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I have a co-worker who is really into FPV drones, and he's infecting the rest of the crew with his interest. I kinda got the bug too. Although I've been curious since I saw my first quadcopter in the early oughts at the Seattle Robotics Society. Naturally the FAA has quashed and regulated the shit out of those early heydays, but on the other hand, Consumer drone technology has really, er, taken off. The only thing you need to worry about are the fly-by-night Chinese imitators. Who unfortunately seem to dominate the marketplace. So now the wild west aspect is buying one without getting ripped off.

DJI is a pretty safe bet though. Except the only way to not pay through the nose is to buy through some reseller on Amazon over the official site. The other caveat-emptor factor is choosing the model wisely. DJI's model numbering scheme with a few SE's and Pro's thrown in does not form an even continuum. But the safest way to go is with the Mavic/Mini line, which being under 250 grams, frees you from a bunch of registration requirements, but still benefits from a lot of DJI's remarkable software. (The current models in that line are the Mini 3 and Mini 4K.) The Mini 4 Pro is over the limit, and hundreds of dollars more, but has a full suite of obstacle avoidance sensors and follow capability. Models over the limit are also required to have a Radio ID (RID) transmitter that broadcasts the location, serial number, and YOUR location. The Mini 3 and 4K are capable of doing this if you use the extended battery that takes them over the weight limit, which requires registration, and then you get into a weird legal state if you switch back to the light battery....

Right. So. For me, the big issue was, will the DJI Fly software run on my no-name phone that isn't on the compatibility list, and the answer is, it seems to. (alas, the simulator that is part of the separate DJI store does not appear to work. It loads to 95% and then punts back to the store.). The reason is that the Mini 3 comes with the controller that has a built in screen. But that also makes it a couple hundred more expensive. If the software worked with my phone, then I can save by going with the Mini 4K. There's also the matter of the "Fly More" package that includes 2 additional batteries and a sequential charger, and a carry case. It is not a terrible deal, and gives you a theoretical total flying time of 93 minutes.

The original list price of the Mini 4K package was $299. Amazon resellers brought that down to about $239, But I wanted the extra batteries etc, so the Fly More set ended up being $279 with tax free shipping... a rip-off...

... from China. From a company with a ridiculously long name that hasn't been on Amazon long enough to have ratings, but seemed to be the only one with the product.

So that's gonna take a couple of weeks. Of course, one thing not included was a powerful USB-C wall wart to RUN the multi-charger. You want one that supplies 18W or better. I found a cheap 30W one. Amazingly, there are devices out there that will send 100W down a USB line. You're not going to be recharging the batteries on your computer. I'm just surprised that one isn't included, but apparently the packages are universal.

The last thing I had shipped via China Post was the replacement WiFi module for Etna. It arrived and it works, but they have no tracking on it and Amazon still thinks the package might be lost, and I can't even find a way to say I got it.

At least I can read the manual while I wait. And take the FAA's "TRUST" certification test for recreational flyers, and learn about some interesting airspace maps you can access now.

Oh, and that multi-charger is an interesting bit of kit. If you only got the single battery, you had to charge it in the drone. With the Fly More kit, the charger has three slots for batteries (The original and the two additional) and it charges them sequentially, prioritizing the one with the most charge on it. And then for extra fun, it can ALSO be used as a power bank with the USB A jack on it (The only USB A anywhere in the ecosystem....)

Oh, and as you might have guessed, the extraneous K in the model name cleverly indicates it has a 4K camera. Photography is generally my interest in drones anyway (That and inspecting my eaves for wasp nests). And they've packed a lot of tricks into it. (The big extra feature in the Mini 3 and the 4 Pro is they can flip the camera sideways for portrait format video for instagrammers, and gimbal the camera up more. The pro has all the smart following stuff too). There are a lot of YouTube videos about what you can do with the camera on this drone, and it's pretty impressive.

If you're curious, here it is on Amazon (Affiliate link) and here it is on DJI (No credit for that) (And yes, that link says Mini 2 SE, but the page is updated).

edit: I killed the affiliate link. The seller on Amazon was a scammer. I managed to convince the Indian on the other end of the chat that the tracking number was meaningless, and I didn't have to wait until the 26th to ask for a refund. Once I got him to actually check and see that the seller had been deleted from Amazon, he gave me a refund. But then I looked at the new seller, and the new price ($359) which is the same as the DJI site, I noticed THAT seller had a pretty low rating. So off to full retail I go.

$359, plus tax, with free express shipping. But it's not More, because I shouldn't compare it to the too-good-to-be-true-and-it-wasn't price. I'm just glad I caught on so quickly because I was looking over the Amazon page in order to write this.

