23 of us commented on this, £80 each we’ll buy one and fly the damn thing ourselves. 
7 Likes
He’s had it that long that I’ve just been looking at the specs of the Autel Evo 3!!!
It’s looking good, too!
3 Likes
1 Like
USB-C
I actually laughed out loud at that 
Thankfully, the Evo has no NFZs, never mind dodgy ones 
I know, I know, I know…
Guys, I need some serious stars to align at the moment.
Family life, this fucking weather, and our current crazy work load as we enter harvest season is all against me 
I even put it in the car today, and the landing pad!
I’ll fly it.
Soon.
Promise.
5 Likes
PingSpike…
OK, This is all from the A USB on the controller, just tried it again but I need a B type generally to the tablet I use, so never tried a C type, two interesting things… never tried it with C and yes it seems to work if connected to my phone… then I re tried with six different B cables I managed to find in the junk drawer, four of the cables charge the battery on the tablet I use / phone but do not pass any data… two old cables, a TomTom one and a Samsung one both work for charging and data… the one I had been trying which was pretty new, reinforced outer good quality doesn’t work for data…!
Perhaps you could try a B type to your phone or something and see what you get, clearly there is a difference in the wiring in some of these cables, never even thought about it and others have had the same problem… The newer C type I have for a couple of devices and never had a problem with them… shame this tablet doesn’t have C instead.
So I think that is mystery solved almost apart from why wired differently… haha.
If you try the B to something, phone or whatever, be interesting.
I’m sticking to the B supplied as it has right angled connectors which keeps it out the way and tidy…
Cheers
Some USB cables are sold as charging only cables.
No sorry @Malcy I’m on an iPhone so used the regular Apple USB-A to Lightning cable at first but also have a right angle braided type that I use worth the DJI stuff too (but still also USB-A).
Go careful
ORANGE - comes to mind.
And ‘gerroff my fucking land’
1 Like
Good thing it’s got black legs else you wouldn’t know if it had taken off or not.
3 Likes
I hope you have an orange hi-viz, too, Rich … to complete the ensemble. 
3 Likes
At least that photo warrants it as a work tool to Mrs Ping ;o)
Just brief…, the USB connector, the A type they are using on the front of the controller is either UB 2.0, 2.1, or 3.00 nobody knows… they are all different apparently now and a 2.00 will not work for Data on a 3.00 and vice versa… also the 2.2 and 3.00 have either pull up or down set inside with a resistor, this makes it either a slave type connector or a plug and go type, one you have to fit the cable first then turn on the equipment for it to see it … all complicated but will send a link later for you to have a read, no wonder it hardly ever works…
Cheers
Get comfy, this in gonna take a while 
Not in any particular order, but here goes!
The controller sensitivity is wildly sensitive on its defaults. I thought the Inspire was bad on its default settings but man, outta the box this thing doesn’t like any quick stick actions.
Maybe I’m too used to my finely tuned and fettled Mavic Pro which is as smooth as butter, but the Evo doesn’t seem to have anywhere near the finesse. It’s almost raw, hardcore, like the Inspire is. Eg. If you’re cruising at full speed in non-sport mode (which is just kinda average speed) then any stick input causes what look like wild reactions in the air 
You don’t see it on the screen at all, the gimbal is flawless! But man, the “air braking”… shit me I thought it was going to do a somersault at one point.
Note to self, change the EXP settings on the next fight.
I’ve see a few YT videos where people are recommending various EXP settings so I’ve jotted down a few to try and will use those as a starter for ten.
My next observation was the prop noise.
This is not a quiet aircraft 
Funnily enough, when I was walking the dog on the canal this morning there were a few blokes fishing on the other side and one of them launched a Mavic Mini. As I watched it go up I said to myself, “I’d forgotten how quiet the MM was”…
So having heard a MM take off just a few hours before my Evo flight, it was fresh it my mind.
What struck me about the prop noise was not so much that it’s loud per se, but that the noise doesn’t seem to go away? Even at 120m up I could still hear it as if it was at 50m!
The Mavic Pro by comparison goes silent at what, 60m? 
Tricky to describe, but yes, it’s not loud on the floor or during take off, but the volume level seems consistent, no matter how far away you are from it.
Weird…
The next thing I noticed was the signal.
At +500m out and around 60m heigh I was still sitting bang on 100% max strength.
I didn’t want to fly too far out on my first venture so I didn’t do a proper range test, despite being in a field, but I have a feeling it’s not going to be an issue.
We’re only 2.4GHz on the Evo don’t forget.
I’ll test it in an urban environment and update you accordingly.
It’s orange.
Very orange.
As a few of you have pointed out…
Don’t knock that landing pad guys, it’s reversible. Putting it on the soil in a field with the dark side pointing up would have made zero sense 
Plus, the orange side matches the drone perfectly 
Anyway, where I was heading with the orange thing…
I thought it would be easier to see in the sky but actually, it didn’t seem to make any difference at all (again, compared to the MP).
It was seriously cloudy today though, maybe the orange will help on a blue sky instead? I’ll let you know.
Lucky I could still hear it eh?
There are two bright white LEDs mounted on the undercarriage.
