Poll: Drone skin or no skin?

[Former Member]

Im just taking a poll of who has a skin on their drone and who doesnt.

From where I stand, the skin is a cheap way to customize your drone for very little money. With all the high quality skins out there, there is probably a skin for everyone's taste. I see some pros and cons to adding a skin and Im interested in others vote and opinion as well.

Pros:

Makes the drone feel like it's yours
Offers a level of protection from scrapes, scratches and dings
Makes the drone more visible depending on your flying environment
Easily removable if you decide to change it for another, or if you sell your drone
Less permanent than painting or plastidipping it

Cons:

Can hide damage and cracks that might be vital to the operation of the aircraft
Can be alot of work and time to get on
If you crash and a part needs replacing, you might need to buy a whole new skin to replace it
Some rumors have it that some skins can affect the drone's navigation systems

Please feel free to vote and add your opinions.

 

[Wcordes]

Don't plan on getting one as can't see from ground.

 

[MiniPalourde]

Nope, didn't bother. Might have one someday.

 

[Flawless]

I've had my DecalGirl skin on for over half my Mavic's life, and I think it looks great. I've had a few scrapes that have damaged the coating, but not the design, and the skin has at least protected the Mavic's body from that damage.

The only downside is prop guards, or anything else that attaches to the body with clips. With a skin, they're a lot harder to attach and almost impossible to do so without damaging the skin.

 

[Kilrah]

I don't like skins. Personally it's either I don't like the original design and I don't buy, or I like it and I aim to keep it as designed without a scratch as long as possible.
My MP is like that, got it in Nov 16, it's got 100+ hours of flight but is basically as clean as if it was taken out of the box an hour ago.

Had to seriously work hard to not throw a punch in the face of the guy who made a dent in my 2-year old pristine Macbook by carelessly throwing the metal end of an HDMI cable onto it...

Might be a bit stupid, but originates from having a business where we'd buy all the latest "toys" to try them out and obviously the cleaner we kept them the closer to "as new" we could resell them afterwards to get the next one, and it kinda bleeds onto personal stuff with time.

 

[CamoGreg]

My skin ! Love this camo style !

 

[MiniPalourde]

I don't like skins. Personally it's either I don't like the original design and I don't buy, or I like it and I aim to keep it as designed without a scratch as long as possible.
My MP is like that, got it in Nov 16, it's got 100+ hours of flight but is basically as clean as if it was taken out of the box an hour ago.

Had to seriously work hard to not throw a punch in the face of the guy who made a dent in my 2-year old pristine Macbook by carelessly throwing the metal end of an HDMI cable onto it...

Might be a bit stupid, but originates from having a business where we'd buy all the latest "toys" to try them out and obviously the cleaner we kept them the closer to "as new" we could resell them afterwards to get the next one, and it kinda bleeds onto personal stuff with time.

I don't have trouble cleaning the lenses and the camera but how do you clean the shell of your Mavic? People have been using baby wipes but I'm not sure that it's good for the Mavic.

Also, do you blow your battery connectors and motors with compressed air? I bought cans of compressed air but I'm not too sure how I'm going to spray the dang thing haha.

 

[REO’s MavAir]

I love to keep all my gear as clean and scratch free as possible i had a custom sticker made from artwork a friend made showing my labrador in flight. The drone is originally red and being glossy fingerprints show and could get scratched and the sticker makes it so the fingerprints don’t show anymore. I purchased a new top cover and wrapped it so I still have the original red one as a spare.

 

[BerndM]

I wanted mine to be very visible regardless of where it might decide to crash.
The original gray color would be very hard to see in many types of background.

 

[laurens23]

No skin. I care more about the performance than the looks.

I have a big sticker with my phone number on the side
a smaller sticker with my registration number on the back
a sticker with my QR code of my registration in the battery bay
a sticker on top of the battery next to the on/off button with a reminder to take off the gimbal lock.

 

[Clinton1]

I love the skin i have on my Mavic, i always like to personalize my toys from all the others out there.

