Matrice 4 Support
Good morning,
I realize the Matrice 4 announcement is very new, but I currently use Mavic 2 Pro as backup to my M3E and am interested in purchasing the M4E and moving M3E to backup slot.
Any "soft date" on Dronelink compatibility with the new M4 series? Understand if it's not known yet, or can't be revealed.
Just curious. Thanks.
Comments
17 comments
The latest beta should already let it connect, but we don't have a unit to test it.
Thanks Jim!
How would I access the beta to test it?
Dennis
It is already in production. Again, we haven’t tested it so this is unofficial support.
I dont see it on the download page, or am I overlooking it? Sorry, just didn't find it.
Dennis
Like I said, it’s unofficial. You just download the same APK as all the other MSDKv5 drones (M3E, Mini 3, etc).
Jim,
Ah, now I understand. Thank you for your patience.
I will try it out and provide feedback, later this week.
Thank you again!
D
Hi, dalancas. I was able to pickup a Matrice 4 at a really good price.
How did your testing go? Were you able to use all functions of Dronelink?
Hi Jim McAndrew,
Assuming most of the Matrice line's support is "unofficial" is due to the high cost of purchasing all of those models to test.
Do you know if you'll be getting a unit to fully test, or will the M4E/T be "unofficial" support?
If not, how do we know what features work (what goes into "unofficial" support) if you're unable to physically test?
Thanks!
Hi Marc,
I was able to setup a few test missions in Drone Link and fly them and didn't notice any anomalies.
I selected the Mavic 3-Enterprise - Wide as my drone, which is a M4E. Of course my previous drone I used was a Mavic 2 Pro HD, so I noticed the mission taking fewer photos and running the mission faster.
This is expected since the M3E is faster and more efficient at same overlaps (I usually do 75front, 70-80 side). The maps I ran look pretty good but again this is comparing M2P and M4E, with the M2P being well used and the sensor could be faded from heavy use? Maybe, or maybe the sensor in the M4E is just better, but the photos taken look crisper.
Video is also better, I actually ran an Orbit at 150ft and it was pretty good quality. I noticed occasional jitter but I think it was the winds at that altitude and not some software bug. I have flown on less windy days and didnt see any jitter in hand flights.
I think its likely quite compatible using the M3E settings. Cant confirm everything as I have only created orbit and map missions. I tried to do some Waypoint missions, but just ran short of time and removed them. I havent loaded or run them.
On the controller everything seems to work great. Nice to have the map window when running the mission--mine crashed on the M2P and never worked. Loading the mission initially is also much faster. On M2P it took about 1-1.5 minutes for a large map mission to load prior to running the mission. Now its like seconds to initialize and the drone is ready to run the mission.
Just some observations. I am experimenting with mission creation in Pilot 2, which is cool feature. And also have been looking through Flighthub 2 and run a few missions with it. Bigger learning curve than DL, which is very easy to create a mission and get it ready to run. Flighthub 2 looks good and lots of features, but costs more and not sure its worth changing work flow for me.
Thats all I have for now. Probably not much different than M3E missions, but I never owned a M3E to provide valuable comparison. But, love it way more than the M2P, which is a great drone to learn your chops.
Dennis
We are going to try.
This is what we typically say when we don't have a unit to test, or if the drone has lots of complicated hardware features (like multiple, interchangeable sensors and cameras) and we don't support the special hardware.
Jim, thanks so much for the clarification!
Dennis,
GREAT information, thank you!
I'm currently running M3E as primary, M2P as backup. M2P's orbitals in DL just aren't as good as M3E, as I see good amount of side-to-side movement, especially when sped up (we create orbitals from clips of repeated visits to jobsites and stitch them together, and when you speed up 500x or 1000x, the side-to-side movement is more pronounced).
You're also getting less photos as the FOV of the M3E is wider than the M2P.
Since the M4E has the same wide angle camera as the M3E, choosing the M3E camera makes sense. FlightHub 2 has a free option, which allows you to have access to all the planning tools. You only have to pay the monthly/yearly fee if you're live streaming, processing mapping images (I use Maps Made Easy), or remotely flying your fleet. I am also going to experiment with FH2 as well. We use Pilot 2 for larger maps, since it supports onboard Waypoint missions (as well as virtual stick).
I'm so glad to hear there are no hitches so far. I'll get mine on the 20th. Thanks for all the info and testing you've done!
I had a new issue come up yesterday during an Orbit op. Just taking a video, nothing special. Got nearly 1/3rd through the mission and the drone would stop and a message stating the drone was off course. I hand flew it a little then decided to press the paused play button.
It went back, roughly, to where the mission was interrupted and started flying the route again. It didnt get far and same error and I unpaused it serveral more times before giving up. I then landed and stopped DL and started DJI pilot to hand fly the orbit mission.
The drone was definitely not out of range and winds were under 20MPH. No idea why it would be thinking it was off course, and, why it wasnt corrected. Very strange and I have not see that before.
DJI Pilot was fully stopped before starting DL, and the prebuilt mission. I had 4 of 5 bars for controller range and no battery issues. Again, a simple video only mission and the video did stop when it got the message, and the video started when it got back on the planned track.
I aborted the mission today and now have logs in AirData, but no anomalies I see that explain the error.
https://app.airdata.com/share/bBELsP
Drone too far off-course is usually due to the speed of the drone is too fast and/or flying in higher winds. Slow down the drones speed and see how it works. Also the drone was at about 32 mph in winds of about 15 to 21 mph gusts with a signal strength which went down to 40% at times at a distance of over a half mile.
Yeah, agree with Mike here. I slowed all my orbit missions for M3E to 17mph and it’s been great.
Mike/Marc,
Appreciate the input. I will take it down in speed and see what impact that has next time in the field. I had set Motion Limits max to 10mph, but forgot to set the mission speed down-- I had it set to 30mph. Will change that going forward.
Thank you!
D
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