After repairing some 30 - 40 Phantoms there's a pattern I'm seeing. Anytime someone tells me "my Phantom fell out of the sky" or "lost power while in flight", the first question I ask these days - "how many crashes?" Standard response - " I bummped a tree" or "I've had a couple of hard landings".
I'm finding most of the ones I'm seeing as "power loss" is because the solder joints from the factory are coming undone. C'mon folks those are tiny solder joints to a pcb that if you bump them hard enough they pop off. "It didn't come off after the crash and you had a dozen successful flights then it just dies in midair - what's wrong?" I'll tell you what's wrong - vibration finnished the job!
My point is - regardless of how minimal the crash appeared PLEASE open her up and inspect the solder joints. It takes all of 5 mins at tops. Whenever I have one open I always check all the solder connections, then hot glue or liquid solder all the usual suspects. I do this to ALL of my clients/fellow flyers rigs, it's an ounce of prevention.
Keep 'em flyin'
MC
I'm finding most of the ones I'm seeing as "power loss" is because the solder joints from the factory are coming undone. C'mon folks those are tiny solder joints to a pcb that if you bump them hard enough they pop off. "It didn't come off after the crash and you had a dozen successful flights then it just dies in midair - what's wrong?" I'll tell you what's wrong - vibration finnished the job!
My point is - regardless of how minimal the crash appeared PLEASE open her up and inspect the solder joints. It takes all of 5 mins at tops. Whenever I have one open I always check all the solder connections, then hot glue or liquid solder all the usual suspects. I do this to ALL of my clients/fellow flyers rigs, it's an ounce of prevention.
Keep 'em flyin'
MC