Spent $900 on a drone for site surveys, total waste of cash for my crew

I ran that thing for 2 months before I gave up. The footage was cool for the owner's social media, but the orthomosaic maps took forever to process on my laptop. Ended up charging the client an extra $300 just to cover my wasted time. I'm back to doing manual floor checks and honestly my punch lists are more accurate now. Any PMs out there using drones for real reporting or is this just a marketing gimmick?

1 comments

1 Comment

rosebennett8h ago

Is the drone really the problem here, or was it just the wrong tool for your setup? I mean, you spent $900 and then another $300 of your time trying to make it work, but the real issue sounds like the processing time and your laptop not being up to the job. That's a hardware and workflow thing, not a drone thing. If the punch lists are more accurate by hand, then fine, but I wonder if you ever actually tried trimming the flight area or using a cheaper mapping app that runs on a phone instead of a full blown orthomosaic. Half the guys I know who do this are just flying it for progress pics, not full maps, and that takes like 20 minutes a week, not a whole afternoon.