so this might be a dumb question but ive been looking at whether theres any real option for running non-DJI payloads on the Inspire 2. i know the gimbal interface is proprietary and DJI has been pretty locked down about it but ive seen some people mention third party mounts or adapter setups and im not sure how legitimate those actually are in practice versus just being someone selling vaporware on some random site.

the reason i ask is a client wants some thermal imaging work done and my X7 is obviously not that. ive looked at the Zenmuse XT2 which is technically supported but finding one at a reasonable price used is getting harder and the newer thermal stuff DJI makes is more enterprise tier pricing. just trying to figure out if theres a workaround that people have actually used on real jobs or if im just going to have to rent a Matrice for this kind of thing

yeah the XT2 situation is frustrating, prices on the used market have not come down the way you'd expect. i picked one up maybe 18 months ago and even then it wasnt cheap. the integration with the I2 is solid though when you have one, the radiometric data works properly and the flight characteristics dont change much with that payload.

third party gimbal stuff for the Inspire 2 is mostly sketchy from what ive seen. theres been a few attempts but nothing that actually delivers reliable stabilization or proper data handshake with the aircraft. for thermal specifically i think you either go XT2 or you rent a Matrice 300 with an H20T which is genuinely a different class of tool but overkill unless the client is paying for it. what kind of thermal work are they after, just basic heat mapping or actual radiometric measurements?

matrice rental is probably your cleanest path for a one off thermal job honestly. trying to bodge a third party payload onto an Inspire for something a client is paying for seems like a liability headache you dont need. ive seen some of those adapter setups and they look fine until they dont and then youre explaining to a client why you crashed their job site inspection.