ok weird question maybe but im curious if anyone has experimented with non-DJI payloads on the Inspire 2. i know the official line is you use the DJI camera system and thats it but the payload capacity on that thing is listed at around 1.35kg under optimal conditions and im wondering if theres a way to mount something like a lightweight thermal or multispectral sensor for survey work without going to a totally different platform.

the reason i want to stay on the Inspire 2 is honestly just that i know the flight characteristics really well and our whole workflow is built around it. switching to a Matrice or something for a niche job feels like overkill especially for something we'd only do a few times a year. ive seen some third party adapter plates floating around but no real world reports on how they perform in actual flight, mostly just product photos on random websites.

anyone done this or am i just going to break something expensive

yeah i wouldnt. the Inspire 2 motor and ESC setup is tuned around those specific DJI camera weights and the flight controller doesn't really have a good way to account for weird CG shifts when you strap something non-standard up there. technically you can lift the weight but the stability degrades and you start getting into weird oscillation territory especially in any kind of wind. seen someone try it with a Zenmuse XT swap and the results were... not great. if thermal is the goal the Matrice 300 with XT2 is honestly not that much more complex once you're used to it and you sleep better at night.

i did mess around with a custom mount for a FLIR Boson once, got it flying but the yaw control was sketchy and i never fully trusted it. flew it maybe four times over a controlled area before i gave up. the adapter plates you're seeing are probbaly fine structurally but the integration is the issue, you lose all the gimbal stabilization and you're basically just strapping a sensor to a flying brick at that point. depends how much your survey data quality matters i guess.