My P2V had surgery today

[robschoemaker]

As I wrote in the preventive maintenance "sticky" a couple of days ago, I was stupid enough to use Loctite on the screws of my P2V
Basically, Loctite reacts with the plastic of the P2V shell and the plastic melts. 4 of the screws that hold the upper and bottom shells together could no longer be tightened. Bottom line: my Phantom was pretty much ruined.

These images show what Loctite does to the plastic:






I don't really like the idea of buying a new shell and transplanting the intestines. Basically because most components on the inside are soldered together and they pretty much are a tight fit, so I guess it will be difficult to get them all into a new shell without damaging to much.
Since the screw-holes that were damaged were distributed over the 4 arms (basically 1 damaged hole per arm), each arm still had 2 good screws (plus the little philips screw at the end of the arm), I thought to give it a try to repair the damaged screw holes.

So the idea was to fill the damaged holes with a epoxy type of stuff and make holes in that to fit new (slightly longer) screws. After doing some googling, I found "Pattex Express Repair", which is a two-component power knead (feels a bit like chewing-gum). Did some experiments with it and decided to give it a go. Basically, I used tape to create a mold and screwed in a very long screw as a "mold" for the screwhole. Then I fitted the upper and lower shell together and filled the broken screwholes with this power knead. (Had to work fast, because the knead hardens in about 5 minutes).

Continued in next post

 

[robschoemaker]

So the raw results of my surgery are shown in the following images:





Did some quick testing and it seems to be very solid. So I polished the outside a little, and this is the end-result:



So, the body is assembled again, and it feels really sturdy. Will let the two-component stuff harden for 24 more hours and will go out for a test-flight. Keep you posted

Rob

 

[Scottrod]

Wow! That really sucks man. Sorry to hear. I would never have thought loctite would do something like that. I've heard about it before though so I haven't tried it. If I were you I would just bite the bullet and buy the new shell and try to transfer the guts. Just my .02.

 

[Channel One]

As I wrote in the preventive maintenance "sticky" a couple of days ago, I was stupid enough to use Loctite on the screws of my P2V

There's nothing wrong with using Loctite on the screws but it must be used in a small enough quantity to not spread beyond the metallic inserts. A drop can be literally too much, it works best to just allow the Loctite to run into a couple of threads in the middle of the screw and then allow it to set up before sending the screw home.

BTW this is the same method used on the factory supplied shell screws.

Wayne

 

[Bigbells]

Admits to mistake and then does nice job of fixing it. Kudos, Rob!

 

[robschoemaker]

Thanks Wayne and Bigbells!

Actually I used a very tiny amount of Locktite, used a tooth-pick to put a tiny drop on the screws. Didn't let it cure before sending the stews back in though. Anyway, apparently that still was to much. But luckily the fix worked very well. (actually I crashed my P2V afterwards, nothing to do with the fix , and the fixed parts held out quite well).

Regards Rob