Solo will still be manufactured.

[yt lee]

So, how do you know what the airworthiness requirements for UAVs will be?

For current drone that have the airworthiness certification, you can check the FAA list. For future requirements, that is a big unknown and a huge money sucking process. Last time I went for one for a client, they sunk several million. Every time they request a change or ask for clarification of the design, the clock start over.

 

[Mauiwind]

I believe Chris mistakes
1. Ignored the Chinese manufacture power
2. Made overtaking DJI as priority.
3. Abandoned his loyal DIY base.
4. Slow to adjust to market change.
5. Over estimated the initial demand.
6. Poorly executed the logistics.
7. Let Gopro had too much influence despite he knew Gopro was designing their own drone.

You have no idea what the goings on were that killed the Solo.
How do you know that overtaking DJI was a primary focus?
He didnt ignore the DIY customers, he did not effectively leverage that asset.
The ability to adjust to market movement was something that would have been known upon going into mfg. Having said that, the mobility of product advances by a comprting compamy that had design, mfg and all phases of the pipeline in house was not factored in to the business plan
Perhaps the overproduction was because of availability of the mfg. You dont know.
Poorly executed logistics? What does that mean?
The relationship with gopro has not been revealed to you. 100 mill was raised for capital. You dont know if any or a lot of that money came from gopro.
The Karma was and is inconsequential to market share.
If theres a reason for the bail out of hardware, one of those reasons had to be the disconnect between Chinese mfg. and American administration of that mfg.

 

[yt lee]

You have no idea what the goings on were that killed the Solo.
How do you know that overtaking DJI was a primary focus?
He didnt ignore the DIY customers, he did not effectively leverage that asset.
The ability to adjust to market movement was something that would have been known upon going into mfg. Having said that, the mobility of product advances by a comprting compamy that had design, mfg and all phases of the pipeline in house was not factored in to the business plan
Perhaps the overproduction was because of availability of the mfg. You dont know.
Poorly executed logistics? What does that mean?
The relationship with gopro has not been revealed to you. 100 mill was raised for capital. You dont know if any or a lot of that money came from gopro.
The Karma was and is inconsequential to market share.
If theres a reason for the bail out of hardware, one of those reasons had to be the disconnect between Chinese mfg. and American administration of that mfg.

I guess you don't know the face of 3dr was face of DJI.

I don't know if you are aware 3dr used open source as base. Solo was a close system. When we ask for clarification of certain features, the requests for information were either ignored or treated as spying. Many developers had plan for Solo have up.

As for the GoPro, do I really need to show you. If you still dying to know, read 3dr old investment report. When you do, you will find out what other parties were in the project. All those parties had their own hidden agenda. The

 

[Mauiwind]

I guess you don't know the face of 3dr was face of DJI.

I don't know if you are aware 3dr used open source as base. Solo was a close system. When we ask for clarification of certain features, the requests for information were either ignored or treated as spying. Many developers had plan for Solo have up.

As for the GoPro, do I really need to show you. If you still dying to know, read 3dr old investment report. When you do, you will find out what other parties were in the project. All those parties had their own hidden agenda. The

Yes, yes.. so colinn was the front man for both companies. That doesnt man anything more than he was a hired mouthpiece. You Can be sure it didnt affect business decisions. That would be simply juvinile.

It would be interesting to see the document you speak of .the old 3dr investors. Where can I find that?

 

[yt lee]

Go ask Chris.

 

[yt lee]

Or Google "3dr gopro partnership"

 

[Maddog]

I need to find spare motors...don't want to buy a new solo for spare parts. Are they done making parts? If I continue to fly my Solo for business I would like to have some manufacturer support...otherwise I may have to switch brands.

There was a guy selling motor pods on eBay not too long ago. Apparently he made a deal to buy a bunch from 3DR that were used but worked fine. (Not really clear on the details)

Some members here bought them and reported no problems. They were about $25 each.

There are threads here about replacing the stock motors with T motors, but keeping the motor pod. It is generally felt that the motors themselves would fail instead of the ESC in the motor pod.

That is a good alternative as long as the ESC doesn't fail.

 

[PdxSteve]

The one thing I'm not sure most people have worked out is how to retrieve and install the firmware once the 3dr site/code disappears, and one or the other will happen eventually. It can be done via the solo command line tools, but most don't know how to use them and don't have a local copy of the firmware saved. So if you have to factory reset and it tries to update the (nonexistant) firmware...

