Hi All,
Someone speculated that the price would actually end up around $500 - that's not true. We're still aiming for the $300-400 range. CNC machining of the metal parts is in full swing at the moment, so sometime next week, we expect to have a big box of goodies arrive for assembly.
In the meantime, we are also having small custom PCBs and 4-conductor A/V cables rush-manufactured which will accept the white cable from the Phantom, split power off of it to the gimbal, and extend a thin flexible cable to the Vision camera. Little things like this all add to the cost of manufacturing, especially when everything is being done in Canada (compared to cheap labour in China). And, the AlexMos gimbal control boards that we're using are essentially the Cadillac of gimbal controllers - they are far more capable than other gimbal control boards out there, with many more functions/customization available - but they cost more as a result.
Anyway, that's just a little justification of why our prices are likely going to fall where we've estimated. We're doing everything we can to minimize costs, while maximizing quality.
In other news, because of how low and forward we've mounted the camera, a few quick tests seem to show that we're getting *zero* propellers in the frame, regardless of how hard the Phantom is pushed during flights.
And yes, we did have an 18 minute flight, but we pushed the battery (started at 96%, ended at 6%, and were flying it around in circles) to get there. However, that was also with a small 3S battery powering the gimbal, instead of the main battery powering it (didn't have a custom cable made for the P2V that we used to test it), so we may be able to get even more time without the small external battery... more testing and videos coming soon.
Keri
