I have an Inspire 1 V1. I'm wondering with so many of the V1 aircraft still out there flying for both commercial and hobby use why no 3part companies have made an aftermarket battery? There is still a market out there.
Now THAT is a GREAT question...
There are some Chinese vendors doing some "unique" battery setups, but they do not have stock here in North America, and as such an order takes 8-10 weeks or more.
Beyond the wait, they are also reusing the "smart battery" portion of used batteries and reprogramming them to the specs they want. That is on ONE of the aftermarket batteries.
I do believe a French company is also doing recells of used batteries as well.
Ultimately, someone needs to do ALL NEW manufacturing of new batteries and new smartboards in those batteries. Until then we are "stuck" with what we have already out there. I don't think any serious battery vendor wants to deal with a half-baked market that relies upon the end users sending in useable "cores" (for the smartboard/tops).
I mean how many of those have gone bad electronically?
How many have structural damage to the top/frames/circuit board?
I am sure if DJI would partner with someone there is a market, the issue is DJI wants the Inspire 1 dead. It is obvious by the way they just stopped making batteries a few years ago.
If they made the batteries, they would sell, no questions asked. The issue is they made a GREAT product with a good price point. They offered the X5R camera without codec licenses. It is a "one and done" purchase. That is a HUGE difference from the way they offer codec licensing for the X7 camera, as it is a YEARLY fee for the codecs. That "gravy-train" made DJI get greedy and stupid and was the ONLY reason to stop battery production for the Inspire 1.
Honestly, the
Inspire 2 has the same major issues the Inspire 1 has, that being the lack of granular control in hover (it does as well as a big drone can, but it still moves around a bit). The extra time by doubling the batteries was great, but people have done well with a single battery and made it work on the Inspire 1. The other aspect is the object avoidance, which, quite honestly, I don't think ANYONE truly trusts it, so it is more of a "ok, so it has OA, turn it off as it just wastes juice" kind of feature.
Yes, the X7 camera gets GREAT shots, so that is a definite upgrade, but if you NEED to go that far, then the licensing doesn't matter to you anyways as you are FIRMLY in the pro-sector making serious money with the setup.
Beyond that, the Inspire 1 is still a great entry into the pro-drone market. We just NEED BATTERIES!!!!
Ok, so you can spend more money and buy a Matrice 600 and with the gimbal adapter that utilizes the same cameras the Inspire 1 uses, but ultimately it is the only path left for "new batteries" since they still make the M600 batteries (and yeah, they don't work in the Inspire 1s). I mean, honestly, it is obvious they are still making the technology since it is the same, it just is coded for the M600 instead of the Inspire 1 and has a different top.
Big detractor for the Matrice 600 is the fact it is nowhere near as portable as the Inspire 1. It is HUGE in comparison.
In the end, until someone gets a hold of the software used to reprogram the smartboards in the TB47/TB48 and works through it and is able to put new LiPo (or is that LiPoHV) cells in these and resets the programming to account for new cells and that software/technique gets disseminated to those of us technically savvy enough to accomplish it, we are at a very dead end.
I personally have a TB47 or two that I can use to experiment with. I would have no issue doing such, someone just needs to point me in the direction of the software/hardware I need to invest in to get it working. Hell, the path of least resistance is buying a TB48D M600 battery (I believe that is the one that is identical to the TB48 for the Inspire 1) as a "donor" for not only the cells, but also to see if it's board can be reprogrammed to be used in the Inspire 1.
Imagine how great that would be, buy a commerical "new" TB48D, take the top off, reprogram the smart board and put an Inspire 1 top on and be done. Oh to want for the little things in life...