okay so this might be a weird question but hear me out. we have an Inspire 2 that we use for regular cinematography work but theres been a couple projects recently where clients wanted thermal or multispectral data alongside the cinema footage. obviously the stock gimbal bay isnt really designed with that in mind.

ive seen some third party payload solutions and a few custom fabricated mounts floating around online but most of the stuff i find is either outdated, not applicable to the Inspire airframe specifically, or its clearly someone just trying to sell something. wondering if anyone here has actually rigged up anything non-standard on an Inspire 2 and how it went. im not talking about anything crazy heavy just wondering about balance and whether the flight controller handles asymmetric loading okay or if it gets weird

the dual battery setup gives you decent flight time headroom which is why i want to stick with this platform for the hybrid capture jobs rather than swapping to something else entirely

the Inspire 2 flight controller is actually pretty good at compensating for moderate imbalances, ive flown mine with a slightly heavier lens config than recommended and it handled fine, just ate into flight time a bit more than usual. but i havent done anything structural to the airframe itself. main thing id worry about is CG shift affecting the gimbal stabilization because its calibrated around the stock setup. if youre hanging something off to one side it might introduce vibrations or horizon issues depending on how the gimbal reads inertial data

honestly for thermal + cinema on the same flight i would just look at running two separate platforms if the budget allows. i know that sounds annoying but trying to bodge a multispectral sensor onto an Inspire feels like it introduces a lot of variables you dont want on a paid job. one thing goes wrong and now youve got problems with both data sets. just my take, maybe someone else here has actually done it successfully and proved me wrong