P4 Stress Crack

[RémyHeli]

Find annealing discussion here;
How to stop stress cracks (for free)



Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[microraptor]

Wow, found 4 stress cracks under one motor, definitely going to try and see if dji will fix it for free...the one crack I can see is hole the whole way through. Son of a gun.

 

[jogforfitness]

Wow, found 4 stress cracks under one motor, definitely going to try and see if dji will fix it for free...the one crack I can see is hole the whole way through. Son of a gun.View attachment 74709

Last year I owned a P3P for a month and it developed a crack. Long story short I was able to return it. So, I bought a P4 as it was allegedly a stronger build. 6 months later it too developed a crack. Before or after each day of flying I take a small bright flashlight and inspect each arm searching for cracks. I wonder if many pilots out there perform these type of inspections on a regular basis. Personally I find this to be very important. My sense is that once a crack starts you never know how quick the deterioration will escalate to a serious event.

My P4 is at DJI now and I'm hoping it's warranty covered. I wish the same for you.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[microraptor]

Last year I owned a P3P for a month and it developed a crack. Long story short I was able to return it. So, I bought a P4 as it was allegedly a stronger build. 6 months later it too developed a crack. Before or after each day of flying I take a small bright flashlight and inspect each arm searching for cracks. I wonder if many pilots out there perform these type of inspections on a regular basis. Personally I find this to be very important. My sense is that once a crack starts you never know how quick the deterioration will escalate to a serious event.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[microraptor]

Do you think best buy would give me a new one?

 

[jogforfitness]

Do you think best buy would give me a new one?

I don't know. Probably depends how long ago you purchased and the associate helping you. I returned mine through Amazon 30-40 days after purchase. They were very gracious.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[Stew-2]

I don't know if it'll help or not but after reading a few of these crack threads I loosened the accessible screws on my P4 and gently snugged them back up. Don't know if this will help prevent cracks or not but I saw it mentioned somewhere in this forum, I guess it could make sense if the assembly workers are cranking the screws in too tight.

This P4 is my first adult grade quadcopter and I want to try to keep it nice for as long as possible! These things are too expensive to have to replace very often lol.

 

[microraptor]

Nope, lady at best buy told me to contact dji.

 

[IGear]

Nice wood drone???

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[slbynum]

That sucks about your cracks in the copter. Rest assured stress cracks are far less common with the P4 vs P3 but can still happen obviously. Just to be safe I rarely use sport mode because one has to believe that's more stress on the housing especially hard take offs etc. If I do use sport mode, I try to ease into the acceleration. Of course I'm not saying or accusing anybody who gets stress cracks on their P4 of abusing sport mode or anything like that. I just mentioned this for the sake of conversation.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[IGear]

I don't mind cracks to much. Need to find a good way to manage them I like a rugged drone cable ties. Up in the air without a care. I would like to see wood covers come out though @mick3y3

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[ftttu]

I'm flying a lot of Litchi waypoint missions, and from now on, they will always be curve lines. Flying straight lines causes the bird to come to a stop at each waypoint after flying a cruising speed. Also, I'm doing what I can to limit those stops where I'm flying at high speeds and coming to a stop. I believe the stress put on the Phantom plastic airframe adds to these cracking problems.

Plastic airframes, in the scheme of things, are inexpensive to design and produce, they are structurally rigid, and they are lightweight. I know it is hard for a drone company to not want to work with plastics due to these positive characteristics, but if they do, I just want the product I choose to have a plastic airframe that resists cracking, ESPECIALLY if taken care of. Just as Stew-2, my P4 is my first adult grade quadcopter, and I too want it to last.

 

[slbynum]

At the risk of going off topic, I read someplace that DJI voids warranty if your copper crashed even if it's not your fault because they see you're using a third-party software like Litchi. [emoji15]


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[jogforfitness]

I'm flying a lot of Litchi waypoint missions, and from now on, they will always be curve lines. Flying straight lines causes the bird to come to a stop at each waypoint after flying a cruising speed. Also, I'm doing what I can to limit those stops where I'm flying at high speeds and coming to a stop. I believe the stress put on the Phantom plastic airframe adds to these cracking problems.

Plastic airframes, in the scheme of things, are inexpensive to design and produce, they are structurally rigid, and they are lightweight. I know it is hard for a drone company to not want to work with plastics due to these positive characteristics, but if they do, I just want the product I choose to have a plastic airframe that resists cracking, ESPECIALLY if taken care of. Just as Stew-2, my P4 is my first adult grade quadcopter, and I too want it to last.

I've even adjusted the Brake setting so when I let off the sticks the drone may coast a short bit, rather than leaving the default setting where it stops harshly. Didn't matter. Also, I fly Litchi missions with all curved turns. Again, didn't matter. I rarely ever used sport mode and never flew in temps colder than 40F. .....yep, didn't matter. Its hard to have faith in the quality of a product when you've owned 2 different model drones, treated them the same protective / conservative way and with both, have encountered stress cracks.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[ftttu]

I've even adjusted the Brake setting so when I let off the sticks the drone may coast a short bit, rather than leaving the default setting where it stops harshly. Didn't matter. Also, I fly Litchi missions with all curved turns. Again, didn't matter. I rarely ever used sport mode and never flew in temps colder than 40F. .....yep, didn't matter. Its hard to have faith in the quality of a product when you've owned 2 different model drones, treated them the same protective / conservative way and with both, have encountered stress cracks.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

This was my first drone so it took me a while to fly it smoothly. Now that I've got some mileage, I'm going to see how long this second airframe will last while trying to baby even more. We will see how it goes.