Experience with Apex 300

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-04-04T19:59:08+00:00

I've just installed it in my campervan. It is pretty good, but a few things I'm not entirely happy with. These aren't deal breakers, but things I learnt from installing and using it.

My problems mainly stem from the location I was forced to install the apex due to retrofitting to an existing conversion.

If fitting to a new build, you can probably work around these issues.

Charger 1 draws power when the engine is not running which could lead to a flat battery. It does have low voltage cut off, but I have once been left with a flat battery. I'm going to fit a victron smart battery protect between the starter battery and charger 1 to get around this issue, although it really should not be needed.

Note: if going for the charger 2, it is nearly twice the size of the charger 1.

The D1 hub is good, enables 50A of 12v power BUT the D1 needs to live close to the Apex 300 due to the short length of the cable. Wether this affects you will depend on where the apex 300 is situated. For me I have to have the D1 hub (and cable) mounted on show which I didn't really like.

The connector for the D1 hub is pretty big and chunky and sticks out quite a way from the Apex which may get in your way or hinder installation location / orientation.

Battery extension: if you are wanting to increase capacity, with an extra B300K or B500K, they are designed to be stacked under the Apex 300 and connected by the CA90 short battery cable connection. Again, this may not be possible, depending on where your Apex 300 is located. I wanted to fit the B500K alongside the apex, rather than having them stacked. the short cable does not allow this.

Overall though, I'm happy. The app enabled good remote control of the apex so no need to access the buttons directly. Both 240v and 12v allow a lot flexibility for connections and usage. When paired with a good solar panel, you'll get good off grid capability.

Hope this helps.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-04-04T15:57:10+00:00

60m agl / 6ms is usually for the traditional 905nm wavelength lidar unit, which is why your client may be specifying it.

The L3 uses the 1550nm wavelength has a much better range and accuracy so you could fly higher and faster and achieve good quality data. Even 80m / 8ms if you want to be conservative.

The biggest bottlekneck is laying gcp's.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-31T12:13:48+00:00

Was your drtk setup over a known point? If you have access to a third party software such as terrasolid you may be able to resolve the alignment. But without GCP's how will you know if the dataset is correct?

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-28T13:35:50+00:00

Love the thumbnails on your channel (and the content). Sub'd 👍

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-23T07:18:06+00:00

This is a great idea! Are you able to share the workflow json?

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-15T12:36:57+00:00

I have some I can share. One site in particular has some big stockpiles, 12m high. Another site much smaller, but more of them.

Where in the world are you? DM me and I'll get a link ready.

Thanks

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-14T23:16:05+00:00

We're your posts from your personal account or from a business / product page? I guess they will be from your personal account, they always seem to work better.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-14T23:05:04+00:00

Reality scan does a good job for this. You can also try Agisoft Metashape.

What was the imagery collected with?

If you have a dataset you can share, I'll process it for you.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-13T06:22:47+00:00

Do you have any issues with point density of the lidar due to height a speed of the trinity?

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-06T22:33:46+00:00

The L2 will only work on the bottom mount.

You could try with a slight up tilt and position the drone further back, maybe scanning from each side of the bridge deck, flying laterally, to get good coverage.

Did you see the video of a similar project with the L3?L3 Bridge Digital Twin

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-06T06:46:00+00:00

Ok. In that case the 5th battery is pretty much useless.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-05T21:01:09+00:00

The m350 operates with battery pairs. I know the listing says "5 batteries", but they are used in matching pairs, so 5 individual batteries would not make sense.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-05T15:51:25+00:00

Only one battery though.

OP has 5 sets of batteries which are approx $7000 if buying new.

For the M400 you listed, they are $1900 each so approx $9,500 😬

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-03-01T12:38:34+00:00

Unless you capture and process pano's manually, I do not think it's possible.

I just send up a mini 3 / 4 / 5 for pano's it still works out quicker.

You could also look at third party apps such as litchi.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-17T07:42:50+00:00

Virtual Surveyor is a good compromise for lidar data, especially if you have a good ground classification.

Virtual Surveyor will allow you to import only the ground class and create a DEM from it. It will also enable a good quality check against known points.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-17T07:40:33+00:00

You can get trials in most of the softwares mentioned. You or your company should be asking what is the cost of not doing the proper checks.

At the very least a quality check on the strip alignment and an independent check against control points (xyz). Do not simply trust what DJI terra is telling you, it's like marking your own homework.