 

[Mauiwind]

Go ask Chris.

Thats not a serious answer. 3DR is not a public corp. Such disclosures are neither necessary or well advised.

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

[yt lee]

Thats not a serious answer. 3DR is not a public corp. Such disclosures are neither necessary or well advised.

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

Chris still active in the APM forum.

 

[healthyfatboy]

The one thing I'm not sure most people have worked out is how to retrieve and install the firmware once the 3dr site/code disappears, and one or the other will happen eventually. It can be done via the solo command line tools, but most don't know how to use them and don't have a local copy of the firmware saved. So if you have to factory reset and it tries to update the (nonexistant) firmware...

I'm curious, is there a repository of the various firmware that has been available over the course of Solo's life? I grabbed the files from my phone the other day so I have the most recent controller and Solo files.
I found the Solo cli to not work for me for some reason. I had to pull tlogs and bin files via SSH, scp, and using WinSCP to eventually get them to view in MP.

 

[JudoSurfer]

Here is my crazy non-supported wild guess.

3DR has worked out a deal with GoPro. Having owned both, Karma is just an upgraded (construction wise) Solo without all of the software enhancements. IMO Karma is much more stable when flying than Solo. Having spent some time on the GoPro message boards, it appears that some people were getting batteries that were difficult to seat properly in the drone. If this is true, then it helps explain the power loss crash for some Karma. While GoPro was able to make a decent drone, and the whole package with removable stabilizer and mountable grip are awesome, the lack of features made the drone underwhelming. GoPro has learned, making drones is hard, writing working and innovative software to fly them is beyond GoPro's capability. But, it's not beyond 3DR.

With GoPro manufacturing, 3DR can reduce overhead significantly and concentrate on the software. GoPro wins on the flip side because they don't have to try and bring in engineers to develop the software from the ground up. When it comes to Customer Service Reps making misleading statements, it just might be that they were fed half truths from management. It might be that they were told that for now, they are going to be continuing to support Solo as they still have enough to satisfy the retail market. However, they may have also been told that there is going to be a New drone manufactured that they will be supporting in the future. If 3DR is writing the software for Karma, it makes sense that 3DR Customer Service will be supporting it (although I'm sure it will be accessed through GoPro Customer Service lines, chat and email). Anderson probably worked out a sweet deal with GoPro and was highly motivated to stop competition with Karma (even if sales were less than stellar to begin with). When Anderson suggested that 3D Robotics would start developing software for other drone makers, it makes the most sense if they are doing it for a company that has money and market. GoPro is losing money, but they are willing to spend it. Who else is 3DR going to develop software for and make a buck? DJI doesn't want/need them and Yuneec et. al., are just trying to be DJI clones.

 

[yt lee]

I don't believe Chris is going to ride on Gopro pony. If you had studied the PC trend, you can see the manufacturing sector in us is all but gone, HP and Dell are hanging by their finger nails by becoming the assemblers. IBM now basically is a service company, HP is trying becoming one.

Hence I believe Chris and Collin are pivoting towards the IBM model. Right now, Chris is using Solo as a platform. Collin is betting on the company he just acquired. That company is for dji platform.

YUNeec background is chinese military, they are targetting different market. Right now, they are partner with intel. But I believe intel intention is selling more intel hardware.

Anyway, the drone market is still in infancy, I don't think the industry has been defined. Hence , saying which drone will dominate is just speculation.

 

[Mauiwind]

Ah, it would seem that the 3DR/Solo collaboration theory has proven to be quite innacurate. And, IMHO, its going to be very difficult for an American company to find the capital to keep up with, let alone surpass the mfg and war tested flow of DJI. 100 million, an innovative product and a compelling marketing campaign couldnt do it. Who, given the existing strength of DJI, would commit 100s of millions of dollars to a fledgling US drone company unless there was some sort of major patentable innovation, and a tried and proven leader on the order of say, Lee Iacoca.

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

[yt lee]

Don't put the dirt on the coffee yet. There are still plenty of VC money betting on the drone technology. Prime example is the $3.5m VC money on Collin's new company. Again, the mass manufacturing cost for Solo is relatively immaterial, the hang up is still the IR.