3DR Solo Quadcopter Review

Introduction

It all start­ed in 2007 with a man named Chris Ander­son. At that time, he wrote best­sellers for the NY Times and at the same time was the edi­tor-in-chief of Wired mag­a­zine. Chris built his first drone at home with his kids using Lego Mind Machine build­ing blocks. Chris had quite a few options for UAVs of his own design, he grad­u­al­ly got into this busi­ness so much that in the process of his evo­lu­tion he found­ed the well-known Inter­net resource DIY­Drones, which lat­er grew into the world’s largest com­mu­ni­ty of robot­ics devel­op­ers.

At DIY­Drones, he meets Jor­di Muñoz. Jor­di claimed his genius by cre­at­ing a ful­ly func­tion­ing autopi­lot based on the Nin­ten­do Wii remote.

By 2012, their busi­ness had grown far beyond the DIY com­mu­ni­ty. Chris left his job at Wired to join Jor­di as the new CEO of 3DR. Next, a team was assem­bled, thanks to which a unique uni­ver­sal flight code was writ­ten, which was lat­er called APM. It was on this code that the 3DR devel­oped the famous Pix­hawk. After 2 years of painstak­ing work, the com­pa­ny offers the con­sumer its first cre­ations — UAV IRIS and IRIS +. A year lat­er, 3DRobotics presents its best inven­tion, cre­at­ed to com­pete with such a giant as DJI Inno­va­tions, the 3DR Solo smart drone.

About the product

Solo says with all its appear­ance that you have a high-tech prod­uct in your hands. The drone is ready to fly out of the box with­out being tied to the expe­ri­ence of own­ing a drone. Pilot­ing this drone will be mas­tered by any user, and it does not mat­ter at all that he has nev­er done it before.

The main pur­pose of the drone is pro­fes­sion­al, high­ly intel­li­gent and high-qual­i­ty pho­to and video shoot­ing. To pro­vide the drone with such auton­o­my, the devel­op­ers have seri­ous­ly worked on the elec­tron­ic fill­ing of not only the drone itself, but also the con­trol pan­el.

Both the drone and the remote con­trol oper­ate under the Lin­ux oper­at­ing sys­tem.

The drone is con­trolled by a clas­sic remote con­trol paired with any gad­get run­ning on IOS or Android through the 3DR SOLO APP. The video image from the drone’s cam­era, infor­ma­tion about the flight itself and the oper­a­tion of aux­il­iary sys­tems, as well as flight set­tings, cam­eras and all avail­able pro­grammed flight modes will be dis­played on the dis­play via Wi-Fi.

Modes

There are six pro­grammed modes in the arse­nal of the 3DR Solo quadro­copter, and as the devel­op­er assures, this list will be reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed.

Cable Cam – in this mode, the drone can fly autonomous­ly along the giv­en way­points, which the pilot indi­cates before take­off, which in turn allows you to ful­ly focus sole­ly on shoot­ing. The mode has a num­ber of fine set­tings, thanks to which the out­put is excel­lent video mate­r­i­al.

Orbi­ta — Using this mode, the drone can fly around a giv­en point. Using the dis­play of a smart­phone / tablet inter­faced with the con­trol equip­ment, the pilot sets the flight para­me­ters, after which the drone makes a cir­cu­lar flight around the spec­i­fied coor­di­nate. More­over, you can inter­vene in the shoot­ing process and adjust the drone’s flight speed, shoot­ing angle and removal dis­tance with­out affect­ing the drone con­trol process, since the flight is car­ried out in ful­ly auto­mat­ic mode.

Self­ie — the pur­pose of this mode is already clear from the name. Before fly­ing, you need to set the set­tings that deter­mine at what dis­tance and height, as well as at what speed the sur­vey will be made. The drone flight algo­rithm in this mode is as fol­lows: when the mode is acti­vat­ed, the drone’s atten­tion is trans­ferred to the pilot, the drone freezes for a short time, then starts to move away at a pre­de­ter­mined speed and to a pre­vi­ous­ly set dis­tance and height, then it freezes and starts mov­ing back towards the source of atten­tion. At what point to start shoot­ing is up to the user.

