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Anafi Thermal Experience (not so great)

techspy

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May 11, 2019
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First, I LOVE the idea that there is a DJI competitor such as Parrot. I have a couple Discos and have the 4g mod etc and love them. I got my Anafi Thermal he day it was released. I like it overall but have had some issues.

- First day flying I was in sport mode going forward pretty quickly at about 15 feet altitude. It started to lose altitude. I let go of the sticks and it still kept dropping even though I added throttle. It actually hit the ground and flipped. No damage but no idea why this happened. The logs seem to show the battery sagging pretty good but no low battery warning etc.

- Several times while switching from thermal to visible and visa-versa, the video stream just goes black. I still have telemetry and sometimes can get the video back by switching the video again. Sometimes not. Restarting the app NEVER fixes it. Restarting the RC sometimes fixes it, restarting the AC always fixes it.

- The interface is laggy. Taking photos, starting/stopping video, switching between video streams, changing parameters is always laggy. I am using an Invida Shield so it isn't the tablet that is causing the problem.

- Batteries are "touchy". I accidentally turn on the battery sometimes when installing it and I am not even touching the power button. Seems too much pressure anywhere on the top of the battery can cause it to turn on. I have even had the leds light up just closing the arms! Not even touching the top of the battery! No idea if it is an issue with the connections or what.

- Not much documentation/Parrot support. I have yet to find an in-depth overview of what all the options are. Especially for the thermal options. I have also not been able to find an official Parrot support forum.

- The horrible controller. Ok, the controller does the job but man is it cheap feeling! The sticks are pretty bad. The lack of a power button is just ridiculous. They expect you to remove the tablet and remove the tablet hold every every time you take a break from flying? I actually added a proper power button to mine and it is SO much better.

- The app only detects the RC about 50% of the time. I have to replug the USB to get the app to see the RC about half the time.

- The latest app required 7.0 android or later. Fortunately my Nvidia shield is 7.0 but I would have liked to use it on my CrystalSky or my other main tablet.

Anyway, my biggest complaint is the loss of video when switching streams. Hopefully this will be fixed in a FW update. Anyone else having any of these issues?
 
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If you lose video try this. Pull out the USB cable from the controller and put it back in right away. Most times this will bring back the video stream. I experience this on the regular Anafi with a Andriod tablet. Could be the phone or tablet is not fast enough for the amount of information it is handling
 
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I would say one cell is pouched and causing the extreme drop. Why is is lighting up like that I have no idea other then maybe it knows the cell is screwed up and during discharge which these this do from day one it might be having trouble balancing the cell. Send you video to Parrot and I am sure they will send out a new battery to you. Have you had a chance to try the unplug cable and plug back int cable deal? It seems to work for me when I lose video feed but that is with the regular Anafi so thermo might be different.
 
Hello Techspy

Maybe you already know, but usually when a battery is defective, it is lightly inflated on the blank, it is almost invisible to the eye but you can feel it with the touch :)

I have 2 anafi and they work really well, I am very very happy with this drone but I already had problems with a defective battery.
Please can you tell us more about the thermal aspect of this drone once you have done tests?

Sorry for my English.....

Good flight ! ;-)
 
Yep, I am very familiar with lipo batteries etc. Been flying RC for a long time and work professionally in the drone industry. There is absolutely nothing physically indicative of a bad battery.

I like the thermal aspect a lot. Unfortunately Parrots documentation has always been lacking and the Anafi Thermal is no exception. There are a lot of options that I am still experimenting with to figure out how they work. For example, there are 2 thermal settings that can be adjusted and I have read online what they do but adjusting them in the app don't seem to effect the image. The video options have standard, cinematic, hyperlapse etc but there is no explanation what cinematic does. I see it changes the tone etc but I can't find the specifics on what it does actually. Anyway, I still like the Anafi and hope I get the battery issue fixed and can have confidence when flying it. I may do an overview video on it.
 
Hi Techspy,

Little questions .... have you tried to locate animals at altitude? do we distinguish between medium and small sizes?
Have you tried in a forest or a dense tree environment?

I would really like to know if we can really locate an animal from a distance ....

I thank you :)
 
Yep, I am very familiar with lipo batteries etc. Been flying RC for a long time and work professionally in the drone industry. There is absolutely nothing physically indicative of a bad battery.

I like the thermal aspect a lot. Unfortunately Parrots documentation has always been lacking and the Anafi Thermal is no exception. There are a lot of options that I am still experimenting with to figure out how they work. For example, there are 2 thermal settings that can be adjusted and I have read online what they do but adjusting them in the app don't seem to effect the image. The video options have standard, cinematic, hyperlapse etc but there is no explanation what cinematic does. I see it changes the tone etc but I can't find the specifics on what it does actually. Anyway, I still like the Anafi and hope I get the battery issue fixed and can have confidence when flying it. I may do an overview video on it.
Looks to me like cinematic locks the framerates at 24fps , haven't used that mode much .
 
Hi Techspy,
I enjoyed your video, thanks for sharing. A couple of comments. I've been flying the Anafi since day one when it came out last year and started with the Shield. I had the same frustration results as you are having. Lag time could be the Shield.

When Parrot came out with the panorama mode I found the Shield not to have enough power to build the panorama's so I stated using the S-10+. I miss the bigger size but have not any of the issues you mentioned in the video.

The power switch you added is ingenious, maybe (?) you could do a video on this modification for the forum which would be very much appreciated to the Anafi community.
 
hello tech spy, I have the same question as pelop. how well can you pick out animals such as dogs and cats from an altitude of say 150ft. maybe in deep grass. I would really like to see a video of such.
 

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