For those wanting to keep their investments flying for as long as possible, the most difficult consumable to source, as time goes by, is the battery. These are at best in custom fabricated enclosures and at worst contain the optimistically named “SMART” circuitry.
Very recently I picked up a NIB 3DR Solo. 3DR have long since disappeared from the consumer market but as the hardware and software is opensource, and the price I paid was ridiculously cheap, I figured it would be a good distraction during the time we are grounded.
Now we all know we can not fully appreciate our flying toys to the full with just one battery. All that charging time for a limited return of fun, so we usually like to stock up on a few to actually make the journey to a suitable site time well spent. Now this is a cautionary tale I’ve often advised on but obviously have not followed myself when it comes to batteries.
All, or most, RTF drones have a short lifespan due to proprietary parts. The biggest culprit for this is the battery. So after receiving the 3DR Solo I went on the hunt for extra batteries, preferably unused. I scoured Google results in the hope that a dealer possibly had some new/old stock gathering dust. No such luck. I then trawled eBay’s UK site, again nada. I then cast my web across eBay’s international sites and Voila! I found a listing for two still sealed in the box 3DR Solo batteries from a seller in the USA. The price was very fair. The seller had/has a large feedback count with a 100% rating. And they were available via eBay’s own Global Shipping System. I’d struck gold and immediately assaulted my PayPal account.
Within a few hours I received confirmation from the seller that the batteries had entered the shipping system and were on their way to eBay’s Global distribution centre. From here on it was just a waiting game as even though eBay’s shipping services are convenient they’re not the fastest.
Then yesterday I received an email from eBay. They were informing me that my transaction was being cancelled as they considered the items to be restricted and not allowed to be exported. Now here’s the rub. Instead of returning them back to the seller eBay were taking it upon themselves to destroy two, very hard to find, batteries, even though they had been packaged to meet, and exceed, the international guidance on the safe shipping of LiPo batteries.
The only positive outcome is that neither myself or the seller have been left out of pocket.
However this goes right against my green beliefs. I hate waste in all its forms, especially electronic waste as it’s not just needlessly costly but it is one of the most toxic forms of pollutants.
I still intend to enjoy the 3DR Solo for the limited lifespan it has left. 3DR themselves screwed the pooch with this drone putting fast financial gain before reliability. But due to the hard work of some very talented hobbyist coders it is now one of the most sophisticated and technically spec’d RTF packages out there, even after six years since its introduction.
Rant over. Feel free to burn after reading.