There were 5 gimbals, 5 batteries, and 5 controllers, too. I expect someone figured they could get the batteries replaced under the Moss Warranty act, and there is still at least 400 bucks in parts on those birds. I was actually seconds from pulling the trigger myself on that lot....
The Solo Ebay Bargains....
- Thread starter IrishmanPDX
- Start date
Yikes! Sorry you missed out. I had seen it, thought it was a good buy too, then I realized, if I need that many spare parts........ maybe I shouldn't be flying drones... 
I did buy 4 gimbals though, 2 @ Sub $60, 2 @ $90. With the prices I'm seeing now, I wish I'd bought more. Think it's time to invest in more leg extenders....
I did buy 4 gimbals though, 2 @ Sub $60, 2 @ $90. With the prices I'm seeing now, I wish I'd bought more. Think it's time to invest in more leg extenders....
Mine is that the company is building a bullpen as it were, so having long-long-term spares for motors, WiFi cards, and other consumables is very important. We'd like to avoid the DJI every-18-months forced upgrade cycle.
First the gimbals get snatched up, next up, probably batteries get a price hike and then disappear altogether. I think when that happens, that's when we either upgrade, or start building our own using all those solo parts. Still, I think I'm done buying spare parts at this stage.
Ok, got a few minutes to take a first look at my 3 "for parts" drones. Just put them back together since the seller ripped off all the legs to ship. Haven't even powered them up yet. Two physically look ok. On the 3rd, the compass and one antenna seem to have been cut. Compass isn't a big deal, I have one and can plug it in. Picked it up from B&H. But, the antenna one......don't think I have ever seen one of those for sale. May be a dumb question, but is there a fix for that? Maybe I don't need it since there is another antenna in another leg? I have never soldered anything in my life, soooooo.........
Soldering antenna .leads is super tricky. If you could find another length of the same cable and crimp the connector on the other end....
Or, you could go all hog-wild and get some adapters and mount them in the sides of SOLO, then use some external circular polarized antennas. But that would require changing the controller antennas to CP as well.
Or, you could go all hog-wild and get some adapters and mount them in the sides of SOLO, then use some external circular polarized antennas. But that would require changing the controller antennas to CP as well.
Maybe I have to leave that one as a true parts drone. Makes me sad because I had visions of getting all 3 back up in the air for some reason. I wish they had made the antenna as easy to replace as the compass. Even more, I wish some moron didn't cut both for no apparent reason!
You can get the antenna out of any old wireless router. Inside the black plastic is the same little 2.4ghz antenna. I have done this and it works perfectly.
It is like a headphone cable. You peel apart the outside cable and that is the ground. You then solder the two together and tape them up.
Starting this one back up again because quite simply, I haven't gotten around to repairing the 3 bad birds that I got on ebay. You remember the ones, legs removed/ripped off, unknown booting errors. What I need to know (to help with diagnosis) is the following:
1: If I have 1 bad motor, will that stop the Solo from booting? Or will the solo boot, but only 3 of the motors spin? I've read mixed responses on that one.
2: I think at least 2 people here bought the 3 pack of drones from "aimin1to99". The seemed to have the same packing issues, but wondering if they also have the same faults (because I'm suspecting he had a whole bunch more, he sorted through them, put them in piles, and then just did combo backs when selling them. So what were the issues you discovered with your birds?
3: Why the heck didn't 3DR sell replacement antenna legs? I see skyhax says you can just pull the antenna from any aul wireless router.... Anyone else using any other inventive solutions? Because I swear, I'll do something stupid like get a 3ft antenna leg and then have to make 3 really big leg extenders.... but the range should be fantastic..... I saw one antenna leg for sale on Ebay, but with only 1 photo, and no view of the antenna or the connector, it made me a bit suspicious.
What I may try and do (time allowing) is take 1 bird at a time, take a video of my highly inaccurate diagnosis and problem solving (mungo hit!) and post it. That way people can chime in with advice and turn it into a bit of a learning tool for those that want to improve their drone repair skills. Any thoughts? Sorry I should be more specific... Any thoughts relating to this post?
