DJI Mavic 3 Payload Release – Anyone Can Do Drone Delivery!

Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by. Today we’re going to check out a payload release system for the DJI Mavic 3 drone. There’s something that I want to try. You know, after you’ve been flying drones for quite a while, you get a little bit bored, and you would like to try new things, right?

So, I’ve always wanted to do drone fishing. We like to fish quite a bit, and this summer, what I would like to do is try doing some drone fishing.

So, I wanted a payload dropping system that I could hook my fishing line to and fly my DJI Mavic 3 out over the water from shore and then just drop the line like hundreds of yards out and then reel it in from shore.

DJI Mavic 3 Payload Release from Hanatora

I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, and this is something different from do with your drone. I hopped online and started looking at some payload systems for my DJI Mavic 3, and I found this one from Hanatora.

There are many different options out there, but I chose this one because it has the landing gear already attached to it. A lot of the payload systems that are out there for drones have the payload system that you attach to the drone, but then you also have to put landing gear on it so that it sits up higher.

This one does not have that, so that’s why I decided it. I paid for this myself, and it’s $46, which is a little pricier than some other ones out there. But they also make this for the DJI Air 2s and the Mavic 2 Pro, and those reviews are really good.

They’re four and a half stars, and there are hundreds of reviews on them. This one, for the Mavic 3, only has three or four reviews, I think. I’m not sure why it doesn’t have so many.

Maybe it’s just relatively new. But the other reviews for this exact same product for those drones are very good, so we’re going to check it out today and see what it’s like. In the box, it looks like you get the device, of course. It’s got a little hook and loop strap here to strap around the top of it. I’m assuming that’s just for extra security, but I think it just clips on the bottom of the drone. I’ll do that here in a second.

Also, in the box, you get some instructions. The other reason I like this one is that I noticed, particularly on this one, that when you turn on your auxiliary light, it triggers the release mechanism.

DJI Mavic 3 releases with the auxiliary light

So, on the bottom of the device, there’s a little light sensor here which lines up with the auxiliary light on your Mavic 3. Then, you can program your RC or your RCN1 or whatever your Pro Controller to hit the C1 button, and when the auxiliary light turns on, it triggers the release mechanism.

So, there’s no range limitation on it. It doesn’t depend on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or anything. It just depends on the light on your drone. So, however far your drone can fly, that’s how far you can drop something from. That’s pretty cool!

Instructions on how to do both of those things are provided. It’s a USB-C rechargeable device, so it comes with a USB-C cord, an extra strap, and little rings that you can attach your line to or lanyard, or whatever you’re going to attach with this.

They do say on the website not to use long lanyards or long strings; you want to try to keep what you’re carrying relatively short. It doesn’t really matter for what I’m going to use it for – fishing – but if you’re going to be delivering, say, a soda to your neighbor, you don’t want to have your lanyard too long because I think that’s just going to mess with this little mechanism.

It has a 500-gram carrying capacity, like a weight limit. So, the device itself weighs about 85 grams or about three ounces, and the DJI Mavic 3, as I showed in my last video, can carry about 900 grams, a little over 900 grams. So, it can carry plenty of weight – even with this on there, you can carry about 800 grams – but this is limited to 500 grams.

So, you don’t want to go beyond that, um, I suppose they just put a weight limit on it because they don’t want to be responsible for you dropping something on someone’s head. But yeah, you have to stay under 500 grams.

Again, not that big of a deal if you’re going to be using it for fishing because the heaviest weight that’s going to be on here is like a jig or a fishing lure. So, we don’t have to worry about that. To attach it, just line it up with the sensors. It doesn’t block any of the downward sensors, which is pretty nice.

Then it clips into the front, and I’ll put this up on the screen, so you can get a better look at it. Then, use the hook and loop to strap it around the top. You have to weave it in here, which isn’t the most convenient, but it’s not so bad. Pull it tight and hook it to the loop. That’s what the hook and loop looks like around it.

