Stress Crack after FIRST flight

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last week I flew my P3P for like 20 min at the beach. Today I was about to take it to the second flight. Guess what, cracks under one of the motors. Lmao seriously? New motor new shell version here. Seems like pure ********... Btw, absolutely no crash or hard landing...
 
Do you have a picture of where the crack is?

Is it an option of returning it where you got it from such as Best Buy, Amazon... If not, assuming it is under warranty I would contact DJI and get an RMA.

If it were me and I had cracks so soon I would look at getting a new one from where I purchased it.

Maybe some more senior members can chime in with some additional advice.
 
Do you have a picture of where the crack is?

Is it an option of returning it where you got it from such as Best Buy, Amazon... If not, assuming it is under warranty I would contact DJI and get an RMA.

If it were me and I had cracks so soon I would look at getting a new one from where I purchased it.

Maybe some more senior members can chime in with some additional advice.
The cracks are right next to the bolts. I just can't believe they appeared after first flight... I already exchanged the bird. Why DJI still hasn't fixed the issue... Have they actually improved the shell?
 
And some people on the forum say it's better to unscrew the bolts a little bit so they are not super tight. Does that really help to prevent the crack?
 
The cracks are right next to the bolts. I just can't believe they appeared after first flight... I already exchanged the bird. Why DJI still hasn't fixed the issue... Have they actually improved the shell?
Glad you got a new one.

I've read a great deal about the cracks and just a couple of folks have had the cracks with the new body/motors. Very few whereas I read a thread where 500 old body units were checked and 30% had body cracks. Of those 25% had cracks with no other damage and 5% had cracks and crash. 70% had no cracks.

Anyway glad you got your new bird.
 
The cracks are right next to the bolts. I just can't believe they appeared after first flight... I already exchanged the bird. Why DJI still hasn't fixed the issue... Have they actually improved the shell?

While they have improved the shell somewhat with extra ribs, they haven't improved the plastic itself. I had a two month old phantom that I retired last week. From the end of the first week onwards it would, every few flights or so, spit out pieces of the top to bottom retention clips. Finally it spit out a screw along with the standoff it was screed into. That was it, time to retire it.
 
This is the thread that I made reference to regarding the 30% cracks. I guess it was a poll on the DJI site.

10 flights = stress cracks...
Lol!! Taking a poll like that in their forum is the same as taking a poll at a hospital to find out how many sick people there are in a certain area. Most of the people who have bought a phantom never have an issue and never go into forums or on websites. That poll has no real value !!
 
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Lol!! Taking a poll like that in their forum is the same as taking a poll at a hospital to find out how many sick people there are in a certain area. Most of the people who have bought a phantom never have an issue and never go into forums or on websites. That poll has no real value !!

But I also suspect that most people aren't doing sustained full forward speeds to go 1.5 to 2.5 kilometer distances at 120 meter altitude. This is the nature of my flying, take off normally, slow transition to forward and climb to 120, level off and go to the limit of good FPV for that day. Doing just this with no crashes ever because there is nothing to hit at 120m, I have managed to crack through two phantom 3 advanced, and one advanced (zip tied) that proceeded to spit out occasional pieces of the retaining clips every other week. Normal, sub 10 mph winds. Again, slow translations to full forward speeds. In my case I feel that the sustained high forward speeds could be the causing the problems. While not everyone is experiencing these issues, every single time I've seen some other phantom flyer out in some field they were doing the back and forth, circling around at treetop height thing. Not once yet have I seen another guy just take off, get it high up and go far. Sure, we see them here in the forum or in the videos posted, but the guys I see out there on an everyday basis are barely skimming the surface of light bridge capabilities. Or maybe the far and high thing does not constitute a high percentage of the average pilot's flying. In my case it is 100% of my flying and I've had stress crack issues in all three phantom 3 I've owned. What I'm currently doing is keeping one in the shelf, one for sending in. I just sent one in last week that was two months old and took a new one off the shelf. But that was a good one and I started to actually trust it's shell until the retention clips started cracking. I did have it zip tied which has been really effective against the two screw hole locations if tight enough. I love these phantoms but hate the plastic.
 
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If I had a P3, that's the first thing I'd do - right out of the box.

Zip ties too. Simple, non permanent, not a trace in case of warranty. But they must be tight.
20151207_115013.jpg
 
But I also suspect that most people aren't doing sustained full forward speeds to go 1.5 to 2.5 kilometer distances at 120 meter altitude. This is the nature of my flying, take off normally, slow transition to forward and climb to 120, level off and go to the limit of good FPV for that day. Doing just this with no crashes ever because there is nothing to hit at 120m, I have managed to crack through two phantom 3 advanced, and one advanced (zip tied) that proceeded to spit out occasional pieces of the retaining clips every other week. Normal, sub 10 mph winds. Again, slow translations to full forward speeds. In my case I feel that the sustained high forward speeds could be the causing the problems. While not everyone is experiencing these issues, every single time I've seen some other phantom flyer out in some field they were doing the back and forth, circling around at treetop height thing. Not once yet have I seen another guy just take off, get it high up and go far. Sure, we see them here in the forum or in the videos posted, but the guys I see out there on an everyday basis are barely skimming the surface of light bridge capabilities. Or maybe the far and high thing does not constitute a high percentage of the average pilot's flying. In my case it is 100% of my flying and I've had stress crack issues in all three phantom 3 I've owned. What I'm currently doing is keeping one in the shelf, one for sending in. I just sent one in last week that was two months old and took a new one off the shelf. But that was a good one and I started to actually trust it's shell until the retention clips started cracking. I did have it zip tied which has been really effective against the two screw hole locations if tight enough. I love these phantoms but hate the plastic.
2016 is going to be a great year for new drones maybe all them pain in the butt crack will make your next drone decisions a little easier.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
Lol!! Taking a poll like that in their forum is the same as taking a poll at a hospital to find out how many sick people there are in a certain area. Most of the people who have bought a phantom never have an issue and never go into forums or on websites. That poll has no real value !!
Well I'm not saying the poll is accurate. After all the numbers can be, and probably are, somewhat skewed. If it helps identify an issue, and speeds up a resolution to it, then I'm in favor of it. I think everyone is openly admitting there is an issue with the cracks. DJI will repair them free of charge and they came out with a new body style with greater support in that area that is experiencing the cracks. If a simple poll, this one actually on the DJI site, helps resolve the problem, and even saves so much as 1 bird from crashing I'm all in favor of it. And it also brings light to the issue and educates all owners.

Just my .02
 

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