Solo Ultra Thin Micro HDMI Flat Ribbon Cable (replacement for Solo's HDMI cable)

Maddog · Oct 14, 2015

Are your props, hubs and motors balanced?

J R · Oct 14, 2015

Maddog,

I'm not 100% sure. I'm coming from the P2V+v3 and P3Pro world. DJI birds are great, service is appalling and unacceptable. We all drive Ford's in my home. Can't get a good Westinghouse TV anymore so we're forced to buy imports. I don't like it and would prefer not to do so.

I Bought the Solo about 3 weeks ago because I want to go American. Read the heck out of this forum and put the out of the box bird in the air.

Tore into the battery bay a few times to fiddle with the wiring. Only had one battery so it wasn't much of a test. Finally got the other two batteries yesterday.

Educated myself the best I could on Tower and set up a few test runs. Not yet impressed.

Good things take time, effort and moola, I'm invested in all three. I haven't gone to the extreme of balancing props just yet. Maybe that's the next thing...

Jerry

SkyDoctor · Oct 14, 2015

User Name said:
I'd have to agree, it's not cheap, but when you consider the cost of having a specific cable manufactured for such a limited market, the price is probably not that bad. How many are they really going to sell? The cheap cost of most cables is because they're being manufactured by the 100's of thousands, if not more, not 100's, if that.

That said, it's expensive enough that I'd probably look into building one myself before purchasing. The cables to the gimbal, without question, are way, way, WAY too damn stiff, and it's amazing 3DR chose to use those particular ones. The data cable might as well be a piece of coax. Literally every one of my videos needs to be stabilized to remove the fine vibrations, and I have balanced my props. This is a pretty big disappointment in what has otherwise been an amazing product.

Agreed.

jeeboont · Oct 15, 2015

emulsiondown said:
$33 is nothing to reduce vibration - but voiding the SOLO warranty is no fly for me... i would suggest speaking with Chris or Colin so they can "approve" it. then you could sell direct to them and or us.

they love entrepreneurial peeps - give it a shot.

I'm sending a set to someone in 3DR for them to evaluate this option. Hopefully the feedback is good. From what I have read in other postings, the reason why 3DR included the thick HDMI cable is because of FCC guidelines in order for them to sell the drones in US market... more than anything. If this is true, even if they approve it, it will have to be an aftermarket product discussion.

David

User Name · Oct 15, 2015

jeeboont said:
From what I have read in other postings, the reason why 3DR included the thick HDMI cable is because of FCC guidelines

Not sure I buy that. FCC should only be concerned with shielding for interference, and you can have a shielded cable that's still flexible. The cables to the gimbal are some of the stiffest wiring for their gauge I've seen in ANY application, much less one that specifically requires the elimination of vibrations.

Please keep us updated on what you hear back from 3DR regarding the warranty. Given that it's a plug-in solution, there's always the option of just putting the stock cable back in if one needs warranty service unrelated to the cable.

David Weston · Oct 15, 2015

OK, guess I'll get one of these also. 1st Mod I did was the DBS antenna,,,and WOW! What an improvement! I think nothing of going 3000' any more even though I am not a "far out" kinda flyer. Then I did the RTF M8N mod (Thanks Ian) and that to has proven to be an incredible mod ($30), I always have 18-20 sats, 1.1 HDP and get lock on 10-12 in seconds. Then IANs hostapd.conf mod (Thanks again Ian for the video) which again improved distance and connectivity and has been incorporated into the last update. ($0.00). So, to get another marginal improvement in video stability (or the hope) for $33.00,,,sure, why not? That's like a pizza and a couple of beers, a decent bottle of wine, hardly something to agonize over, slice and dice the pro's and con's. Spending as much as it cost to get into the SOLO game (spare me the could've-should've comments) and then spending days discussing a $33 purchase, well, hardly seems worth discussing..lol. Jus' sayin'. No offense to anyone intended.

Xyrus29 · Oct 15, 2015

Projeffrey11 said:
There you go, but honestly I don't think anyone should be spending a dime trying to solve 3DRs poor design flaws.

I also agree. I returned $3k worth of solo gear after 2 weeks of frustration. Can't justify the price I paid for a unit that is what I consider faulty.

Xyrus29 · Oct 15, 2015

J R said:
Okay, I bought your cable. It's done, in the books. I decided to come back and review the video. Watched the full 4+ minutes. It does look good but everything is at a pretty slow speed. You should show a video with that bird cranked up a bit. What does it look like when that bird is clipping along at 15-30? I'm just saying, so other people will order one, mine is already on the way!

Jerry

Exactly what I was thinking. Slow flight doesn't prove too much.

pyrate · Oct 15, 2015

Ordered and thank you for taking time to get this made.
Mine operates 90% jitter free stock. Rest can be fixed in post very common.

Never mind those turning this into another bash 3DR thread. Many of us are very happy with our birds but always like tinkering to make them even better

RolandS888 · Oct 17, 2015

Im just wondering about the “shielded” FPC ribbon being used here. I have a few of these and the black one is only material coated for stress relief, not electrical shielding. The silvery one on the right is actually shielded in fine metal braid on both sides, these are the ones we need to be looking at using in this instance.I dont have any 10cm lengths at the moment, but I'll get a few and certainly give it a try. (a few dollars on aliexpress)

Earldgrayjr · Oct 17, 2015

Maddog said:
I tried the Alpha antenna and it did not work for me. In fact the range got worse.
I don't know why- perhaps because I fly in an urban, high wifi area.

