Kickstarter Sunbox, a sunshield for the Ipad air

John McLean · Jul 17, 2016

Hi all, i'm a UK based photographer. I've been toying around with my Phantom 3 Advanced for a while and have always found the sun shields you can buy for the ipad air totally useless so i've invented my own called the 'Sunbox'!
It's here on Kickstarter:

Sunbox - ipad screen drone sunshade

It's still in development, but it's a storage box for your stuff, a platform for gimbal calibration, a launch pad in dodgy areas AND a very effective sun shield. My current production model fits to the DJI controller although i've adapted it already to fit to an ipad off the device for comfortable viewing and have smaller sizes coming through.
Love your feedback all, and please help by funding this project.
Cheers

#1

Doink · Jul 17, 2016

Not knocking your idea and your right the current crop of sun shades are crap but if my eyes are deceiving me isn't that just a 'really useful box' painted black with the bottom cut out?

alokbhargava · Jul 17, 2016

Best of luck

konidair · Jul 17, 2016

How do you access the touchscreen of the tablet?

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

John McLean · Jul 17, 2016

Doink said:
Not knocking your idea and your right the current crop of sun shades are crap but if my eyes are deceiving me isn't that just a 'really useful box' painted black with the bottom cut out?

Haha Doink, got it one! The idea came to me as I was shopping in Hobbycraft! The cheapo one I've made will be replaced with an injection moulded design but it's the one I bought to trial the idea. The box plastic is way to brittle for serious use. I've also got a design for a spring clamp to fit to the box lid which may angle the top to make post flight viewing easier.
Hey, I had to start somewhere!

Doink · Jul 17, 2016

Again I'm not knocking it and fair play to you for trying to come up with something, I quite like that you've tried to use Derby County colours, just a bit more white needed then I may buy one

John McLean · Jul 17, 2016

Doink said:
Again I'm not knocking it and fair play to you for trying to come up with something, I quite like that you've tried to use Derby County colours, just a bit more white needed then I may buy one

DERBY COU....you're dead to me.

Doink · Jul 17, 2016

Not sure what you're using but I flick between a Samsung tab S 8.4 and a tesco hudl2, not everyone uses a one sized iPad, android based tablets would be worse still with hundreds of makes and sizes so I would imagine something more universal maybe small/medium/large rather than an exact fit which would limit your market obviously.

John McLean · Jul 17, 2016

Doink said:
Not sure what you're using but I flick between a Samsung tab S 8.4 and a tesco hudl2, not everyone uses a one sized iPad, android based tablets would be worse still with hundreds of makes and sizes so I would imagine something more universal maybe small/medium/large rather than an exact fit which would limit your market obviously.

You are right of course matey, there are many variants. Looking a the more common screen sizes it seems 9x7 ( ipad air) and 7x9 are most common at present but i've noticed little concensus amongst phone producers of any standard screen size.

Clipper707 · Jul 18, 2016

Cool idea, but it wouldn't work for me. My transport rig is based off a Fieldline Tactical Alpha Ops backpack (identical to a 511 GPC, but with different foam.) I can fit my P3 and all of my gear inside, plus my camera and binoculars. I couldn't see hauling around a box externally, and a rigid one at that.

For a sunshade, I've used crappy ones before, but now I'm using the HAV1 Hoodman. This is a fantastic piece of gear that folds flat, is securely attached to the tablet (iPad mini in my case) and has a slot for using the touchscreen on the underside. Additionally, there's a snorkel hood for extremely bright conditions.

Demo video here:

As for a launch pad, if I can't find a secure place to launch, I launch off the backpack itself or hand launch.

Good luck with the Sunbox!