P4 propeller mounting plate broken

deanatwell · May 1, 2016

I have had my P4 for around 2 weeks now and just noticed yesterday after a flight that part of the propeller mount has broken off.

Has anyone else had this issue and is it mainly down to not being careful enough with mounting the propellers? Also, is it safe to fly until a replacement arrives given that the propeller still seems to attach securely?

Thanks,
Dean

phantom13flyer · May 1, 2016

I wouldn't take a chance flying with damaged prop mounts. Probably best to wait till the replacement parts are in. Good luck and safe flying

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

rockydog · May 1, 2016

Looking at the photo, it's apparent that one of the remaining mounting posts has also got slight damage at the top. This would seem to indicate that the mount has taken a hard knock at some point, and could mean that the remaining posts have been stressed, and could fail under load.

I echo the advice above.

deanatwell · May 2, 2016

Thanks for the advice. Spare parts ordered!

John Locke · May 2, 2016

deanatwell said:
I have had my P4 for around 2 weeks now and just noticed yesterday after a flight that part of the propeller mount has broken off.

Wow, funny you mention this today. Yesterday I was putting my P4 through some testing and one of them was flying along at 40+mph full speed, then suddenly turn left or U-turn. Have you heard the noise it makes when you do this? It sounds really bada$$. Anyway, the sudden stop and reverse direction has to be a big stress on these little plastic fingers. I was wondering how much margin of safety DJI designed into those plastic finger locks for high stress turns like that. Your evidence implies it may not be much, depending on how yours broke.

Do you have any idea what may have caused yours to break? Were you doing any high stress turns as described above? Did you ever break a prop on that motor by hitting something?

Definitely don't fly it.

deanatwell · May 2, 2016

John Locke said:
Wow, funny you mention this today. Yesterday I was putting my P4 through some testing and one of them was flying along at 40+mph full speed, then suddenly turn left or U-turn. Have you heard the noise it makes when you do this? It sounds really bada$$. Anyway, the sudden stop and reverse direction has to be a big stress on these little plastic fingers. I was wondering how much margin of safety DJI designed into those plastic finger locks for high stress turns like that.

Do you have any idea what may have caused yours to break? Were you doing any high stress turns as described above? Did you ever break a prop on that motor by hitting something?

Definitely don't fly it.

I've no idea what would've caused it to break, I didn't hit anything or crash it when using it. The only thing that could've caused it to happen would be high speed turns as you mentioned above, will need to be more careful!

Anyway, I bought my P4 from Apple and called them up to see if there was anything they could do and said that as it hadn't been crashed that it may be faulty. They agreed and replaced the P4 without question!

Enkeixpress · Aug 7, 2016

deanatwell said:
I have had my P4 for around 2 weeks now and just noticed yesterday after a flight that part of the propeller mount has broken off.

Has anyone else had this issue and is it mainly down to not being careful enough with mounting the propellers? Also, is it safe to fly until a replacement arrives given that the propeller still seems to attach securely?

Thanks,
Dean

I've found these Metal propeller mounts for the Phantom 4, which replace the stock plastic ones. I'm not sure how good they work but straight fron the get-go just from reading the title and looking at the pics, these definitely look to be a worthy purchase, don't you think so?

Infinity Hobby <<< Metal Propeller Mounts for Phantom 4

Like with what's happened here, I've read around a few forums including this one about the plastic propeller mounts developing cracks and wearing out overtime which would then potentially cause a propeller to come loose during flight, and I don't know about you guys, but I'd hate to see that happen with my own drone once I have it. Such a huge amount of money gone in an instant.

But with these metal ones, I can't see that happening anymore.

I've ordered my own Phantom 4 drone a couple of days ago and currently awaiting it's arrival sometime during this week or the next. I've ordered a set of these for some quality reassurance. Can't wait to try them out.

Will give them a go and report back here once I've had a thorough testing session with them.

zgembit · Mar 5, 2017

Thought of buying those parts as well but as both propellers and propeller mounts are made of plastic, they should have same possibility to snap off?
Then both of them should be made of metal to be safe, whats the point otherways?

Quamera · Mar 5, 2017

zgembit said:
Thought of buying those parts as well but as both propellers and propeller mounts are made of plastic, they should have same possibility to snap off?
Then both of them should be made of metal to be safe, whats the point otherways?

I am with you on that, the most resistance to catastrophic failure would be plastic on plastic, if either one is metal resilience is reduced. Carry spare props and prop mounts, they are small and inexpensive so there is no excuse to fly with either worn or damaged. The one exception maybe the carbon fiber props if they don't have a plastic hub then there maybe some logic in fitting metal prop mounts.

This was a fairly old thread but it deserves a rerun.

AWD · Mar 5, 2017

Dean,

As I rarely remove the props from the P4, you photo shows that I should at least "check" the prop mounts from time to time, just in case..

Thanks.

AD

Deleted member 62848 · Mar 5, 2017

John Locke said:
Wow, funny you mention this today. Yesterday I was putting my P4 through some testing and one of them was flying along at 40+mph full speed, then suddenly turn left or U-turn. Have you heard the noise it makes when you do this? It sounds really bada$$. Anyway, the sudden stop and reverse direction has to be a big stress on these little plastic fingers. I was wondering how much margin of safety DJI designed into those plastic finger locks for high stress turns like that. Your evidence implies it may not be much, depending on how yours broke.

Do you have any idea what may have caused yours to break? Were you doing any high stress turns as described above? Did you ever break a prop on that motor by hitting something?

Definitely don't fly it.

Yeh i get funny noise when banking hard,,,,lot of sress

AWD · Mar 9, 2017

As an update to this thread, after 50 some hours since the last time I actually removed the props on the P4, I did take them off to check the mounting studs.

They're all in good condition.

Once again, thanks for posting up the photo of the broken mount so I could go in and take a look.

AD

Linuxglobal · Nov 13, 2017

I had a broken mount from my drone falling off my car seat while driving to a location.

Replaced the mounts and inspected props.

Using metal mounts is a bad idea, the metal on metal contact can potentially break the prop mount. DJI made the mounts out of plastic on purpose to avoid the props possibly snapping off the latch.

Ideally you could swap the whole mechanism with self tightening props but that would get us back to P3 days.

Sorry for the old bump, good topic to cover for all drone pilots at some point. Nothing worse than a mechanical failure on a drone. Anyone who has seen a prop fall off knows the drone is a total write off, goes into a a downward spiral with no saving your investment.

Erised · Nov 15, 2017

I got 7M feet on my first set of mounts that I changed to the new spring type as preventive maintenance, with only slight wear. As mentioned these mounts are made to snap off in case of collision, if you put metal mounts you will snap the props and maybe the motor mounts.