Comparing Propeller Guards For The DJI Mini 2

g'day folks my name is sean and this is air photography today we're going to be taking a look at some propeller guards for the dji mini 2 and the mavic mini we have three different types of propeller guards here we have the official ones right from dji we have a set here from pgy tech and then we just have kind of a generic set here in this video we're just going to do some indoor flights to see how well the drone performs when they're installed we'll also do some tests where we bump it up against the wall just to see how well they work in that aspect we're going to talk about weight and the pros and cons of each set so let's just jump right in and take a closer look so first of all let's talk about why you would want to use propeller guards for the most part if you're flying outdoors you don't really need them now the dji mini 2 and the mavic mini does not have any sort of obstacle avoidance so sometimes if you're a brand new pilot first flying a lot of people feel more comfortable when they have the propeller guards on on top of that it does give you some extra safety for example if you're flying with some small children around or perhaps you're teaching your child to fly sometimes then in those situations it's a good idea also to put propeller guards on because then you're not going to cause injury if the drone happens to hit somebody a couple other reasons why you might want to consider propeller guards is if you're flying indoors even if you are a fantastic pilot flying indoor in close quarters can still cause some problems especially if you're going to be flying down very narrow hallways these will just prevent the propellers from hitting a wall and causing the drone to drop myself most of the time when i fly with a drone i don't have propeller guards on the only time i usually put them on is if i'm doing any kind of really close proximity shots flying through tight spaces or through forest sometimes you get some extra benefits by having a propeller guard on now a lot of these sets do work well i have tested them thoroughly but they all have their own pros and cons now the first thing we do need to talk about here is weight any set of propeller guards that you do add to your dji mini 2 or your mavic mini is going to put it over that 250 gram mark so i'll just do a quick weight here for you just for those who are curious uh this first set here weighs 24 25 grams so as you can see there that is obviously gonna put it over the weight limit the largest set here by pgy tech comes in at let me get that centered on there comes in at 62 grams and the official ones by dji if we can get them well balanced on there they come in at 49 grams so it doesn't matter what you fly with what kind of propeller guard you're going to be over that weight limit now if you're flying indoors at 250 gram weight limit it's not a big issue so if that's the case and why you're thinking about purchasing a propeller guard setup then then you're going to be okay in that situation now one other quick thing i do want to mention here before we continue is the original mavic mini and the dji mini 2 are pretty well identical when it comes to form factor however these front arms on the dji mini 2 are a little bit more robust the original mavic mini these arms are really flimsy and you can bend them so i think what they've done here is they've thickened up the plastic a little bit to make it a little bit more rigid and with that said some of these propeller guards that were designed for the original mavic mini they will still work but it is a very tight fit the clamp that goes around that arm you really have to put some pressure on it to get it to lock in that goes for this set as well originally designed for the original mavic mini you can still use it with the dji mini 2. now when it comes to the official propeller guards that dji sells on their website they actually have a new version they have a version for the original mavic mini and a new version for the dji mini 2. so let's go ahead and get this first set installed so this set here is very minimal it doesn't add a lot of extra weight to the drone and the nice benefit of the set is that it breaks down and it's very compact as you can see when you have them off the drone they don't take up a lot of room and you can actually shove it in any small compartment on a camera bag unlike something like this you can see just how big and bulky that is this thing is not very travel friendly now a couple disadvantages to a set like this however is that it only really works as a bumper system so for example if you hit up against the wall you're going to be fine if you hit from the front or the back you're going gonna be fine but if you take a look there the propellers sit up above the propeller guard so if you hit the ceiling you're gonna run into problems there on top of that the propellers are still fully exposed so you know like i said if a child is flying it or goes to grab it or an animal even say a dog goes to jump at it or a cat if you're flying indoors those propellers are still fully exposed before we do move on to the next propeller guard let's take a look at this set here flying around and bumping into some walls to see how it performs [Music] [Music] so to [Music] so the next one here we have is by pgy tech this is a complete cage for the dji mini 2 or the mavic mini again this was originally released for the mavic mini but it will fit on the dji mini 2 with some extra force on those front clips there now a set like this has some pros and cons first of all it is pretty bulky so it's not very travel friendly but the benefits of it is that you are completely enclosed the propellers are completely enclosed and that includes the very top so if you bump up against the ceiling you're not going to cause the drone to crash the other nice benefit to this one is is that because the way the front and the sides are designed if you're flying through a forest or through trees or anything like that when you hit a branch or a leaf or something it's just going to roll on past it unlike this design here or even the ones by dji there's a lot of spaces in which branches and things can get caught up so let's go ahead and we will install it here so just like that there you can see we have it installed and surprisingly it actually flies pretty well it looks pretty big and bulky but it handles not too bad and it's pretty nimble still let's go ahead and take a look at some footage of it flying around and bumping off some walls [Music] oh [Music] so now lastly we'll take a look at the official ones that dji sells on their website now the benefits of this propeller guard set is that first of all it's not as bulky as something like that it does break into two pieces so it's a little bit easier to travel with for the most part we have protection all the way around even if you hit the ceiling you can see there that the propellers are well below the guard so you're not going to crash if you hit the ceiling the openings around this one are a little bit bigger than something like this so you know you could still get some fingers you know a child could still get some fingers down in there accidentally now one thing you do have to keep in mind with all these propeller guards is the way the dji mini works is if you hit an object hard enough it's going to kill the propellers altogether so this camera is still fully exposed so if you hit a wall hard it's going to kill the propellers and drop to the ground so you could still do a little bit of accidental damage to the gimbal depending on how it falls now as mentioned this one's here is good for flying through bushes and forests and that because it's protected all the way around this one here at the sides if you run up against a branch you know it's just going to go along the side but if you hit something like a branch coming in from the front here it's going to kind of get trapped in there and especially if you have something that comes in there like that it's going to hit the propeller and again cause the drone to crash so let's go ahead and we'll take a look at some footage of these propeller guards in action [Music] [Music] hmm now if you're new to the dji mini 2 and new to propeller guards it is recommended by dji to enable payload mode when you're flying with propeller guards enabling payload mode kind of adjusts the flight parameters of the drone it also limits the height of which you can fly i think it's 25 feet i'm not 100 sure on that somebody can correct me down in the comments if i am wrong but to enable payload mode all we do is click on those three dots at the top we then scroll down to advanced safety settings and you can see here we have something called payload mode all we're going to do is turn that on and then we can go ahead and fly now personally myself i have flown these without payload mode enabled when i'm outdoors and i haven't really noticed any issues you usually can fly just fine like that well folks that's basically it for my video hopefully you enjoyed it and found it informative give it a thumbs up if you did don't forget to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss any of our upcoming videos and we'll see in the next one [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Air Photography

Views: 23,319

Rating: 4.9664669 out of 5

Keywords: DJI Mini 2 Propeller Guards, DJI Mini 2, Propeller Guards, Review, Comparison, Test Flight, Testing, Best Propeller Guards, Mavic Mini, DJI, Mavic Mini 2

Id: gSIFEc66GGU

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021