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. remote control drone helicoptersBy modifying the front facing camera downwards you will will get a really nice aerial view.  latest firmware for ar droneFrom the factory, all you see is a treeline view.  turbo drone quadcopter gadget showIf you want a little downward angle for better views of the landscape, then this AR drone mod on the camera will work.x3 albion prelude freight drone

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. remote control drones ebayThis can increase the AR drone range by up to 50%.black hornet drone buy 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. 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.  You can use something like a car power inverter to plug in your WiFi Repeater.

How to Extend the Range of you AR Drone 2.0 using a WiFi Repeater 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. Many found this quite restrictive and have gone pretty far in extending that range. The first and easiest was just to set up a higher power Wi-Fi Bridge where you’ll be flying. The 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.< Retour à la liste WIFI USE: How to respect regulations and optimize Bebop Drone range The range of Bebop Drone depends on the power of WiFi generated by the device (smartphone / tablet). This power depends on several parameters: the type of device and its use In general, it is better to use 2.4GHz WiFi to maximize range. If you want to focus on the quality of streaming video, it is recommended to choose 5GHz WiFi (less interference).

The Parrot Bebop Drone software features an optimized algorithm that gives advantage to the piloting reactivity than the video streaming quality. Note that the quality of the streaming video has no influence on the quality of the video “onboard”  recorded by the drone (1080p 30fps). To perform these tests, the experimental protocol is as follows: Bebop flies 20 m above ground Fly straightkeep heading camera forward (camera forward) Device held in its optimum position Flight in a neutral radio environment (without disturbance Wifi) During these flight test sessions, the quality of the FPV experience varies. For example, you can reach 200m and then the video streaming quality decreases and then arrive around 225 m with a better one. This variation is mainly due to the physical environment around the drone. (Field, trees, buildings …) The following table shows the Bebop drone’s range results (estimated or calculated) with a Bebop No.

PI040339P14K005079 with the version 1.32. FreeFlight versions used for the different smartphones / tablets are for iOS 3.1.25 and for Android 3.1.28. The tests were conducted December 3rd, 2014. *Europe includes the following countries : Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom The maximal range reached by the Bebop Drone is highly correlated to the device (see Table above). Note that intrinsic Wifi performances of Bebop enable it to reach 2km with Skycontroller in optimal conditions. To maximize the reach with your device, Wifi antennas for your phone should be oriented to the drone (without obstacles). The position of your hands on it affects the quality of the wireless connection with your drone.

Try to hold your device in one direction or the other and vary its inclination. Choose your device to learn how to hold it when you pilot: The Skycontroller * is a device, with a very specific Wi-Fi architecture, designed for the Bebop to maximize its reach. It is not compatible with AR. Tests conducted by the Skycontroller take into account the quality of the video streaming unlike other devices. The position of the hands on the Skycontroller does not affect the test results. Due to the Wifi regulation, channels at the beginning and end can not reach the maximum power.Here are the best channels with Skycontroller: Channel 6 for 2G4 Channel 44 for 5G band-1 Channel 157 for 5G band-3 The Wifi transmitter of Skycontroller is more powerful in 5 GHz than in 2.4 GHz. The power is limited following the regulations of each country. The maximum power at 2.4 GHz is about 400 mW, it is about 4W at 5 GHz on channel 157. Each Wifi device must meet the standards of the country in which it is used.

This applies to your device and obviously to the Parrot products (in particluar, Bebop and Skycontroller). Each country imposes a maximum power and a set of authorized channels. To perform the required network settings, go to Settings, and scroll with your finger to the Settings screen Networks By default, the selected setting is AUTO. Bebop Drone scans the surrounding WiFi networks and select the country it detects in the beacon frames, according to the international standard 802.11d. When you use the Parot Bebop Drone in the US, the regulation restrains the access to the country setting. For other countries, you can change manually the setting Wifi standards distinguish Indoor or Outdoor use, especially in the case of the 5GHz band. This configuration affects the number of available channels. For some areas , the European zone, the 5GHz band (channels 36,40,44 and 48) are limited to Indoor use. They are therefore inaccessible if the Outdoor setting is selected.

If you select Indoor setting. The channels of the 5GHz band become available to the countries of the European zone. Notable differences between the networks 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz are: The 5GHz network has a shorter range than 2.4 GHz. The devices configured in 2.4 GHz are more affected by interference than those configured as 5 GHz (which uses more bandwidth on a given channel). There are fewer devices supporting 5GHz. Bebop embeds a channel selection optimization algorithm that will evaluate the best compromise between maximum range and quality of streaming video, while favoring the latter. The channel selection by the algorithm is correlated to the Bebop environment during Bebop boot. The transmission power of the Bebop is the same at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. It is necessary to emit twice the power at 5 GHz to have the same reach than at 2.4 GHz . Ifyou want to focus on the ranfe, configure in Auto 2.4GHz: The channels are much less congested at 5GHz.

The standard for 5GHz Wifi does not extend to the adjacent channels. If you want to focus on streaming video quality, choose the configuration in Auto at 5 GHz. You can make your setting manually. Select Manual and click on the desired channel in the dropdown list. Reminder: some channels are not available depending on your country and setting Indoor / Outdoor. Here are our recommendations to increase your drone range: Choose your device well and check the way you hold it, in particular the position of your hands, especially when you are at the range limit . Choose the country in which you are in the app. Respect the indoor / outdoor setting. Channel selection : if you are in the middle of many wifi networks, choose the auto -all mode. Otherwise, go auto -2,4 mode. Choose an environment with less physical obstacles as possible wether in front of you or a few meters next to you (tress, fences,..) Choose a place with the least amount of interference (other pilots, networks … ) .