Crash landing :(

[touring]

Hi all, after 4 months of careful flying in open areas I've had my first crash. A gust of wind blew the drone against the fourth floor of a tall building. Luckily prop protectors seem to have cushioned the blow, and the fall to a balcony on the second floor. I now have two small area of distortion on the case on opposite sides of the same leg, and a few damaged props (which I have replaced).

Just seeking people's advice - is it safe to fly as is? Or does it need repair? I haven't tried to fly it yet.

Images of damage here: https://imgur.com/a/hZIGW

 

[rbhamilton]

You can't say you have really flown until you have a few dents. Welcome to the club. So long as the case is more or less intact you should be fine. If you are worried, you can order a new shell and replace the lid. That's the easy one. Replacing the bottom one is harder because everything has to come out.

I'd keep it the way it is. Maybe open it up and check all the connectors - especially the GPS. Make sure they are all still snug. Recalibrate the IMU and compass. Then try powering up. See if you can still connect, work the camera, get video and telemetry. If that all passes try a short hover. If you want to be extra safe you can try a hover with a bit of fishing line to prevent a potential fly-away but that's probably not necessary.

 

[flyNfrank]

I looked at the images with out making them larger. Based on what I saw, and thinking if it were my quad what approach would I take? I would order a new body which is only $50-$60. I would replace the top cover now, and then do the bottom cover when the season is over. Then before flying I would do as rbhamilton suggested which is go through the calibrations. It probably would not hurt to measure from the ends to a level flat surface of each arm. You do need to remove the soft pads on the bottom of the landing gear if you are going to be serious about it.

Suppose you do fly it and find it does not fly as it should. Well that will be due to the one arm being bent more then what the eye can see and has an effect on flight. BUT.....I believe you still have a option to obtain normal flight again, and that is actually by using something none of the rest of probably ever will which is the Mounting Feature in the Phantom Assistant. You should be able to use that as a way to compensate for your sick flying quad.

So regardless, I hope this info helps you and that it wasn't a waste of time. Fill free to ask for any other help along the way.

 

[touring]

Thank you both for really helpful responses. As a newbie I'm completely ignorant about the internals, and was unsure whether case damage can interfere with operations.

Am pretty impressed how a 2 storey sideways fall onto concrete didn't do a great deal of damage. One prop guard was broken but I think they really saved my Phantom!

 

[flyNfrank]

My quad hit a concrete driveway at 60mph 6 weeks ago and is at DJI now. You really should do this mod also. It is really something to take seriously. viewtopic.php?f=27&t=30912

 

[MapMaker53]

Looks obvious to me that the one arm is significantly bent. The upper shell seam is puckered out while bottom shell is showing what looks like a crease in the plastic just below it. Personally, I'd replace the shell. Even if it can fly, any bend in an arm will affect prop efficiency and will probably cause faster battery drain due to the quad constantly trying to compensate for it. How much is hard to say.

 

[mendezl]

Something to consider... if you put a new body / case, the new one will not have a serial number from dji on it. It is a blank case. Not sure if this would cause problems if you need to send it in for warranty work

 

[gfo315]

Something to consider... if you put a new body / case, the new one will not have a serial number from dji on it. It is a blank case. Not sure if this would cause problems if you need to send it in for warranty work

Warranty work is useless, unless you send it to your closest dealer, who may understand the meaning why you changed your case.
I would NEVER send my Phantom to DJI, mainly because of three purposes:

1. There are lot of experienced users to help you in homemade repairs. If I ever had any problem I would ask a solution for it here. (That's what I've done with my Gimbal replacement, btw)

2. DJI takes up to 2-3 months to repair your Phantom, depending on which region you are located. I think it's not worth it to ship your little baby to China - you never know what's out there in shipping handling and stuff.

3. It's very easy to buy ANY spare parts. ESCs, Motors, Props, Gimbal, NAZA, and the list goes on. They even put a # on each replacement part and you can buy it from different dealers.