should I send it in for repair?

[Phatzo]

Hi guys and girls,

I had a little crash today while trying out a new app (the vertical studio) while flying and looking at the camera feed, I did not notice because I flew backwards keeping myself in focus (on a small golf course) the unit got caught up in the net and it kind of got hung up. (it would have fallen anyway) I did a CSC at an instant and it landed on its back (fortunately). that was the good news because the gimbal did not get damaged at all. BUT

the back (top cover cracked, the nosecone need replacement and the supports for the top cover broke away. (would try to superglue it - will post pics beforehand) now, the bird does fly ok and everything works fine. after taking off the top and cable out of the GPS I noticed that the cover box of the servo for the legs hat sort of broken into the GPS from servo side (underside of the GPS) there is a hole in the GPS aluminum housing but works fine. had a bunch of SAT´s and holding position was also ok.

now the question:
should I superglue the supports, exchange the nose and top cover and GPS or should I send it in for repair.

any suggestions and tips or advices are welcome. pics will follow.

cheers.
m

 

[Mazz]

I wonder if you can call and ask them for a rough estimate on repair costs. I, personally, would look into buying a water damaged craft and using as many of the parts off that as you could. Those are usually structurally sound with bad electronics and can go for a few hundred bucks. Will also give you a lot of extra parts to play with .

 

[Phatzo]

I wonder if you can call and ask them for a rough estimate on repair costs. I, personally, would look into buying a water damaged craft and using as many of the parts off that as you could. Those are usually structurally sound with bad electronics and can go for a few hundred bucks. Will also give you a lot of extra parts to play with .

Hi Mazz,
I would call them in germany to ask them why they billed my shop for a repair that was not needed accusing us breaking an arm and although we stated on the RMA that an antenna cable was inserted wrong (will post pics). although my shop was cool and payed the bill the antenna cable problem I did not touch due to warranty I did not want to loose for a 5 month old unit they did not repair that.
coming back to you suggestion, I think that would be a good idea but here in Hungary there are no water damaged I1´s ;(
letting one ship from US... I don´t know. the shipping cost would be a nice sum I guess. - I will wait and see. maybe I can 3D print them for myself hopefully (it just popped into my head that we have a 3D printer LOL )
anyway I sent my shop a mail and will see what they will do with the second unit that I got back today to find out they did not repair what they have should.

I will put up pics in a few minutes.

no offense meant Mazz. sorry, got carried away. I am just pissed. I did call them about my cable and ended up sending it in for that repair. then they sent back an invoice about 120EURO about a broken arm. - yeah ... - exactly. ???? WTF????
I do speak mother tongue german and fluently english and hungarian. but I need to calm down to not ask for someone that has the ability to take responsibility at the german service center. - they have been cool and nice so I am assuming that there was some mixup and that they will apologize for the mistake. - then all is good. but if they go on the arrogant line I do not guarantee for myself with talking with them if my shop can´t figure out something.

I will check out the classifieds for some broken or used I1 I can strip.

thank you for the idea though

 

[Phatzo]

here are the pics of unit 2 with the bad antenna.

 

[Phatzo]

and here unit one with the broken parts.

 

[Phatzo]

could someone help me with tearing down the front part of the unit? I will have to take it apart to some extent to make a 3D model and print it. (I have not seen this part as spare in the shops).
it is the part that holds the top cover in place with small arms. in picture 0546 and the lower small arm in pic 0545. as far as I can see it sits behind the the main cable controller in line (from above with the cooling fan). I will buy a new GPS to exchange the old one that is cracked open.

 

[Chnjab]

Your bird is very easy to fix and everything you need is easily sourced. You don't have to make anything and I wouldn't send it to DJI for that repair. You need the top air frame which is $20.00, then the nose is $15.00, the two side struts are sold as a set for only $6.00, then the light bridge mount/nose mount with aluminum brackets to the main landing gear mount is $12.00, then you need GPS cover which is $12.00, Finally I can guarantee you'll need the GPS disk which is $175.00. These are all brand new at DJI pricing no silly mark-ups. You total only $240.00 even with the GPS disk plus shipping from the US but that won't be too bad as the box won't be too big. pm me and I can set you up with where to get it all.

 

[Phatzo]

Your bird is very easy to fix and everything you need is easily sourced. You don't have to make anything and I wouldn't send it to DJI for that repair. You need the top air frame which is $20.00, then the nose is $15.00, the two side struts are sold as a set for only $6.00, then the light bridge mount/nose mount with aluminum brackets to the main landing gear mount is $12.00, then you need GPS cover which is $12.00, Finally I can guarantee you'll need the GPS disk which is $175.00. These are all brand new at DJI pricing no silly mark-ups. You total only $240.00 even with the GPS disk plus shipping from the US but that won't be too bad as the box won't be too big. pm me and I can set you up with where to get it all.

Dear Chnjab,
did I mention how much I love this forum
I thought of all that but here in Hungary parts in my shop and these part are not all available. I did find the support plastic piece I broke off on one side. I can also get the GPS cover and even a GPS in germany which will be I guess almost the same when you add customs etc to the US shipping version. the worm gear and everything else is working (thank god) so I will be back up soon.
nevertheless I really appreciate your help and kindness and will get back to you incase I do really need something I can not find on german e-bay or in my shop for a reasonable price.

for information: I do have the top airframe already , I will be getting a nose cover / cone and the plastic support for those is underway from germany. the GPS cover is available in my shop I used to go so I will get discount there for the parts I get.

GPS disc or GPS seems to be ok. had all sats I needed visible and no glitches. position hold was good also. I was lucky this time. will have to pay more attention when flying alone filming myself lol.

thank you again.

