Pimp my Drone

[B Scott]

Last week I was looking on eBay.de and came across a guy selling skins/stickers/decals for the Typhoon H (as well as several other brands of drone). There is a wide range of colors available is both glossy and carbon fiber effect. Not cheap but definitely worth a try.
I received them yesterday and this morning went on to apply them. The stickers are made of a reasonably thick layer of vinyl, about the same as those inflatable beach balls are made of. The adhesive is not so sticky that you cannot get the decal off your hand or should you make a slight mistake, remove it and place it again. You do get little edges and corners that lift but once the sticker is in the right place, a little warming with a hair dryer smoothes them out and lets them lay flat. There is enough stretch in the vinyl to make small adjustments to get the "pinstripes" between the panels to even out. I found the hardest part to be the engine shrouds on the end of the rotor arms. Fortunately, these are small and I managed it in the end. The kit on offer at the moment is for the Typhoon H without Real Sense. T wrote to the seller and he told me that he hopes to be able to offer a version for the H RS within a few days that will include additional coverings for the legs and CGO3+. For those who have already installed the basic kit (like me) an additional set of just these stickers will be available.

Now the only reservation I have is whether or not bits of the stickers will start to lift if the H is placed in the full sun. That said, I am sure it is just a matter of putting a little bit of heat on the sticker and pushing it back down.

There is a youtube video tutorial on how to apply the decals that is well made, easy to follow and did the job for me quite nicely. Ebay Stickers Sticker tutorial
All I can say is that I am quite happy with the result and that it doesn't differ all that greatly from what the seller shows in his ad photos.

 

[rdonson]

I found this sticker set in this color on eBay in the US as well. $45

 

[CraigCam]

Nice. Never understood making such an expensive drone in the hardest color to distinguish in flight as a business model unless it meant their profit was in our crashing. Your VLOS goes up quite nicely with that color.

 

[OnTheRopes]

Nice. Never understood making such an expensive drone in the hardest color to distinguish in flight as a business model unless it meant their profit was in our crashing. Your VLOS goes up quite nicely with that color.

Dunno, the H isn't really an expensive drone though. Most really expensive drones are black? They stand out better against the sky than a white one?

 

[Dustoff]

It’s just me but I would have left the gps uncovered ..looks good though . I want it dayglow orange .

 

[CraigCam]

They grey is one of the worst. Stealth is black in the sky often. The LEDs are pathetic in daylight. Just painting the back of a battery will even help for better sight. It will flash very bright when the sun bounces off of it. White is easy to loose in a cloudy bright sky also. A good orange really seems best. Autel gets this, It’s what color I painted my Plus. I’ve been painting 480 shells for awhile now since, until now, the skin decals for us were not available. I have put skin decals on my 200s, 350s, Chroma, and Q500. The good news is the Plus shell is same dimensions as 480 for main frame. Obviously motor pods and camera or gimbal would not work but still, a quick color mod available now for all.

 

[B Scott]

It’s just me but I would have left the gps uncovered ..looks good though . I want it dayglow orange .

The good news is that should the covering on the GPS be a problem, it is easy enough to remove.

 

[PatR]

The bad news is you won’t know if it’s a problem until it’s to late.

Funny thing about aircraft colors. If you are flying a full scale and looking for others to maintain collision avoidance, the easiest color to see is white. But that’s when you are in the air in the aircraft. Grey and blue/grey are the most difficult from the ground or the air.

 

[B Scott]

0ne thing I did notice is that the carbon fiber pattern on the skin is tactile and on both sides, though more on the surface side. My impression was that this made removing any bubbles under the vinyl a total non-issue. On one hand a good thing but on the other it makes me wonder if the smooth version has a better adhesion because of it having a larger contact surface. It does get quite soft when warmed with a hair dryer. It could be that warming it after application flattens the pattern on the back making little difference between the carbon fiber and smooth versions. It would be nice to have a piece of skin from a smooth decal and test the difference. I have quite a bit left over as I have no wish to apply the stickers to my ST-16. I plan to put this aside should I ever need to make a repair/replacement to the skin

 

[Thomas111]

It’s just me but I would have left the gps uncovered ..looks good though . I want it dayglow orange .

Am with dustoff on this leave the GPS uncovered as if something happens yuneec will use that to void any free repairs but I like it will order the orange for mine

 

[B Scott]

Am with dustoff on this leave the GPS uncovered as if something happens yuneec will use that to void any free repairs but I like it will order the orange for mine

Well if it crashes, I can always peel it off before complaining

 

[CraigCam]

I seriously doubt a piece of paper interferes with the GPS. You could check it by hooking the H up to a laptop and via the GUI look at the signal strength.