Fol­low - pur­suit mode. In addi­tion to ful­ly autonomous oper­a­tion, the mode has a num­ber of fine set­tings that set var­i­ous options for fol­low­ing an object. For exam­ple, the pilot can tell the drone which side of the sub­ject to be on while film­ing, or you can split duties where the drone will pur­sue and the pilot will film and vice ver­sa.

Zipline- this mode pro­vides autonomous flight exclu­sive­ly in the for­ward direc­tion, while the pilot is left to focus sole­ly on shoot­ing. Dur­ing the flight, it is pos­si­ble to adjust the speed and direc­tion. The mode is acti­vat­ed with one click, with­out any set­tings.

pano- In this mode, the drone can take beau­ti­ful panoram­ic shots. There are two shoot­ing options “Pho­to Pano” or “Video Pano”. Video Pano is a ful­ly auto­mat­ic process that does not require any inter­ven­tion from the user. Pho­to Pano offers to per­form a choice of either a spher­i­cal panora­ma or a cylin­dri­cal panora­ma. Cylin­dri­cal panora­ma shoots exclu­sive­ly along the hori­zon up to 360º. Spher­i­cal — also cap­tures the bot­tom in the frame. The algo­rithm of work here and there is that the drone itself will shoot pho­to­graph­ic mate­r­i­al from dif­fer­ent angles, which will sub­se­quent­ly be com­piled into one large panoram­ic frame.

flight properties

The 3DR Solo has proven itself in flight, pow­er­ful motors cou­pled with impec­ca­ble elec­tron­ics pro­vide the drone with excel­lent flight char­ac­ter­is­tics. High-speed ceil­ing — 89 km / h, ver­ti­cal lift­ing speed — up to 36 km / h, max­i­mum lift­ing height — 122 meters (elec­tron­i­cal­ly lim­it­ed). The wind resis­tance of the drone deserves spe­cial respect.

The devel­op­ers man­aged to fit 35 sen­sors and 20 micro­proces­sors into the 3DR Solo car­bon-fiber body, which togeth­er pro­vide the auton­o­my of the quad at a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el.

The mod­u­lar design of the 3DR Solo offers a detailed replace­ment of dam­aged or failed com­po­nents, which in turn will sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the own­er’s costs for dam­ages after an acci­dent.

Camera

Drone 3DR Solo is ful­ly adapt­ed to GoPRO 3(4) cam­eras. There is no cam­era in the pack­age of the drone, it is pur­chased sep­a­rate­ly. The man­u­fac­tur­er explained this approach by the fact that at the cur­rent time there are no bet­ter cam­eras than GoPRO on the mar­ket, unfor­tu­nate­ly, and only cam­eras from this man­u­fac­tur­er, in their opin­ion, are ide­al for Solo.

It should be not­ed right away that “ful­ly adapt­ed to the cam­era” means that the drone’s elec­tron­ics exer­cise full con­trol over the cam­era, up to the con­stant recharg­ing of its bat­tery using the drone’s own resources.

Equipment

The man­u­fac­tur­er offers the quad­copter in two trim lev­els:

Solo with 3‑Axis Gimbal

• Drone
• Drone Bat­tery (5200mAh 14.8V DC LiPo)
• 3‑Axis Gyro-sta­bi­lized Gim­bal for GoPRO Cam­era
• Con­trol equip­ment (pow­ered by a 600 mAh 7.2 Vdc LiPo bat­tery)
• 4 × load-bear­ing mul­ti­di­rec­tion­al pro­pellers
• 2 × spare mul­ti­di­rec­tion­al rotors
• Charg­er for the trans­mit­ter (requires an adapter for our sock­ets)
• Drone Bat­tery Charg­er
• Adapter wire (for con­nect­ing the charg­er to the drone bat­tery)
• Mains cable (220V) for drone charg­er
• Instructions/Tips and Warn­ings (two illus­trat­ed inserts)
  

* GoPRO cam­era not includ­ed.

