Hi Folks, it's been a LOOONG time sinse I've been around. Like long enough ago that when I was here last, you could buy 3DR parts at Best Buy. And I did. I spent way too much money on 2 birds and a lot of extras. So I flew Bird One for like 6 months with Solex and really loved it. Played with mission planner and was livin the dream.
Well, I got to feeling proficient enough that I started using the old gal to herd ducks. Yup, I stared tending a flock of ducks and a few other fowl with my drone, and thaoght that was great. Fly out to the pond area, find the birds, then escort them home. I let the pond go around the edge and some of the ducks went into some tree/weeds at the edge, so I tried to get above the trees and push em back to open water then to the trail home. Nope, not that day my friends.
One duck kept going below a branch. So I attempted to get under the tree by the brush and you know what happened next. The ducks had that last laugh that day!
Drone one hits some little scrub, she flips into the pond, and sinks...I run to the pond and leap in, find her at the bottom, rush to the house and start working. All looked good for the most part, and had her in the air the next day after cleaning and drying in the rice...
So up she goes, now I'm just gonna take er easy.....Over the grass do a few turns check stuff out, all good...then I decide to fly to the field beside the pond I fly over the barn, and - Silence. Total power loss at like 100' I think - over the metal roof barn. Smashed the old gal so bad I couldn't even save the damn GoPro. Every piece of plastic was bent. Bent bad. Pulled a few pieces out but she's done.
So I take a new job and move for a few years. Time passed, and now it's like 2019 I think. Get online and see that my new in the box bird two has to have a bunch of things done wrt software to her to get her to fly....I don't remember it being that hard before....I remember just installing the junk 3DR stuff then running Solex, and stuff just worked. That was good times back then. So I poke around and somehow start - I'll use an aviation analogy.... "down an airway without a radio no gyro single pilot at night in IFR and heavy turbulance" I think I managed to get Bird two up for a moment or two, but I put her back down, afraid. It wasn't the same any more. Back in the box it went. Until today. SO-
Do I need a PhD in computer science to get this thing working these days? I see it's not worth much on eBay. Is it because it's pretty much impossible for a pleb like me to fly her again? Except for my monkeying around a few years back Bird Two was a virgin... Might I have made things worse by even attempting to do anything with it in 2019? How screwed am I folks? I gotta go to work now, but figured I'd post before I get out the shovel to dig - for the facts and guidance I think I need to get er up. Something tells me I need a bigger shovel and a lot of time and love . A backhoe instead of a spade. And I FULLY expect to be flamed for not reading before posting this time around. Remember I'm the lazy duck herder.
Well, I got to feeling proficient enough that I started using the old gal to herd ducks. Yup, I stared tending a flock of ducks and a few other fowl with my drone, and thaoght that was great. Fly out to the pond area, find the birds, then escort them home. I let the pond go around the edge and some of the ducks went into some tree/weeds at the edge, so I tried to get above the trees and push em back to open water then to the trail home. Nope, not that day my friends.
One duck kept going below a branch. So I attempted to get under the tree by the brush and you know what happened next. The ducks had that last laugh that day!
Drone one hits some little scrub, she flips into the pond, and sinks...I run to the pond and leap in, find her at the bottom, rush to the house and start working. All looked good for the most part, and had her in the air the next day after cleaning and drying in the rice...
So up she goes, now I'm just gonna take er easy.....Over the grass do a few turns check stuff out, all good...then I decide to fly to the field beside the pond I fly over the barn, and - Silence. Total power loss at like 100' I think - over the metal roof barn. Smashed the old gal so bad I couldn't even save the damn GoPro. Every piece of plastic was bent. Bent bad. Pulled a few pieces out but she's done.
So I take a new job and move for a few years. Time passed, and now it's like 2019 I think. Get online and see that my new in the box bird two has to have a bunch of things done wrt software to her to get her to fly....I don't remember it being that hard before....I remember just installing the junk 3DR stuff then running Solex, and stuff just worked. That was good times back then. So I poke around and somehow start - I'll use an aviation analogy.... "down an airway without a radio no gyro single pilot at night in IFR and heavy turbulance" I think I managed to get Bird two up for a moment or two, but I put her back down, afraid. It wasn't the same any more. Back in the box it went. Until today. SO-
Do I need a PhD in computer science to get this thing working these days? I see it's not worth much on eBay. Is it because it's pretty much impossible for a pleb like me to fly her again? Except for my monkeying around a few years back Bird Two was a virgin... Might I have made things worse by even attempting to do anything with it in 2019? How screwed am I folks? I gotta go to work now, but figured I'd post before I get out the shovel to dig - for the facts and guidance I think I need to get er up. Something tells me I need a bigger shovel and a lot of time and love . A backhoe instead of a spade. And I FULLY expect to be flamed for not reading before posting this time around. Remember I'm the lazy duck herder.
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