[Music]
dji's latest drone is a bold step in a
new direction
fpv or first person view refers to the
way that the drone
or quadcopter in this case is piloted
rather than once the quad as you fly
these goggles show you a live feed of
the camera so you see what the quad is
seeing the fpv segment of the drone
market is heavily repair focused and for
good reason
these quads fly fast and crash hard
dji is selling some repair parts but
that list pales in comparison to the
extreme modularity of diy quads
hopefully dji has tweaked their usual
design formula to account for that extra
crash ability
because if so this quad could be a
beginner friendly option for an
otherwise difficult hobby
if you can afford the price tag to
understand what makes the dji fpv
unique you need to understand how the
diy quads work
this is my first fpv quad it's a lot
smaller than the dji fpv
but it has all the components that an
fpv quad needs under the blue housing is
a flight controller
this is the brain of the quad unlike
cinematography drones
this board isn't home to an array of
fancy sensors or artificial intelligence
processors that help the quad fly itself
fpv is all about the experience of
flying the pilot is in full control of
every little movement the quad makes
the board inside this drone has a motion
sensor a low power cpu
and then a bunch of voltage regulators
and solder pads for attaching motors and
other components
in addition to the flight controller fc
for short an fpv quad needs an
electronic speed controller
esc for short a camera a video
transmitter
a radio transmitter motors and
propellers oh and then
a controller and some goggles so these
parts make up a typical fpv quad the
list is short but
jam-packed with abbreviations and
technical components with very
particular compatibility
all that can be pretty intimidating for
a newcomer now let's look at the new
alternative the dji fpv combo
this 1300 quadcopter kit includes
everything you need to get out and fly
fpv
all wrapped up in the familiar dji
polish it's got four obstacle avoidance
sensors
a one axis gimbal and a shock mount for
the 4k camera
a timer flight sensor and an ultra
bright led for automatic landings
and some customizable accent leds all
that of course
in addition to the necessary motors
propellers
and a big old battery that gets you
about 10 minutes of flight time
the fpv combo kit also comes with
version 2 of dji's fpv goggles and
controller
dji sort of revolutionized the fpv
market a couple years ago with the
introduction of the first version of
these goggles
which worked with a special fpv camera
and video transmitter that you could add
to just about any hobby quad
more on that later before we begin our
disassembly i'll remove that battery
along with all four propellers the first
step in our journey is to use the hex
key
dji so graciously provides to take out
four screws in this plate around the
gimbal
our driver ends up being a bit quicker
so i'm actually going to stick with that
from here on out
next a few more screws hold down the
clear canopy dji throws in an extra
canopy in case you break this one
or in case your favorite color is neon
green with the canopy gone four more hex
screws and a cable stand between us and
the camera and gimbal
it's nice to see that the camera system
is pretty simple to replace since this
assembly is likely the first thing to
break when you crash
a replacement will set you back 129 us
dollars which is pricey but that's a lot
less than 700
for a whole new drone let's hope the
arms are also this easy to replace
before we get to the arms let's hunt for
some silicon this metal fin plate might
just look like a cool body piece but its
real job is thermal management
four screws pull off the plate around it
then two more hidden in the battery well
hold the spreader down
underneath is what looks like the
electronic speed controller and
all these soldered connections here are
the motor wires a quick note on solder
connections
typically we take a soft stance against
them since in many consumer devices they
can act as a barrier to repair
because not everyone has access to
soldering equipment a great example of
this
is the joysticks in playstation and xbox
controllers
in drones particularly fpv drones solder
connections often make the most sense
because they provide the best connection
to power for better performance from the
motors and the antennas
thankfully these solder joints are nice
and big because judging by the
construction of the legs i'm guessing
you'll have to desolder the motor wires
here to replace a broken leg after a
crash
to avoid this video being 40 minutes
long we'll spare you some of the next
steps
getting to the flight controller boards
was a complex stance of unscrewing
prying and guesswork thankfully these
boards aren't likely to need
replacements but if they ever do
let's hope future ifixit has written a
guide for them by then the dji fpv quad
does a lot more processing than most
hobby quads
these flight controllers are evidence of
that extra complexity to keep the design
compact and aerodynamic
dji designed these two boards to sit in
a v shape with a single copper heat pipe
to cool both of them
the little fan and plenty of thermal
paste help keep things as cool as
possible under the canopy
finally let's look at the legs after the
camera the legs are the parts most
likely to take the full force of a crash
and need replacement
unfortunately the legs aren't quite as
simple as the camera to replace
i start by pulling out all the screws on
the bottom of the right leg then there's
one more big screw inside the battery
compartment
that loosens the leg and then from here
if those wires were disordered
i think you'd pull the whole leg off
motor and all that said
arms and motors aren't even on the list
of available spare parts yet
so a broken arm may just land you a trip
to dji headquarters for a repair anyway
so about fpv goggles for a long time fpv
pilots have used low resolution cameras
paired with an analog video transmitter
to keep the latency between the camera
and the video feed in the goggles at a
minimum
which is a necessity for high speed
flying the result is acceptable but the
analog video feed to the goggles leaves
a lot to be desired
then in 2019 dji released their fpv air
unit and version 1 goggles which
thanks to some special compression sauce
and dji tech were able to use a digital
video transmission with a low enough
latency for high speed flight
it was a big deal a digital video
transmission has several benefits
longer range a cleaner higher resolution
feed to the goggles
and the ability to record and transmit
from a single camera these version 2
goggles look the same as version 1 and
seem to only have a couple minor changes
under the hood
but we never tore down the version 1
goggles so we're excited about them
anyway
first i removed the black metal plate
from the face of the goggles then all
the visible screws underneath in hopes
of pulling away the light gray housing
to get to the meat of the goggles
no luck though a few minutes of
investigation reveals some screws hidden
under the velcro of the face pads and
our guesswork finally gets us somewhere
the first few layers come up revealing
even more layers and more screws
fast forward some more and i'm finally
able to remove the optics from the
housing
but before they're fully freed a few
more screws hold down a metal plate
covering the antenna
connectors from here you can see how the
ipd or interpupillary distance adjusters
work
moving each lens unit back and forth
individually the two display panels on
the back are 2 inch 144 hertz panels
which is a slight upgrade from the 120
hertz panels in the v1 goggles
and thanks to some new antenna hardware
these v2 goggles are able to play back a
live video feed from the drone on those
screens at up to 810p
so the dji fpva combo is a genuinely
interesting quadcopter kit
it's expensive but it provides a
beginner-friendly all-in-one entry to an
otherwise complex hobby
it's really unfortunate that that
friendliness doesn't extend to the
repair experience while the gimbal and
the camera were pretty easy to access
basically any other repairs are probably
going to have to be done by dji
whether that's because you don't have
access to the parts or you don't have
the tools or patients to complete the
overly complicated repair
the end result is the same more money
spent more time spent on the ground
contrast that with the hyper repair
ability and widely available parts of
do-it-yourself fpv quads
and you've got a pretty tough sell even
considering the steep learning curve of
non-dji
fpd flying that doesn't make this thing
any less fun to fly though
you