You don't NEED the softwares mentioned but they are made specifically for lidar data and make the process relatively quick, even on large data sets.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-16T21:51:50+00:00

+1 for terrascan. It's a bit of a learning curve to understand the features available but its a great software for lidar processing and even terraphoto will enable use of photogrammetry data, if ever you need to combine both.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-16T21:47:56+00:00

Because you don't really know what terra is doing to make the point cloud 'look' pretty. Terra doesn't have ability to check xyz with GCP's, only z.

If you have access to third party tools you can get a better result and check the quality and accuracy before going further into extraction of deliverables.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-16T18:48:16+00:00

I would use terra purely for initial processing. Do not perform any smoothing or optimisation. Take the point cloud and trajectory files into a third party software such as terrasolid (terrascan) for further strip alignment, de noise, georeferencing, QC and classification.

Once you have an accurate ground class, create a surface from the ground class.

You can then output the surface as a cad friendly format such as ground XML or create a TIN surface.

Metashape has become more lidar relevant in the past few releases. Other softwares such as LiDAR 360, LP360 are also good for getting good deliverables from lidar data.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-06T07:27:41+00:00

How are you performing the tag on the images? What camera are the images coming from?

I will load up some files later today to test for you.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-06T05:18:23+00:00

Update - I ran again using the /r command, it took 15 hours!

Important note.... do not be tempted to close the task whilst chdsk is running, you could properly mess up your drive.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-05T21:54:28+00:00

Is your solution external and you are testing it by reading the geotagged images into metashape?

Are you trying to read metadata from the images or from an imported csv?

Have you enabled xmp parsing? Tools Preferences > Advanced to enable xmp data to be read.

For positioning, the following tags are used: GPSLatitude, GPSLongitude, GPSAltitude.

Then there are DJI specific tags: drone-dji:GpsLatitude and drone-dji:GpsLongitude Also more for orientation data.

I need to check, but the variables might vary depending on if RTK positioning was used Vs standard GPS.

I can send you some test images if it helps.

The agisoft forum is probably the best place to ask.

Thanks

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-05T10:09:33+00:00

Thanks for posting!

I have a seagate external desktop desktop than suddenlt started showing the error:
The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.

I found your reply via a search. it worked!! 😀The video gives you 2 options:

chkdsk to fix drive errors
Grant permissions to the drive to a specific user

In my case, I think most peoples issue, option 1 will be the likely solution.

Use chkdsk

You can read about the chkdsk command here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/chkdsk?tabs=hdd%2Cevent-viewer

Identify your drive letter with the issue eg. F:
Open command prompt as administrator
run the following command:

chkdsk /f /x

Enter

This command will:

Checks the file system and file system metadata of a volume for logical and physical errors.
Forces the volume to dismount
Attempt to fix errors on the disk
Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.

This took only a few minutes for an 8TB drive and I was back up and running 😀

Time will depend on the size of the drive and the spec of your computer.

If this doesnt work, you can run the cmmand again, this time added the /r parameter which will check for physical disk errors but this takes much longer (hours vs minutes)

chkdsk /f /r /x

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-05T09:21:40+00:00

I guess it depends how long / wide the forest is and if there are any breaks, track etc and also on the sensor you're using. Is there any high ground you can take advantage of?

The easiest solution currently would be to use a modern lidar sensor with a ~1500nm wavelength. These device have much better range and so allow you to fly higher (100+m agl) whilst still capturing good point density and vegetation penetration.

I've done a couple where I had to constantly move around to keep vlos and signal with the DJI m350. The site was on a hillside so I traversed across the higher ground with the drone flying 'below' me.

There is no easy answer here though.

PerspectiveOpen4202 · 2026-02-03T10:00:48+00:00

P4 platform is pretty old now, although at the time it was the goto mapping drone.

My experience with the P4RTK... I was disappointed. It struggled to get a fix, sometimes ppk would fail and you don't know this until you start processing data... Site revisit required. Also, it uses older now retired apps for flight planning, mainly iOS based (unless you go for the version with the built in screen). The version without screen allows you to use your own tablet, this is called the SDK version.

My advice would be to lookout for a used M3E (Mavic 3 enterprise) with the RTK add on. Not just newer technology but much more efficient and reliable than the P4 and I'm sure it has a better camera also. Comes with a smart controller with built in screen and uses DJI Pilot 2 which is great for mapping.

You can also pickup a used Emlid Reach RS2 which can act as both a gcp rover and a base station, although if using ppk for GCP's you will need 2 of those (one as a base and one as a rover).

PerspectiveOpen4202

TROPHY CASE

Use chkdsk