Notable things getting to know Neo

[Droning on and on...]

Put the three batteries in the charger, expecting them to charge in parallel, and that's not what happened.

Instead, it charged one for a bit, stopped, switch to the next, charged for a bit, then switched to the third. This continued round-robin until I unplugged it, removed two, and tried charging one.

This is charging as expected, pulling 20W.

What have others seen with the charge hub? I thought it did parallel charging...

 

[Old Man Mavic]

it all depends on the output of the charging brick you are using,anything over 65w will charge them all at the same time ,but it will only charge 2 of them first ,if a 45w charger is used
it seems to put some charge into each battery, untill they all have a similar amount of charge ,then it continues till they are full,it is totally different to previous charge hubs in the way it works

 

[Kilrah]

Yup, depends on the supply you're using.

If it's powerful enough (60W) it'll first bring up the lower batts to the level of the most charged one then parallel all 3.

 

[Droning on and on...]

I was using a 240W PD charger with 100W max per channel.

Looks like it was just a "new battery" thing. After the first battery fully charged alone, I removed it and put the other two in; they acted weird again until two lights were blinking, then they started charging normally in parallel, and the hub was drawing around 40W from the supply.

EDIT: Yup, hibernation. Manual says you need to start charging them in the drone to take it out of hibernation. I was able to do this with the hub, but I had to get each of them going individually alone in the hub before they would all charge in parallel.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Very first flight, autonomous dronie and rocket:

Second oddity: Would only record 9 seconds. Both videos were split in two.

EDIT: Still odd to me, but this is intended behavior according to the manual. Dronie and Rocket record separate videos on the way out, and then back in.

Third oddity: upon return from the Rocket, it stopped in a Hover above just out of reach. I finally got it to come down and land in my palm, but I had to do a lot of maneuvering my hand to trigger it.

 

[Chrislaf]

Congrats on your new NEO! Hopefully you will get all the ‘oddities’ sorted out.

Chris

 

[Droning on and on...]

Moving up the control ladder... Connected and flew just fine with my phone. Glad to have this option if trouble occurs, but it otherwise totally stinks.

Biggest thing I noticed right away is the lack of physical feedback from sprung sticks with a center. When you fly with virtual screen sticks, you discover just how much you depend on that physical feedback. To "re-center", you have to lift your thumb from the screen.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Voice Control

I like it. I will be using it for sure. It's the easiest, fastest way to modify Quickshot parameters, like distance and height.

Keep in mind "I like it" doesn’t mean I like flying it that way (you can't really), but for selfie-drone uses, it's a valuable feature.

 

[Chrislaf]

Moving up the control ladder... Connected and flew just fine with my phone. Glad to have this option if trouble occurs, but it otherwise totally stinks.

Biggest thing I noticed right away is the lack of physical feedback from sprung sticks with a center. When you fly with virtual screen sticks, you discover just how much you depend on that physical feedback. To "re-center", you have to lift your thumb from the screen.

I imagine it’s like the on screen sticks on Tello - the drone is less responsive than on a physical controller.

Chris

 

[Droning on and on...]

Okay, paired up with the RC2 for some real actual flying.

Overall, it was quite fun. Took it up to 100ft and buzzed around the neighborhood. Got 1000ft away with a solid, strong connection. Aside from some "how it feels" differences, it flies like any other DJI drone. Also all the usual controls/settings are there, including PRO camera settings.

Discoveries:

• The camera view is stabilized with EIS in 16:9.
• Rolling left/right produces some significant yaw movement in the image. This probably has something to do with EIS, and I suspect can be greatly improved.
• The sticks feel just a little "squishy", like there's some hysteresis in the response to changes. Probably some EIS effects, the flight physics of the super light drone, and some stuff that can be tuned and improved in a later firmware release.
• Camera overexposes. You can see it in the video earlier in the thread. Got some nice looking footage outdoors fixing ISO to 100 and dialing EV down to -1. Hopefully we'll get these PRO camera features exposed in the app-based manual control.

FPV tomorrow, more to come

 

[Droning on and on...]

I imagine it’s like the on screen sticks on Tello - the drone is less responsive than on a physical controller.

Very much so! Will only be useful in an emergency to get it back, or for the most basic "flying camera" situations.

Stills, being what they are, will work. Forget any "cinematic" video controlling it this way, though... I'd have to change my video label to Ham-Handed Productions

 

[Chrislaf]

Thanks for the detailed feedback - very helpful!

Chris

 

[GFields]

I use a 100w charging brick and they charge at the same time.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Anyone else having trouble getting it ti see your palm to come down and land?

I'm having a devil of a time, and had to pull out the phone and connect one time (which was it's own trouble-filled experience) to land it.

 

[Kilrah]

Nope, pretty reliiable here.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Nope, pretty reliiable here.

Well, reading the "Palm Control" section of the manual helped. A lot.

I was "jumping the gun" too much and being patient enough for it to completely finish the automated shot.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Congrats on your new NEO! Hopefully you will get all the ‘oddities’ sorted out.

Chris

Didn't you say elsewhere you got one?

 

[Chrislaf]

Didn't you say elsewhere you got one?

No I haven’t bought one yet. I’m still on the fence.

Chris

 

[tstr14]

I use a 100w charging brick and they charge at the same time.

Ditto. When I first plugged in, the charger went back and forth on the three batteries for about 4 or 5 minutes, like it was leveling them out, then started charging them all simultaneously, Took around an hour and they were all charged.

 

[Anzacjack]

You must be getting closer to deciding @Chrislaf. You’ve certainly been very active here. Haha. Just do it. You’ll enjoy it