 

[Chnjab]

Great! You'll be right as rain in no time then. If you need anything just call the establishment I PM'd you. Good luck with it and don't fear disassembling the front it's extremely easy. So much so the plastic bracket that's broken literally slides on once accessed.

 

[Phatzo]

i have to sign up to share photos via phone on tapatalk??? i am already signed in. i don't geg it.
i would like to post the strip i did to the unit. explaining how to and where to undo the screws.

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[Phatzo]

i forgot to memtion that the battery i flew with does work but only one led is working... tha app shows voltage, life etc and also charge. is it possible to put a balanceboard from the tb 47 on to the 48?


update: I checked the battery PCB - the intelligent part and it was bent so I took out the PCB of the first battery (charged 54 times) and soldered it on the crashed one. although the counter does still think it is on the tb47 I put it on the charger to see if it will see the 5700mAh or not. if not I will take an older 5700mAh battery and solder the PCB on from that one. while doing that I will prepare it for the mod having the cables out. all I will need then is only to buy 2pcs of 6S almost matching up the original and I am good to go. will report back.

cheers

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[Phatzo]

YO

I found this shop on ebay: Artikel im Shop bei eBay!
they have parts I have not seen anywhere else. - apparently new -
I just got myself the part that is behind the main controller system. I will call it plastic rib, holding the nose cone and the top.
If anyone in europe or world needs any help in getting parts from there, let me know as shipping cost can be a pain for international shipping with a whopping 25 euros. Europe only is 16euros and within germany only 5.

can someone tell me what the FC controller is called? NAZA, A2 or wookong. I am not familiar with the FC from DJI.
there is a starting community (at last) here in Hungary: www.dronehungary.hu implementing the FAA registration process but not being connected to any law enforcment or authoraty. - only the community - in case of loss or fly away to be able to return the unit found to the rightful owner.

one part in the specs list is the FC instead the aircraft name - funny it is because the Phantom is in the list. no inspire 1

thank you for any info on the more detailed specs as I could not find anything on the DJI homepage under specs for the I1.

cheers

 

[Phatzo]

update: I made a PCB swap for the battery that had crashed with the inspire and got bent thus only having one LED working and not telemetry to show, so I will not use it anymore since I do know know anything about it in terms of information needed to fly.
nevertheless, the PCB´s seem to be tuned only for that one specific battery and are not "swappable" as you can not (or I do not know how to) reset the counter for charged cycles and the voltage for left mAh capacity. - if anyone knows how to reset it, please let me know as I can save my battery then which would be nice since it was fairly new with not much charging cycles - so I would be very greatful.

now the pics

the first pic is a screenshot after getting back to my office and powering on the AC. was funny to see this
on the other pics you can hopefully see the bent PCB. I have tried to exchange it with my first battery pcb which is a 4500mAh. - does not work.

 

[calde315]

What was the parts source that Chnjab was referring to? I have an I1 coming and would like to know where you can get spare parts. Chnjab if you see this, I PM'd you.

 

[Phatzo]

What was the parts source that Chnjab was referring to? I have an I1 coming and would like to know where you can get spare parts. Chnjab if you see this, I PM'd you.

since I am in Europe I found a shop in Germany but Chnjab will reply to you. if you are in Europe I posted an e-bay link which has virtually all parts.

 

[calde315]

since I am in Europe I found a shop in Germany but Chnjab will reply to you. if you are in Europe I posted an e-bay link which has virtually all parts.

Nope I'm in the states. I'll look for a reply from him.

 

[Phatzo]

Does someone have a working fairly new PCB TB 48 which he or she is willing to let go? I have a perfect condition battery but the PCB I show in this thread is bent and does not work or better to say is a 100% reliable as I do not know what is broken within the layers... if I could get a hold onto a TB 48 PCB close to not used or a few charges I can live with it. I am conditioning my batteries now like Damon explained in his "I want my mAh back!!" and it does work actually.

if anyone could help me out to save my 200SUD battery with a few cent worth of parts that would be greatly appreciated
thank you

m

 

[Sciro16V]

Strange damage in your Drone. I mean very big after small crash. I had similar accident the first day of this year. It was about minus 10. I was flying over particulary frozen river after one battery flight over ground to test. Was my fault. Because of distraction from a guy who asked me a question, and low temperature that disrupted my finger touch sense on sticks when flying backwards (i was 100% sure that no input from tumbs to drone), eye contact lost for 5 seconds and tree had ate my inspire about 3 meter above water level. Luckily there was 2 meter long ice beneath the trees! I did CSC when heard blades collapsing hitting tree. It was about 100m away near other side of river. Drone just spinned around x axis and hit ice near water. Strange that i was recording and no 5s material on SD card before crash was recorded. File not corrupted. After that crash i had gimball mount broken, nose some cracks near screws - did replace last month after cleaning because cracks was visible but all was in right place till i removed screws. Camera ok. Just new tapes from gimball mount to Drone because camera was ripped from I1 and set of blades. I have glued gimbal mount and it works well. Drone crash landed on it. Gear was up, but when i walked around river for recovery, VPS made gear down. I had visual and stress test of inside parts of inspire and all was ok. No more damage. So i was lucky. Never lose vlos and get distracted. BTW i have changed last month mounting from old to v2 from x5 and it works better - more stable in agressive flight but now im preety sure that same as mine accident will damage camera and gimball. Old one just broke into two. This one will not. This dont change fact that before and after crash my camera sometimes not horizon. Good luck in rebulds.

 

[Sciro16V]

LoL sorry didnt notce the post date. Same month crash!

 

[Phatzo]

LoL sorry didnt notce the post date. Same month crash!

it's ok.
i was lucky but still have no pcb that would count from "new" mAh usage... i will probably dump an old 5700mah one and take that pcb and try to reset that..


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