ok so this is probably a dumb question but here goes. my buddy has an old Inspire 1 that basically just sits in a case and we were wondering if theres any way to mount something heavier than the stock Zenmuse cameras on it, like not talking anything crazy maybe a small thermal camera or a mirrorless with a lightweight lens for a specific one-off project.

i know the Inspire 1 was designed around the Zenmuse gimbal interface and the whole retractable landing gear thing is kind of the whole point of the design but the airframe itself seems pretty solid. before i go down a rabbit hole of custom mounting plates and butchered brackets just wondering if anyone has actually done this or if the flight controller just freaks out when the CoG shifts that much

yeah dont do it, or at least not without really understanding what youre getting into. the Inspire 1 flight controller expects a very specific weight distribution and the ATTI mode fallback when it gets confused can be pretty violent. ive seen someone try to mount a non-Zenmuse payload on a modified plate and it just yawed constantly and fought the controller the whole flight. they landed it fine but it wasnt pretty.

if you genuinely need thermal on a budget the Zenmuse XT is literally designed for that interface and you can find used XT or XT2 units for not that much these days. would save you a lot of grief

the Inspire 2 is actually a lot more tolerant of payload variation than the 1 was, the 2 has that top mount accessory port and people have stuck all kinds of weird stuff up there for inspection work. but on the Inspire 1 you're kind of stuck with the Zenmuse ecosystem unless you really know what you're doing with the firmware and IMU calibration after any mod. the airframe can handle a bit more weight than people think mechanically speaking but the FC is the limiting factor honestly