including remotely powering the camera on and off but even when in the off mode it still has a noticeable drain on the battery keeping the wifi radio active and listening with much less range than the DJI drones.

The next problem is that once you fly to your location and activate the remote power off at that point you're going to have used up some battery power and now it's going to use more while on standby so when you come to power it back up you're likely to have significantly reduced battery power. It's a frequent and very sensible recommendation here to always take off with high battery power and avoid taking off with low power but that's what you'd have to do here given none of the Mavics have long battery life.

I'd also question how useful such a feature would be given the drones in many countries are only allowed to be flown within VLOS and the Mavic series is intended for consumer use.

 

[midi459]

It would be technically possible to implement but it's just not viable. The problem is the drone can't fully power off because it needs to have some hardware active to receive the signal to power the drone back on and with the range of the DJI drones that's going to be a reasonable level of power consumption. With the size and complexity of the Mavics it's not going to be viable to fit an additional system to handle this so you're going to need to use the core systems and while it can save power with the motors off and potentially other systems like the GPS, you can't avoid it using a reasonable amount of power. As an example with GoPro action cameras it's possible to enable wireless on them to remote control them including remotely powering the camera on and off but even when in the off mode it still has a noticeable drain on the battery keeping the wifi radio active and listening with much less range than the DJI drones.

The next problem is that once you fly to your location and activate the remote power off at that point you're going to have used up some battery power and now it's going to use more while on standby so when you come to power it back up you're likely to have significantly reduced battery power. It's a frequent and very sensible recommendation here to always take off with high battery power and avoid taking off with low power but that's what you'd have to do here given none of the Mavics have long battery life.

I'd also question how useful such a feature would be given the drones in many countries are only allowed to be flown within VLOS and the Mavic series is intended for consumer use.

parts list radio reciever esc servo and a 500 ma battery problem soloved the real problem is disecting the drone battery and figuring out what the trigger wires are might just be 2 wires might be alot more ..but this is definatly do able i like spectrum transmitters and recievers but i dont see this guy springing 500 dollars for another remote transmitter like spectrum .......theres plentys of old used ones around