1: If I have 1 bad motor, will that stop the Solo from booting? Or will the solo boot, but only 3 of the motors spin? I've read mixed responses on that one.
2: I think at least 2 people here bought the 3 pack of drones from "aimin1to99". The seemed to have the same packing issues, but wondering if they also have the same faults (because I'm suspecting he had a whole bunch more, he sorted through them, put them in piles, and then just did combo backs when selling them. So what were the issues you discovered with your birds?
3: Why the heck didn't 3DR sell replacement antenna legs? I see skyhax says you can just pull the antenna from any aul wireless router.... Anyone else using any other inventive solutions? Because I swear, I'll do something stupid like get a 3ft antenna leg and then have to make 3 really big leg extenders.... but the range should be fantastic..... I saw one antenna leg for sale on Ebay, but with only 1 photo, and no view of the antenna or the connector, it made me a bit suspicious.
What I may try and do (time allowing) is take 1 bird at a time, take a video of my highly inaccurate diagnosis and problem solving (mungo hit!) and post it. That way people can chime in with advice and turn it into a bit of a learning tool for those that want to improve their drone repair skills. Any thoughts? Sorry I should be more specific... Any thoughts relating to this post?
Starting this one back up again because quite simply, I haven't gotten around to repairing the 3 bad birds that I got on ebay. You remember the ones, legs removed/ripped off, unknown booting errors. What I need to know (to help with diagnosis) is the following:
1: If I have 1 bad motor, will that stop the Solo from booting? Or will the solo boot, but only 3 of the motors spin? I've read mixed responses on that one.
2: I think at least 2 people here bought the 3 pack of drones from "aimin1to99". The seemed to have the same packing issues, but wondering if they also have the same faults (because I'm suspecting he had a whole bunch more, he sorted through them, put them in piles, and then just did combo backs when selling them. So what were the issues you discovered with your birds?
3: Why the heck didn't 3DR sell replacement antenna legs? I see skyhax says you can just pull the antenna from any aul wireless router.... Anyone else using any other inventive solutions? Because I swear, I'll do something stupid like get a 3ft antenna leg and then have to make 3 really big leg extenders.... but the range should be fantastic..... I saw one antenna leg for sale on Ebay, but with only 1 photo, and no view of the antenna or the connector, it made me a bit suspicious.
What I may try and do (time allowing) is take 1 bird at a time, take a video of my highly inaccurate diagnosis and problem solving (mungo hit!) and post it. That way people can chime in with advice and turn it into a bit of a learning tool for those that want to improve their drone repair skills. Any thoughts? Sorry I should be more specific... Any thoughts relating to this post?
From completing boot, it is possible. As far as the wifi antenna goes, yes, you can use ANY 2.4ghz wifi antenna. Want to punch a hole in the body to mount an SMA jack and thus use a run of the mill screw on antenna? go for it. Want to utilize the already present MCX connector type? you can do that too. The beauty of passive omnidirectional antennas is they all function nearly identically. There are indeed differences in antennas, for any sticklers in here reading this and saying "uhh. well, there are tons of differences actually!", but for the purposes of operating your solo, aside from a source tracking directional antenna mounted to your bird, there is no difference. you might squeak out an extra 10 feet of range or so depending on the antenna, but thats about it.
As far as the 5 pack of birds I bought, I haven't had a chance to go through them in great detail either, right around the time I was going to dive in, we had to let go of a guy at work, and we lost another guy at work shortly afterwards to cancer (he's still kicking its ass right now). Picking up the slack leaves little room for much else. But when my work situation is straightened back out, I'll be sure to dive into them in more detail on what I've found.
1 *shorted* motor pod will keep Solo from even powering on. Beyond that, I've never known motor failure to prevent booting.
I was able to get two to boot, but one was short the GPS so I essentially only had one bird that was complete enough to boot without parts from my pile. The other that would boot has something wrong on all 4 motor pods that causes the LEDs to get very warm, but not to actually light. So it is good for motors, but not the pods themselves. The other was just so far gone I'm stripping get it for parts and selling or giving away what I don't think I'll need.