The Autel Explorer app (still think that’s a stupid name) lets you control the LEDs between Off / On / Auto / 1s flash / 2s flash.
Being used to Strobon CREE LEDs for so long I’ve clearly been spoilt and was probably expecting a bit too much from these built in lights.
The always-on mode doesn’t aid finding it in the sky at all. Might be ok at night, but the 1s flash mode does help.
Worth also mentioning that they’re recessed a little bit in to the body which means when flying at low altitudes you can’t always see the LED flashing. Anything over 40m and it’s quite visible though.
If you’re doing a regular flight you’ll be fine. If you want to push the boundaries of VLOS you’re gonna need Strobon CREEs as well.
Battery life seems good.
Autel quote 40mins but as per DJI that’s gonna be in laboratory conditions eh.
I flew a single battery for 23 minutes and landed with 30% still left.
If someone can work out how much time I had left from that, please let me know. My brain has given up the ghost for today.
I’d need to do some proper battery tests though, this flight was a crazy mixture of flight manoeuvres, hovering while changing settings, testing “Ludicrous Mode” (which makes DJIs Sports Mode sound tame ) etc so perhaps don’t pay too much attention to that battery life stat just yet.
The batteries have the same self-discharge functionality as the DJI LiPos too, also user definable in the app up to a maximum of ten days. I’m not sure if pressing the button to check the battery level resets the counter like it does on DJI, will let you know.
Some funky shenanigans going with the SD card.
Normally (again, on all my DJI craft), I stick the card in to a windows desktop pc and cut/paste to my NAS.
Ohhhhh no… Autel said. I’m not allowed to do that…
I can copy the files from the card fine but for some reason I don’t have write access to the card to delete anything.
It’s a regular 128GB MicroSD card which was formatted in the drone.
I have now formatted the card on the Windows PC to exFAT, which I assume won’t cause the drone any problems.
Also, I’ve read that Autel do some even weirder shit on the SD card.
Apparently, and I’ve yet to witness this first hand, each time you power on the craft it starts a new folder, with all the filenames starting at 1 again inside said folder.
So if you burn three batteries, you’re gonna have three sequentially numbered folders, all containing lots of files with identical filenames to those in the other folder
Will report back on that, and the exFAT thing, in a future update.
Build quality.
I mentioned before in this thread somewhere that the build quality is really good.
The only thing that feels a bit cheap is the charging hub. Probably because it’s tall, and hollow so therefore very light weight.
Also equally as impressive is the screen built in to the controller.
I’ve not looked up the specs of the display yet but it’s really crisp and sharp, a good high resolution, and it displays everything you need to know.
It’s also really easy to see in broad daylight. I was very impressed with it 
Side note… I flew using my iPhone XR today, there’s a problem with one of the CrystalSky mounts I bought, will post about that elsewhere.
Possibly not the best device to fly with, the screen isn’t amazingly bright and the XR is very long, meaning quite a stretched out image. Again, I’m used to flying with a square-ish CS for years now so this was a little odd.
Anyway, very impressed with the build quality of the drone, the batteries and the controller.
Top marks Autel.
Taking photos while recording a video!
Shit me DJI, is it really that hard?!
Another side note, I started recording video before I took off and noticed that when it landed it auto-stopped the video. Which makes me wonder if it auto-starts recording at take off, like Litchi can/does 
Will test that theory.
It was very novel snapping a few random pics while filming a video though
Which leads me on to the 6K video…
Fuck me that burns through some memory card storage space, eh?
I don’t even own a 4K TV so it’s perhaps a bit wasted on me at the moment. I usually have my Mavic Pro set to record in 2K, then I output to 1080p for watching on the TV in the living room. So for now, I’ll switch this down to 2K too.
I plan to get a 4K TV later this year, around the time the PS5 gets launched 
The other thing that became apparent quite quickly is that iMovie can only export my 6K video at 4K
It’s a 27" 5K Retina iMac so I’m assuming this is an iMovie limitation (rather than a hardware limitation) and that something like FCPX can export 6K?
Or Davinci Resolve?
Advice welcomed on that front.
Camera settings in general…
Meh…
Where do you start eh?
It took me about a year to get the MP settings to where I wanted them. Granted, less for the Inspire (on the X5 camera), but even so… you know what it’s like eh?
I have a feeling the Evo camera settings are going to be a bit of trial and error too.
No doubt I’ll get it to exactly where I want it, but it’s all new, it’ll take me a while to find my way around it all.
No Fly Zones.
Did I mention there are no NFZs?
Did I?
None…
Literally, nothing.
None in the craft, none in the app.
Nothing 
AirData UAV.
For some reason, AirData can’t see the battery serial numbers so it thinks I only have one battery
Yet strangely, it can see all of the individual cells in the battery, and their deviation.
Weird that it can’t then see the serial numbers eh?
Also, no picture previews in AirData like you get on DJI. Again, strange, as it knows you’ve taken a photo.
Gonna claim myself the Evo 2 speed limit leaderboard position in a minute btw
Also, there is no Litchi support don’t forget. Litchi only has love for DJI.
Happy to answer any questions or do any tests, just shout!
8 Likes
Ok, that post was longer than thought it would be.
2 Likes
Is it a proper still image or frame grab of the video Rich?
What resolution is the photo?