With a few small AR drone mods, you can double the flight time and make your AR drone stronger. The Parrot AR 2.0 drone range can also be extended and it’s a great feeling to fly higher and further. These Parrot drone mods and upgrades will also prolong the life of the motors, gears and shafts as their will be less friction on the brushless motors and parts. With more flying, you will have more fun and that is the best part of owning a drone. Enjoy these drone modifications.  I’ve also added videos with instructions to assist you with the modifications. By replacing your bushings with a new shielded sealed bearings, you will increase the battery time giving you more flying time.  With the new shielded bearings, you increase Parrot brushless motor life by approximately 4 times. You also have a better flying experience with less rolling. The Parrot AR Drone comes with 8 brass bushings (2 on each gear shaft). Upgrading is very simple and takes only 10 minutes to complete.

Instructions:  Take the C clips off. Remove the propeller and shaft.  Using a small flat headed screwdriver, you can pull the old brass bearing out. Put the new bearings in and put back together.  Below, I have a drone video which walks you through the upgrade. NOTE: While you have the propellers and shaft off, examine each piece to make sure they are not damaged or bent, and give them a clean. Here’s a terrific video showing you how to complete an AR drone bearing upgrade. The Parrot AR 2.0 from the factory comes with a Lithium-ion polymer rechargeable battery 1500 mAh – 11.1V. Upgrading to a better battery will give you longer flight times which is what we all want to do. 1) Upgrade to a Cheerwing 1800mAh 11.1V 20C Li-Po Upgrade Battery. When this battery is fully charged you can fly for around 20 minutes. 2) Parrot also have a high density battery for the AR Drone 2.0. It is a 1500AH Lipo Battery.  This high grade Lithium-Polymer battery has a discharge capacity of 10C and includes a PCM (Protection Circuit Module) protecting the battery against over charge.

Perhaps at some point in the future your Parrot AR drone is going to have a crash.  With a stronger base plate made of Carbon Fiber, you effectively reduce gear damage from the crash.  A Carbon Fiber base is easy to install and it fits perfectly on both the Parrot AR drone 2.0 & Power edition. The AR Drone forward facing camera has a much better resolution than the the downward camera. By modifying the front facing camera downwards you will will get a really nice aerial view.  From the factory, all you see is a treeline view.  If you want a little downward angle for better views of the landscape, then this AR drone mod on the camera will work. The Parrot AR 2.0 drone range is approximately 150 feet.  With these easy modifications you can easily fly an extra 50% further. These 2 videos show you the exact AR drone modifications you need to carry out. The 1st video shows you how to install a new modified main board along with installing an antennae on your Parrot AR drone.

This can increase the AR drone range by up to 50%. The 2nd video shows you how to use a WiFi repeater to extend the AR drone 2.0 range.  The video shows you how to setup the repeater on your smartphone to make sure you are definitely connected to both the repeater and your Parrot Drone.parrot ar drone parts usa The problem with WiFi repeaters is that you need to plug them in which isn’t easy if you are miles away out in the open.  long distance uav for saleYou can use something like a car power inverter to plug in your WiFi Repeater.how much does the parrot ar drone cost How to Extend the Range of you AR Drone 2.0 using a WiFi Repeaterparrot ar drone alibaba

As I mentioned earlier, we’ve got an AR Drone to play with. One of the common mods that popped up on the internet were ways of extending the range on the AR Drone. It normally uses a local Wi-Fi connection to your phone or tablet for control and video signals. parrot ar drone for iphoneMany found this quite restrictive and have gone pretty far in extending that range.ar drone gps recorder The first and easiest was just to set up a higher power Wi-Fi Bridge where you’ll be flying. parrot ar drone 2 caseThe Drone only has about 15db of wi-fi magic in it, so anything stronger than that is an improvement. There were too many variations on this to delve into the details, but as you see, there’s not much too it. The second method is to completely replace the Wi-Fi control system with a nice R/C controller.

This will greatly increase your range as well as give you extra channels for triggering different attachments (usually lights).  I’ve seen two main methods used. One is called “MacGuyver mod”. This one is a plug and play kit that doesn’t seem to have much info along with it. The other is called “MiruMod” and the creator has shared all the information they can.  You can find a parts breakdown as well as schematics, wiring diagrams, instructions, and software. [Miru] uses an Arduino Pro Mini or an Arduino Nano as a go-between from the receiver to the serial port on the AR Drone. You can see in the wiring diagram below that it is a fairly simple install, and all [miru] asks for is that maybe you donate some beer money if you appreciate his mod.The Fighting Walrus Radio allows iOS devices to communicate with unmanned aerial vehicles by radio frequency, instead of Wi-Fi One of the things that many people like about the AR Drone is the fact that the user’s iPad doubles as the quadcopter’s control unit.

While using a tablet as a controller does have its advantages, there is one drawback – because the iPad communicates with the drone via Wi-Fi, its range is quite limited. The designers of the Fighting Walrus Radio are attempting to remedy that situation, by allowing newer iPads, iPhones and iPod touches to communicate with unmanned aerial vehicles via longer-range radio frequency.The aluminum-bodied Fighting Walrus Radio attaches to the side of an iOS device, and will be available in both 30-pin and Lightning connector versions. It’s based around a HopeRF HM-TRP Transceiver module, and is able to communicate not only with the AR Drone, but with any UAV utilizing the MAVLink Micro Air Vehicle communication protocol.Its line-of-sight range is one mile (1,609 meters) – quite a bit farther than the AR Drone’s current Wi-Fi range of 165 feet (50 meters).Using the open-source software, users can steer their aircraft in real time, monitor flight systems, log flight data, and add mapped way-points to the programmed flight path of GPS-enabled UAVs.