I was able to get two to boot, but one was short the GPS so I essentially only had one bird that was complete enough to boot without parts from my pile. The other that would boot has something wrong on all 4 motor pods that causes the LEDs to get very warm, but not to actually light. So it is good for motors, but not the pods themselves. The other was just so far gone I'm stripping get it for parts and selling or giving away what I don't think I'll need.
So what I saw with mine during a very quick trial... Bird 1 seemed to boot up just fine, even the LEDS were turning on and off in the right order. However at the end of the boot sequence it made a very unhappy sound. A tone that I wasn't used to.
Bird 2 got as far as the "turning on" tone, and then made error sounds straight away.
Bird 3, everything lit up, but no booting tone, no nothing, lights on, but nobody home....
Bird 2 got as far as the "turning on" tone, and then made error sounds straight away.
Bird 3, everything lit up, but no booting tone, no nothing, lights on, but nobody home....
I bought from "aimin1to99" too. I haven't tried to get them up in the air yet, but I was able to connect them all to a controller and update them. I noticed that one motor pod felt a bit weird when I hand spun it. And, an LED or two are out for some reason, but they seem to be generally ok (except for the one with the compass and antenna wires cut). Thanks for bringing this back up. I will try to do more with them and report back.Starting this one back up again because quite simply, I haven't gotten around to repairing the 3 bad birds that I got on ebay. You remember the ones, legs removed/ripped off, unknown booting errors. What I need to know (to help with diagnosis) is the following:
1: If I have 1 bad motor, will that stop the Solo from booting? Or will the solo boot, but only 3 of the motors spin? I've read mixed responses on that one.
2: I think at least 2 people here bought the 3 pack of drones from "aimin1to99". The seemed to have the same packing issues, but wondering if they also have the same faults (because I'm suspecting he had a whole bunch more, he sorted through them, put them in piles, and then just did combo backs when selling them. So what were the issues you discovered with your birds?
3: Why the heck didn't 3DR sell replacement antenna legs? I see skyhax says you can just pull the antenna from any aul wireless router.... Anyone else using any other inventive solutions? Because I swear, I'll do something stupid like get a 3ft antenna leg and then have to make 3 really big leg extenders.... but the range should be fantastic..... I saw one antenna leg for sale on Ebay, but with only 1 photo, and no view of the antenna or the connector, it made me a bit suspicious.
What I may try and do (time allowing) is take 1 bird at a time, take a video of my highly inaccurate diagnosis and problem solving (mungo hit!) and post it. That way people can chime in with advice and turn it into a bit of a learning tool for those that want to improve their drone repair skills. Any thoughts? Sorry I should be more specific... Any thoughts relating to this post?
OK, so this one has been a while but I finally got around to making a very technical inspection of these drones from "aimin1to99" (ie. I shouted at them till I scared them into doing something...)(actually I didn't, I just took them apart somewhat...but only a little...).
You know where I nearly did screw up though? I had updated all my controllers to Open Solo and then when I went to these drones it was like "Uh Oh... will open solo even pair with stock software drones?". Luckily I remembered the "FREE GIFT" that was included with the drones. A spare controller... that didn't power up because it was sans battery. So stuck in a battery and it powered up fine.
So here's the results....
Drone 1: Paired with the controller, updated fine (stock software) and turns out the front right motor pod is dead. The other three work just fine. So will inspect for cable issues, if I don't find any, I'll just replace the motor pod and see what happens.
Drone 2: Powered up, but immediately got beeping noises from the drone that wouldn't stop. I think "Just_Bruce" had mentioned this happened with his because it didn't have a gps. So I popped mine open, saw a Rev A GPS board in there.. no cable! Seriously, someone had taken out the GPS cable. Luckily I had a spare left over from the HERE upgrade on my other drone AND I also had an MRO GPS too. So popped both of those in, powered up, paired with controller......... magnetic interference straight away. Couldn't calibrate, couldn't reset it with Tower. So pulled the leg and replaced it. Drone powered up fine. All four motors working.