You have to make sure to get the 2.44 GHZ version of any antenna. Not sure if that was your problem, but if you get an antenna tuned to the wrong wavlength, you will have bad results.

Earldgrayjr · Oct 17, 2015

pyrate said:
Ordered and thank you for taking time to get this made.
Mine operates 90% jitter free stock. Rest can be fixed in post very common.

Never mind those turning this into another bash 3DR thread. Many of us are very happy with our birds but always like tinkering to make them even better

Exactly... He probably makes all of 10 bucks for doing the research, making the arrangments to have them built, prebuying a bunch of cables, having the website, taking the orders, and then fulfilling them.

I actually appreciate the work he has done

Maddog · Oct 17, 2015

Earldgrayjr said:
You have to make sure to get the 2.44 GHZ version of any antenna. Not sure if that was your problem, but if you get an antenna tuned to the wrong wavlength, you will have bad results.

Hmm- looks like I got the "2.4 + 5Ghz dual band high gain" model.
No matter though, I just got the super-duper FPVLR antenna! Unfortunately the flu arrived before the antenna- no flying for awhile.

mcneely19 · Oct 17, 2015

Maddog said:
Hmm- looks like I got the "2.4 + 5Ghz dual band high gain" model.
No matter though, I just got the super-duper FPVLR antenna! Unfortunately the flu arrived before the antenna- no flying for awhile.

Sorry to hear about the flu. You will love the FPVLR.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

Maddog · Oct 17, 2015

J R said:
Maddog,

I'm not 100% sure. I'm coming from the P2V+v3 and P3Pro world. DJI birds are great, service is appalling and unacceptable. We all drive Ford's in my home. Can't get a good Westinghouse TV anymore so we're forced to buy imports. I don't like it and would prefer not to do so.

I Bought the Solo about 3 weeks ago because I want to go American. Read the heck out of this forum and put the out of the box bird in the air.

Tore into the battery bay a few times to fiddle with the wiring. Only had one battery so it wasn't much of a test. Finally got the other two batteries yesterday.

Educated myself the best I could on Tower and set up a few test runs. Not yet impressed.

Good things take time, effort and moola, I'm invested in all three. I haven't gone to the extreme of balancing props just yet. Maybe that's the next thing...

Jerry

Balancing the props & hubs is easy to do (many vids on YouTube) and is a good place to start to remove vibration. A balancer and a rod for Solo props will run about $40 so I understand the money issue.

Maddog · Oct 17, 2015

mcneely19 said:
Sorry to hear about the flu. You will love the FPVLR.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

Thanks- good thing I got a flu shot this year!

Lamda · Oct 17, 2015

Maddog said:
Hmm- looks like I got the "2.4 + 5Ghz dual band high gain" model.
No matter though, I just got the super-duper FPVLR antenna! Unfortunately the flu arrived before the antenna- no flying for awhile.

I bought the dual band version and it works for me.

Get well soon

Maddog · Oct 17, 2015

Lamda said:
I bought the dual band version and it works for me.

Get well soon

Thanks- wish it had worked for me because it was much cheaper.

Lamda · Oct 17, 2015

Maddog said:
Thanks- wish it had worked for me because it was much cheaper.

Hey, the FLVR look exotic? That's a bonus.

I've bought other antennas for different scenarios and just for the fun of tinkering. It might not be your last purchase haha

FLVR are a little more narrow beamed. If flying wide along the horizon and not needing super portable, it's sometimes nicer to have a different antenna so as not to have to aim; horses for courses I guess.

Lamda · Oct 17, 2015

RolandS888 said:
Im just wondering about the “shielded” FPC ribbon being used here. I have a few of these and the black one is only material coated for stress relief, not electrical shielding. The silvery one on the right is actually shielded in fine metal braid on both sides, these are the ones we need to be looking at using in this instance.I dont have any 10cm lengths at the moment, but I'll get a few and certainly give it a try. (a few dollars on aliexpress)

I have a black cable on the way from a different source. I'm tempted to experiment with it when I get it. Aluminum tape was suggested for balancing prop hubs in another thread.

If grounded it, it could be used to shield the black cable..I dug this up from another forum where people were discussing this same thing:

"I have successfully used aluminum foil tape for shielding on IDC type ribbon cables. I had to make some Mini centronics (MDR) cables from scratch, I didn't buy the $8K crimper from 3M so I could not used their shielded 100 conductor cable, I bought IDC MRD ends and made my own ghetto crimper. Anyhow, one of the cables I made was for LVDS video and Serial data on the same cable. When I hooked it up the video was almost unusable. I wrapped the cable in the self adhesive aluminum tape, being sure to make good contact with the MDR ends and it worked perfectly.

The Foil tape is about 3 inches wide and is commonly used for HVAC duct work. It is heavier gauge than kitchen foil, and very, very sticky. I imagine you can buy it at the big box home improvement stores, but I got mine from a actual HVAC supply house."