Solo W/Pre-Installed Gimbal in 3DR Backpack

• Drone
• 2 × drone bat­tery (5200mAh 14.8V DC LiPo)
• 3‑axis gyro-sta­bi­lized gim­bal for GoPro cam­era (top gim­bal from 3DRobotics with it the full poten­tial of the drone is real­ized)
• Con­trol equip­ment (pow­ered by a 600mAh 7.2 Vdc LiPo bat­tery)
• 4 × load-bear­ing mul­ti­di­rec­tion­al pro­pellers
• 2 × spare mul­ti­di­rec­tion­al rotors
• Charg­er for con­trol equip­ment (requires an adapter for our sock­ets)
• Drone Bat­tery Charg­er
• Adapter wire (for con­nect­ing the charg­er to the drone bat­tery)
• Mains cable (220V) for drone charg­er
• Back­pack (case for trans­port­ing the drone and acces­sories)
• Instructions/Tips and Warn­ings (two illus­trat­ed inserts)

* GoPRO cam­era not includ­ed.

Accessories

• Ave­g­ant Glyph (FPV gog­gles with head­phones)
• 3DR Back­pack (case for trans­port­ing the drone and acces­sories)
• 3‑axis gyro-sta­bi­lized gim­bal for GoPro cam­era
• drone bat­tery
• Bear­ing mul­ti­di­rec­tion­al pro­pellers
• 3DR con­trol equip­ment
• Drone Bat­tery Charg­er
• Hold­er for mobile device (installed on the con­trol equip­ment)
• Rub­ber dampers for 3‑axis gim­bal
• Charg­er for con­trol equip­ment (requires an adapter for our sock­ets)

As 3DRobotics assures, by pur­chas­ing 3DR Solo, the con­sumer receives a “long-last­ing” high-tech prod­uct, which they promise to con­stant­ly improve. With the 3DR Solo, there is no need to buy a new drone every year, it will be enough to update the drone soft­ware (sim­i­lar to updat­ing a mobile phone). With each update, the quad­copter will get more fea­tures and get bet­ter.

Appearance

Specification

GPS:

there is

FPV:

there is

Return home func­tion:

there is

Dis­tance con­trol func­tion:

there is

Max­i­mum flight range:

up to 1000m

Fol­low me fea­ture:

there is

Alti­tude hold mode:

there is

AV sig­nal trans­mis­sion:

3DR Link secure Wi-Fi net­work

Radio fre­quen­cy:

2.4GHz

FPV dis­play:

any gad­get on IOS/Android

FPV Gog­gles:

sup­ports

Drone bat­tery type:

5200 mAh 14.8VDC LiPo

Flight time:

up to 20 min­utes (up to 15 min­utes with pay­load)

Max Speed:

89km/h

Max­i­mum lift­ing speed:

up to 36 km/h

Max lift­ing height:

122m (elec­tron­i­cal­ly lim­it­ed)

Max­i­mum load capac­i­ty:

800gr.

Autopilot/Software:

APM/Pixhawk 2

Motors:

brush­less type 880kV

Drone light­ing:

LED on each drone beam

Charg­ing time:

≈ 1.5h

Drone weight:

1.8kg

Fly­ing envi­ron­ment:

Indoor/Outdoor

*Sony R10C cam­era on 3‑axis gim­bal

Battery

The 3DR Solo lithi­um poly­mer bat­tery is part of the drone, the design­ers packed it into a box and installed it on top of the drone. A but­ton for turn­ing on the drone is mount­ed in the bat­tery box itself, and from the end of the box, under the but­ton, there is an LED indi­ca­tion of the state of charge of the bat­tery. As a result, it is con­ve­nient and most impor­tant­ly, you can quick­ly change the bat­tery, and the pilot will always be aware of its cur­rent charge.

Motors

Proven 880kv brush­less motors, 3DRobotics’ own design. Ful­ly real­ize the full poten­tial of the drone.

Control equipment

The 3DR Solo has one of the most con­ve­nient remotes, absolute­ly noth­ing more. Qual­i­ty of exe­cu­tion at the lev­el of Pre­mi­um class. The built-in LCD dis­play between the sticks pro­vides brief, but at the same time nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion about the flight and the oper­a­tion of the main sys­tems. All con­trols are in place and intu­itive. Note that the HDMI port present in the arse­nal of equip­ment, thanks to which the pilot will be able to con­nect not only a TV to broad­cast bright frames online, but also FPV gog­gles, and this is a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent feel­ing from fly­ing, advanced pilots will con­firm!