 

[BossBob]

Had a Decalgirl skin but wasn’t happy with it. Patterns didn’t flow around the drone and it looked disjointed. I bought a dronewrap skin with the idea that I’d paint it but never got around to it. Just bought a Wrapgrade Coloration X. Looks really great.

 

[MavicMo]

Some interesting points...

Personally, I'm not big on skins for several reasons;

• Most skins don't go edge to edge so they leave a border. Makes it look very obvious thats its a sticker.
• They can start to lift at the edges. After prolonged use and handling I've always found skins to start lifting at some edge. Once that starts to happen, its over. You need to replace that sticker as it just gets worse
• Skins typically go on top of the drone which I don't see once I'm flying (usually). Or if on the arms it's so small you don't see them after a short distance. I also store my drones in their cases so they don't sit out where I can see them
• I'm more about the ability/capabilities of the drone than what they look like

Touching on some of your points below (respectfully);

• I guess I don't need graphical stickers for my drone to feel like it's mine. My FAA number identifies it as such
• I'm not concerned about cosmetic scratches or dings
• I like the idea of skins that makes the drone more visible but again, it's a sticker which I don't like for my above reasons

In the end, its your drone (third person reference), do what makes you happy. I'm just not a fan of skins...

Im just taking a poll of who has a skin on their drone and who doesnt.

From where I stand, the skin is a cheap way to customize your drone for very little money. With all the high quality skins out there, there is probably a skin for everyone's taste. I see some pros and cons to adding a skin and Im interested in others vote and opinion as well.

Pros:

Makes the drone feel like it's yours
Offers a level of protection from scrapes, scratches and dings
Makes the drone more visible depending on your flying environment
Easily removable if you decide to change it for another, or if you sell your drone
Less permanent than painting or plastidipping it

Cons:

Can hide damage and cracks that might be vital to the operation of the aircraft
Can be alot of work and time to get on
If you crash and a part needs replacing, you might need to buy a whole new skin to replace it
Some rumors have it that some skins can affect the drone's navigation systems

Please feel free to vote and add your opinions.

 

[kakao]

Drone skins are like tattoos, I simply don't like that culture.


/

 

[JoostGT3]

I used to like a lot to personalize my stuff when I was younger; my pensilcase, my backpack, even modified the ballpoints I was writing with.
Nowadays, I often like stock look the most, however, if I feel that the manufacturer made a "mistake", I will try to "solve" it, preferably with OEM parts. For example with watches, I have one with a custom bezel from a different model of the same manufacturer, because the font matches the font of the face better, things like that.

For the Mavic, I like it how it comes stock, an most skins are whimsical at first, but become a bit tacky when you look at them more often. However, I absolutely LOVE the example of @REO’s MavAir , as it is really personal and has a cool style

 

[stonecherub]

I fly a gray drone in a gray volcanic field. This battery is new and does not, yet, have a skin.

 

[MiniPalourde]

I fly a gray drone in a gray volcanic field. This battery is new and does not, yet, have a skin.View attachment 34011

Well that is not pretty.

 

[Divebomber]

I have a friend who bought a skin (don't know the vendor). Maybe he's a little inept, but after he put it on, it looked pretty crappy, and the edges started to lift within days. I'd like to get a bright-colored skin, as I always fly within LOS (I'm too paranoid to let my baby out of my sight, aside from FAA regs), but the issue is that the skins aren't used on the bottom, because of the heat sink fins and the sensors, and the thing looks black against the sky anyway. Might make the drone easier to find if it goes down in the bushes, but I think I'll wait until others have settled on a good vendor before I try it.

 

[colinfowler]

£15 skin
15 mins to apply and not showing any signs of lifting.
Late afternoon in a gray sky the yellow stands out.
I sometimes fly in the same field with two other Mavics, I now don't try controlling the wrong one.

 

[Akoztha]

I have a custom skin from DecalGirl.
It's Nick Mason from Pink Floyd.
Main reason of getting it in my case:
- I always have my drone up for sell, when I get a good offer it's gone....
Having it "covered" with a wrap/skin keepts it away from minor scratches, so everytime I show it, it looks brand new.