 

[B Scott]

Well not exactly paper, a thin sheet of vinyl. But I get your drift.
They do have one type of material that has a brushed aluminum effect. I have has some reflective tape that had a layer of reflective foil underneath and I would hope it isn't anything similar to that. Another possibility is that there is actually some sort of aluminum mixed into the plastic. This would also be a big no-no I am sure. The chances of this interfering with the various signals going to and from the TH are quite real. I would avoid ordering these materials unless I was able to examine them first unless or possibly if I was only going to use them on the landing struts. Even then I would want to think about it first.
But other than that I wouldn't expect the vinyl to have any worse effect that the stickers with my name and address that used to be stuck to the top of the GPS unit before I applied the skin.

 

[rdonson]

I've ordered my neon orange wrap on eBay. $45 US.

I won't be putting it on my ST16 as I've already got UAV Stickers on the controller that I really like. They also simplify friends' questions when that want to know what everything does.
http://www.uavstickers.com/store.php#!/Typhoon-H-Identity-Set/p/76119187/category=21640734

 

[B Scott]

I've ordered my neon orange wrap on eBay. $45 US.

I won't be putting it on my ST16 as I've already got UAV Stickers on the controller that I really like. They also simplify friends' questions when that want to know what everything does.
http://www.uavstickers.com/store.php#!/Typhoon-H-Identity-Set/p/76119187/category=21640734

I have the same stickers on my ST-16 as well. I plan to hold on the the orange sheet of stickers for the ST-16 for any repairs or bits I might decide to fiddle about with. Anyway an orange transmitter doesn't really float my boat.

 

[AH-1G]

The bad news is you won’t know if it’s a problem until it’s to late.

Funny thing about aircraft colors. If you are flying a full scale and looking for others to maintain collision avoidance, the easiest color to see is white. But that’s when you are in the air in the aircraft. Grey and blue/grey are the most difficult from the ground or the air.

As PatR mentioned white is easier to see once in the air, for example, aircrafts with propellers have white paint at the leading edge.
also that's why wind turbines are white also so birds can see them.

The bad news is you won’t know if it’s a problem until it’s to late.

Funny thing about aircraft colors. If you are flying a full scale and looking for others to maintain collision avoidance, the easiest color to see is white. But that’s when you are in the air in the aircraft. Grey and blue/grey are the most difficult from the ground or the air.

PatR is correct, when flying prop aircrafts the propellers have white at the leading edge, a safety feature so you wont get your face slapped around.

 

[Thomas111]

As PatR mentioned white is easier to see once in the air, for example, aircrafts with propellers have white paint at the leading edge.
also that's why wind turbines are white also so birds can see them.

PatR is correct, when flying prop aircrafts the propellers have white at the leading edge, this is also for safety reason once it's on the ground.

Would you need to balance the props if you put a wee bite of white fablon on them

 

[PatR]

Yes

 

[B Scott]

I have now done a couple of flights with the new skin. I must say the new color does improve the visual when flying with the sky as a background. At distance, I don't really see a huge amount of color but where it seems to be an asset is when flying lower where the horizon is obscured with a line of trees or buildings behind the silhouette of the drone. I have often struggled in such situations to get a visual fix after glancing down at the transmitter screen. In this scenario, the color orange seems to be more advantageous. That sinking feeling of "Oh no, where is it?" lasts a much shorter time now.
Maybe people will think it is a 520 now it is orange?
Oh, by the way, the stickers have a weight of 16 grams (0.5 oz). So how much should that impact the flight time? 15 seconds maybe?

 

[Thomas111]

I have now done a couple of flights with the new skin. I must say the new color does improve the visual when flying with the sky as a background. At distance, I don't really see a huge amount of color but where it seems to be an asset is when flying lower where the horizon is obscured with a line of trees or buildings behind the silhouette of the drone. I have often struggled in such situations to get a visual fix after glancing down at the transmitter screen. In this scenario, the color orange seems to be more advantageous. That sinking feeling of "Oh no, where is it?" lasts a much shorter time now.
Maybe people will think it is a 520 now it is orange?
Oh, by the way, the stickers have a weight of 16 grams (0.5 oz). So how much should that impact the flight time? 15 seconds maybe?

Scott so with the sticker over the GPS all was ok no GPS problems