Hardware functionality

*LCD dis­play of con­trol equip­ment.

The 3DR SOLO appli­ca­tion received a built-in flight sim­u­la­tor, thanks to which the user can prac­tice drone con­trol with­out resort­ing to prac­tice.

Avegant Glyph

3DRobotics is posi­tion­ing Ave­g­ant Glyph as: “Made for Solo Prod­ucts”. They sit on your head like ordi­nary head­phones, move the rim to eye lev­el and get unique FPV gog­gles, which sim­ply have no ana­logues. They are capa­ble of stream­ing video to any IOS/Android device and are built with the patent­ed Reti­nal Imag­ing Tech­nol­o­gy, which uses advanced optics and an array of two mil­lion micro-mir­rors to project images right into your eyes. Ave­g­ant Glyph is a major break­through in this cat­e­go­ry of high-tech prod­ucts. Cur­rent­ly, the aver­age price of such a media head­set is $396.59.

Specification

Per­mis­sion:

1280×720p per eye; 2 mil­lion micro mir­rors

Aspect Ratio:

16:9

Height:

101.6mm

Width:

190.5mm

Depth:

190.5mm

The weight:

411g

Line of sight:

40° diag­o­nal

Video/Audio out­put:

micro HDMI

Audio out­put:

3.5mm TRRS (Stan­dard AUX)

Fre­quen­cy response:

20Hz — 20kHz

Dynam­ic Range:

95dB

Bat­tery life:

More than 4 hours in video mode

Bat­tery Type:

LiPo built in

Bat­tery capac­i­ty

2060mAh

Bat­tery Charg­ing Port:

microUSB

Diopter adjust­ment, range:

+1 to ‑7

3D mode:

com­pat­i­ble 720p side-by-side (SBS) con­tent

Upgrad­able Firmware:

for advanced fea­tures and capa­bil­i­ties

Equipment

• Ave­g­ant Glyph
• 4 × inter­change­able nose inserts (based on the phys­i­o­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of the nose)
• Belt
• Lens cap
• Car­ry bag
• HDMI cable
• USB cable
• Quick Start Guide, War­ran­ty and Safe­ty Data Sheet

Conclusion

3DR Solo $399.99

Func­tion­al­i­ty

10/10

Flight time

9/10

flight qual­i­ties

10/10

com­pact­ness

6/10

Equip­ment

10/10

Reli­a­bil­i­ty

10/10

Price qual­i­ty

10/10

pros

• Qual­i­ty
• Design
• Mod­u­lar design
• Flight char­ac­ter­is­tics
• Gyro-sta­bi­lized 3‑axis gim­bal
• APM on Pix­hawk 2
• FPV
• OS Lin­ux (drone / remote con­trol)
• Unique pre-pro­grammed flight modes
• Mod­u­lar design

Minuses

• Can­not fly around obsta­cles
• Adapt­ed only for GoPro cam­eras
• No cam­eras includ­ed
• No man­u­fac­tur­er sup­port for Russ­ian users
• The house­hold ver­sion of the drone is not offi­cial­ly released

This is the first of its kind smart drone “sharp­ened” for shoot­ing. The man­u­fac­tur­er has sub­tly stud­ied its com­peti­tors and as a result, the 3DR Solo is not like any of them. Solo is designed to shoot and thanks to the unique elec­tron­ics, he does it at a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el. Suit­able for pilots of any lev­el from begin­ner to pro. Does not require spe­cial train­ing. To date, the 3DR Solo is no longer sold as a con­sumer drone, the com­pa­ny has recon­sid­ered its inter­ests and suc­cess­ful­ly pro­motes the prod­uct exclu­sive­ly for com­mer­cial use. Age lim­it 18+.

A photo

Pho­to with 3DR Solo drone.

Video

Video with 3DR Solo drone.