httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMiijU6_SyU
What do you get the man for Christmas who already has 2 nano quadcopter drones that he can’t really fly proficiently? Why, another flying toy of course. A Lily Ball 3.
It came as part of our Christmas gift from Donna’s older brother Steve. The first two pieces arrived before the big day, but this little flying wonder was on back order and didn’t arrive on our doorstep until the 2nd of January.
The controller needed 6 AA batteries! The nano drone controllers only needed 2 AAA’s. I scrounged around in our battery box and came up 2 cheap-o’s that came with a TV remote and 4 rechargeables of varying vintage and perceived power. The first couple of indoor flights were very ugly. This thing takes off kind of like the launching of a hot air balloon, slowly lifting off and then climbing gracefully and with increasing speed. Piloting this thing is sort of like steering a hot air balloon too, control response is terrible, and the thing just seems to move at its own whims.
Last night I took it out in the back yard (where the above video was taken) and with more room you can get a bit more up and down flight out of it, but directional control is still awful. Plus if it got 20 feet away and 20 feet up there would be a delay in throttle response. It would be rising fast and I’d pull back a little and nothing would happen, so I pull back some more and then it would drop like a stone. After this would happen I’d turn it right side up, hit the throttle, and it would instantly turn back upside down and try to fly back through the center of the earth to its place of origin. The only way to get any control back was to “reboot” both the ball and the controller.
Back indoors I read the very brief troubleshooting hints on the back of the 4 page instruction booklet. It specifically mentions slow to respond to inputs as being a low battery issue. So today I got a hold of a six-pack of fresh copper tops. Loaded them in the controller and went out on the back deck. I turned the 2 pieces on, went through the sync procedure and advanced the throttle halfway. The Lily Ball took off like a model rocket and headed for a geosynchronous orbit above the planet. I slammed the throttle back and a couple of seconds later at about an altitude of 60 feet it either got the message or left controller range because the rotors quit spinning. This was not going to end well.
It is about 30 feet up in a tree. This happened at about 5:00 PM. Donna and I went out for dinner, did a little grocery shopping and when we got home a little after 7:00, we went out on the back deck. It was full dark and the two electroluminescent strings on the ball were still flashing alternating red and green.