- Joined
- Apr 7, 2019
- Messages
- 20
- Reaction score
- 6
- Age
- 52
Hello all, I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Harrison. I go by "Doc." I am retired USN. I own EFI Alchemy, High Performance Automotive Tuning. One of my employees has an older GoPro camera that we setup in the shop to film customer's cars on our chassis dynonometer. Pretty quickly I got bitten by the GoPro bug and bought a Hero7 Black to up the ante.
My background in the Navy was Avionics on the F-18, EA-6B, S-3, H60, F-14 and C-130. Flight control, weapon systems, navigation. I started efialchemy as biz adventure that grew out of modifying electronic fuel injected vehicles.
I expect my first drone, a Karma (refurb from GoPro) to arrive tomorrow. I have found the Karma phenom interesting in my Go Pro journey. I have poured over countless bashing videos on Youtube, etc. Underneath the thin veil of ignorance there appears to be some genuine truth to the shortcomings of the Karma.
Despite that, I could not ignore the refurb deal GoPro is offering with the idea that with some modifications to the Karma, it could be a real great platform that could suit my needs.
As with automobiles, made by the hand of man, they all have their intended purpose and are subject to limitations of the laws of physics and MONEY. I think the Karma project was a genuine fluke in the modern age of tech for the masses. Even at the initial MSRP, the features that you got right out of the box were, are pretty impressive considering most of the modern tech world is composed of two distinct fields. Cheap crap that promises the world and does not deliver and the uber expensive, very distinct top dollar niche market.
I think GoPro had their hearts in the right place by attempting to offer a drone that would complement / integrate with their awesome cameras. This is/was a great engineering / marketing / monetary endevour that in the court of public opinion, as fickle and impatient as it is, has failed.
Modern humans inhabiting the free world take a lot for granted and are easily disturbed by actually having to think about what and how they want to expend and express their wealth and when they don't get what they want, they throw a temper tantrum. It's never their fault.
I was really moved to find this forum with active participants still interested in the Karma platform.
After having blown through what limited information I could find I ordered an ITELITE antenna kit last night. I want to do baseline testing on the Karma totally stock first but, already see the shortcomings of the setup that can be addressed.
I saw a post linking a Silent Bob video where an individual was showing his internal antenna mods. They appear to be Silver core with directional twists. Makes sense as the main complaints about the Karma platform were mainly about connectivity so, upgrading the antennas on the controller and aircraft seem paramount.
After lurking in the high end drone forums observing what they are doing for modifications it is not surprising that for most of the general target market audience for the Karma platform doing these mods themselves is way beyond what they would consider doing. This leaves a possible huge gap in market share. Possible revival of the Karma platform by a third party entity to sell modified systems? I don't know but, I want to find out for myself. I am willing to share a long the way.
Regards,
Doc
My background in the Navy was Avionics on the F-18, EA-6B, S-3, H60, F-14 and C-130. Flight control, weapon systems, navigation. I started efialchemy as biz adventure that grew out of modifying electronic fuel injected vehicles.
I expect my first drone, a Karma (refurb from GoPro) to arrive tomorrow. I have found the Karma phenom interesting in my Go Pro journey. I have poured over countless bashing videos on Youtube, etc. Underneath the thin veil of ignorance there appears to be some genuine truth to the shortcomings of the Karma.
Despite that, I could not ignore the refurb deal GoPro is offering with the idea that with some modifications to the Karma, it could be a real great platform that could suit my needs.
As with automobiles, made by the hand of man, they all have their intended purpose and are subject to limitations of the laws of physics and MONEY. I think the Karma project was a genuine fluke in the modern age of tech for the masses. Even at the initial MSRP, the features that you got right out of the box were, are pretty impressive considering most of the modern tech world is composed of two distinct fields. Cheap crap that promises the world and does not deliver and the uber expensive, very distinct top dollar niche market.
I think GoPro had their hearts in the right place by attempting to offer a drone that would complement / integrate with their awesome cameras. This is/was a great engineering / marketing / monetary endevour that in the court of public opinion, as fickle and impatient as it is, has failed.
Modern humans inhabiting the free world take a lot for granted and are easily disturbed by actually having to think about what and how they want to expend and express their wealth and when they don't get what they want, they throw a temper tantrum. It's never their fault.
I was really moved to find this forum with active participants still interested in the Karma platform.
After having blown through what limited information I could find I ordered an ITELITE antenna kit last night. I want to do baseline testing on the Karma totally stock first but, already see the shortcomings of the setup that can be addressed.
I saw a post linking a Silent Bob video where an individual was showing his internal antenna mods. They appear to be Silver core with directional twists. Makes sense as the main complaints about the Karma platform were mainly about connectivity so, upgrading the antennas on the controller and aircraft seem paramount.
After lurking in the high end drone forums observing what they are doing for modifications it is not surprising that for most of the general target market audience for the Karma platform doing these mods themselves is way beyond what they would consider doing. This leaves a possible huge gap in market share. Possible revival of the Karma platform by a third party entity to sell modified systems? I don't know but, I want to find out for myself. I am willing to share a long the way.
Regards,
Doc