There’s the bottom view. To attach it when it’s off, you can just pull it open, take out your ring, or whatever you’re going to have on there, your fishing line, or whatever. Then, you can push it back in to lock that item in there, that ring or whatever.

There’s a switch on the side; turn it on just like that. Okay, and I’m going to charge this before I go outside and use it, but it’s like I said, USB-C rechargeable, so that port is right on the front. Let’s take it outside, and actually, I’m going to charge it up first.

Putting the release system to the test

Then we’ll take it outside and see how it works. Alright, here’s the mechanism, and right now, I don’t have it turned on. To open it up, all you have to do is push that over just like that, and then you can put your hoop loop in there or whatever you want to put in there. I’m just going to be using a jig hook here, so I don’t have to open it up.

I’m just going to hook it through and let it hang there. Hopefully, it will stay in place. Now, I’m going to turn it on. You could force it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Only open it if it’s turned off. Let’s turn the brightness down a little bit.

I have my fishing rod here, and for now, I’m just going to lay it down while I get my controller. We need to make it a little brighter. Alright, let’s get it up in the air. Let’s slide out and go across the road there.

Now I’m going to flip my bail over and reel in my drone. The C1 is programmed to turn on the auxiliary light. Make sure there are no cars coming. You can’t see it from your perspective, but it dropped the lure. That’s pretty fun.

You could theoretically bring the line out as far as the amount of line that fits on your spool. Let’s put something a little heavier on there. I’ll see if I can deliver something. Unfortunately, my neighbor is not home today, so I can’t deliver anything to him.

Lifting the DJI Avata

Alright, let’s hook up this steel braided cable and test the actual capacity. I’m going to use the DJI Mavic 3 to lift the DJI Avata. The Avata weighs about 410 grams, and the weight limit on the release is 500 grams, so we should be okay. Let’s find a good spot to hook this up. We’ve got the hang of it. Oh, I forgot to turn on the payload release. There we go.

All right, so we’ll just bring it over here to the end of the driveway, laughs, and then I would rather not drop it from too high, so I’m just going to set it down. Actually, you know what, I’m just going to bring it back closer to the camera so you guys can see it. Okay, turn the light on, there we go. Look at that, pretty cool! I carried that, no problem. All right, let’s bring this down and we’ll talk about it.

It doesn’t seem to affect the flight performance or the characteristics or anything of the flight, so I think that’s okay. Of course, it’s going to diminish your battery life quite a bit, depending on what you’re carrying, but yeah, then you can fold these in, relatively easy to put on and take off. So, I think it’s money well spent if you guys are looking for a payload release system.

What else could you use this for? Many different things. You can deliver, you know, for fun, you can have fun with your neighbors or your friends or whatever, delivering beverages to them.

You know, that’s what most people do, but you could maybe go to like a local burger shop or something and offer to deliver. You know, somebody orders something online, they want it delivered, maybe you could deliver it by drone, and that would give them some recognition and they’d be, I think, a lot of people would be happy to do that, a lot of smaller companies might be able to, you might be able to work with them, so that’s just a few suggestions. It’s really limitless what you can do with this.

If you wanted to make money doing it, of course, you have to have your Part 107 in the United States, but nowadays, that’s relatively easy to get as well.

If you want to know how to study for that, I do have a link in the video description of the program that I used, and that can help you study and get your Part 107 so you can start earning money with your drone.

You know, like I said, when you’ve been flying drones for quite a while, you try to think of different things that you can do with your drone because after a while, it gets kind of boring, so you want to try new things and eventually maybe start making some money with it.

But yeah, Hanatora did a good job. Like I said, they have it for the Air 2s as well and the Mavic 2 Pro, so I’ll put links for all those down in the video description if you’re interested in checking them out, those are actually a little bit cheaper. This is the more expensive one at $46, I think those other ones are like $36. So yeah, if you have those other drones, check that out.

If you have any questions about it, let me know in the video or down in the comments, and if you want to see more bonus content, follow me on social media: TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thank you for watching today, hit that thumbs up if I gave you anything of value, and as always, fly safe and fly smart.