Drone 3: Put a battery in, powered it on and nothing. All the motor pod lights came on, but no musical tone, no nothing. This is the drone that had it's compass and antenna legs ripped off too. I figure this is going to be my donor drone. I'll take the motor pod out and put it in drone 1. I'll do some checks of the cables, memory cards, make sure everything is seated, but I suspect this drone has a terminal problem. But at the very least I'll have a bunch of spare parts (that may or may not work). Since other people bought from the same seller and had similar drones with similar problems, I wouldn't mind hearing if you got one in this condition and what you did with it.
So, original purchase price... I think it was either $168 or $178 for all three. So I honestly believe it was a worthwhile investment. Not as good as the investment I made in the $78 dollar drones that had calibration errors (that worked straight off the bat after a smack to the ass), but good all the same. If I slap a gimbal on them and resell them, I stand to make a profit, however as it is, I might see about using them as trainers. Sans camera and sans gimbal, they might make for a pretty good way to get used to flying drones for learners.
Thanks for reading and although the ebay bargains may be over for now, who knows, maybe someone will clear out a storage unit and more will pop up, so hopefully this was somewhat helpful.
You know where I nearly did screw up though? I had updated all my controllers to Open Solo and then when I went to these drones it was like "Uh Oh... will open solo even pair with stock software drones?". Luckily I remembered the "FREE GIFT" that was included with the drones. A spare controller... that didn't power up because it was sans battery. So stuck in a battery and it powered up fine.
So here's the results....
Drone 1: Paired with the controller, updated fine (stock software) and turns out the front right motor pod is dead. The other three work just fine. So will inspect for cable issues, if I don't find any, I'll just replace the motor pod and see what happens.
Drone 2: Powered up, but immediately got beeping noises from the drone that wouldn't stop. I think "Just_Bruce" had mentioned this happened with his because it didn't have a gps. So I popped mine open, saw a Rev A GPS board in there.. no cable! Seriously, someone had taken out the GPS cable. Luckily I had a spare left over from the HERE upgrade on my other drone AND I also had an MRO GPS too. So popped both of those in, powered up, paired with controller......... magnetic interference straight away. Couldn't calibrate, couldn't reset it with Tower. So pulled the leg and replaced it. Drone powered up fine. All four motors working.
Drone 3: Put a battery in, powered it on and nothing. All the motor pod lights came on, but no musical tone, no nothing. This is the drone that had it's compass and antenna legs ripped off too. I figure this is going to be my donor drone. I'll take the motor pod out and put it in drone 1. I'll do some checks of the cables, memory cards, make sure everything is seated, but I suspect this drone has a terminal problem. But at the very least I'll have a bunch of spare parts (that may or may not work). Since other people bought from the same seller and had similar drones with similar problems, I wouldn't mind hearing if you got one in this condition and what you did with it.
So, original purchase price... I think it was either $168 or $178 for all three. So I honestly believe it was a worthwhile investment. Not as good as the investment I made in the $78 dollar drones that had calibration errors (that worked straight off the bat after a smack to the ass), but good all the same. If I slap a gimbal on them and resell them, I stand to make a profit, however as it is, I might see about using them as trainers. Sans camera and sans gimbal, they might make for a pretty good way to get used to flying drones for learners.
Thanks for reading and although the ebay bargains may be over for now, who knows, maybe someone will clear out a storage unit and more will pop up, so hopefully this was somewhat helpful.
Hey Guys-
B&H
Solo Bundle w backpack, extra battery, screen shade and assorted accessories- $159!!!!!!
STOCK UP FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
B&H
Solo Bundle w backpack, extra battery, screen shade and assorted accessories- $159!!!!!!
STOCK UP FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
true. I sent that out when they still had them listed- today’s deal wasn’t one to “ think about..” just went in and pulled the trigger!! Buy buy buy
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