Blogging kept me from getting ripped off.

Posted by: Mauser at December 02, 2024 05:57 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Mauser at December 03, 2024 07:02 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Mauser at December 09, 2024 03:32 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: J Greely at December 10, 2024 11:34 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at December 15, 2024 04:00 AM (nk1Z+)

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Posted by: J Greely at November 24, 2024 10:11 PM (oJgNG)

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Just posted a ton of my own original Gun Memes on my Substack.

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Just got back from grocery shopping at the Mart of Walls. And SCORE! Totally unexpected in the DVD section, a BABYLON 5 BOXED SET! Having heard of how bad the semi-pirate ones you find on Amazon are, and once suffered from a BitTorrent that some "Clever" guy thought he could compress by speeding the episodes up, I'm looking forward to an official re-release. $60, and worth it, I'm sure.

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More!

Posted by: J Greely at November 03, 2024 05:30 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at November 08, 2024 06:36 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at November 26, 2024 07:01 PM (LZ7Bg)

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One thing I did to help pass the strike-time (which frankly, I wasted with extreme profligacy) was pick up an Ardruino Uno R3 project board and kit from Eligoo, along with the extra 37 sensor pack. And since then I've been slowly working my way through the tutorials. Which isn't so much tutorial as connecting the wires and running the example code. Although occasionally I would edit them a bit.

I hit a hitch though when it turned out that one of the examples was bogus. After doing the one that ran a simple 7 segment display using an extra 8-bit latch chip, the example that ran the 4-gang 7-segment display didn't actually light up each digit differently and strobe through them, it just ran them all in parallel. Eventually I found someone else's example which skipped the latch chip (which, unfortunately consumes more pins) but I made it work.

It was also around this time I discovered water damage and possibly a little black mold in the basement drywall (Could just be dirt though, there was some mud-like buildup on the concrete below). I traced the source and discovered the dishwasher was leaking through a little tiny seal around the shaft that opens the drain valve. It only leaks about two ounces of water per load, so it never became visible under the dishwasher. I might have never noticed the problem if they had not stopped the vinyl flooring just under the front of the machine. Instead, it soaked the particle-board underlayment in a well defined pool, and eventually made it through the OSB flooring into the wet-wall of the laundry room downstairs. I'll deal with the damage later. The leak was addressed with a couple of YouTube videos and a minor parts purchase on Amazon. The actual part installation should have been simple after I got the machine out, but one minor mistake turned it into a major undertaking, as the shaft the drain valve plate rotates on came out, leaving the plate rattling around inside the pump housing with no way to take it out. Still, I eventually prevailed. And I tossed an old cookie sheet under the dishwasher just in case, but it's really not necessary.

But the reason for that roundabout story is that to get from an $11 parts kit to free shipping, I picked up a few more toys to hook up to the Ardruino. a set of three 32x8 grid LED displays and 5 of these microscopic <1" 64x128 OLED screens. The funny thing is, the chip that runs the 8x8 units (4 of which are daisy chained to make the 32 LED length) was originally designed to run 7 segment displays (plus the decimal point). And theoretically, all three units can be daisy-chained together to make something like one of those scrolling displays you see in some stores. There are code libraries that can make these displays do all kinds of tricks. the OLED displays are just pure bit-addressable space. But again, there are Arduino libraries already written to do sophisticated graphics and fonts. It's almost too easy. It all worked the first time I hooked it up. And they each only use four wires.

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...but this is a thing:

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Somehow, I'm all caught up.

Ah, that's why, I've been filing the Monogatari and Re:Zero shows into their own category....

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You'd think by the third episode we'd be past infodumps, but no. On the other hand, we finally get our tanned-white-haired girl (shame about the heterochromia). But since she's been trained to be a deadly assassin instead of a seeker-scout, she needs shit explained to her.

Okay, that's interesting, I just noted that the Ember release has two sets of English subs. I'm not quite sure which is more literal.

Anyway, Alma seems to alternate between sweet and innocent and jaded and cynical, depending on how closely the topic is related to the assassin's guild, which she was forced to leave after her Grandfather, the leader and founder, died a month or two ago. The new management is more interested in working intel for the monarchy than being into murder for hire, so she was booted.

He gives her a test to see how compatible with his buffs she is, and the answer is very. So they set off to do a bandit protection job for a small town as a first task for their new clan. Halfway there they get stuck in the last room available and some level-setting occurs.

Anyway, have a de-panned shot.

Posted by: J Greely at October 17, 2024 03:33 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at October 22, 2024 02:35 PM (nk1Z+)

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