vimeo.com/249187703
My Spark suffered a serious crash yesterday, when hovering at 40m height, I was looking at the phone when I heard a sudden change in the motors noise, it was as it was struggling against a strong wind, but it was calm, when I looked up to I saw the Spark falling down like the proverbial piano, it fell thru a small tree and onto the grass. The first clip in this video is the one cached in the phone and it shows the moment of the crash.
My hypothesis is that one of the propellers experienced a fatal failure, cause I could not find one half of it and the central part that attaches to the motor is split in half.
Damages are evident on the video, but after much checking and thinking I decided that I would try to repair it myself, I started by removing the white top of the Spark (six small Allen screws in the bottom), that allowed me to straighten up the frame that was slightly cracked, when I reattached the top the frame looked quite solid again. Then I concentrated on the broken motor mount, I removed the LED cover and the ring that retains the ESC to the bottom of the motor (two very little Torx screws) then I could re-solder the detached cable, then used cyano-acrylate to glue the broken mount to the leg, re-installed ESC retaining ring and LED cover. Then I decided that would feel much more comfortable reinforcing the area repaired using the propeller guards that came in the Fly More Combo, I just saw off the guard itself keeping the central part that attaches to the motor and the leg. To maintain weight distribution I did the same on the other three motors.
When I turned on the Spark again I could verify that everything else (gimbal, camera, sensors, motors, etc) was working fine, so I installed a new set of propellers and went outside to try it, it flew flawlessly, I flew for ten minutes and everything seems to be holding up. Last clip of these video if from that flight of today, after the repair job.
Considering the height of the fall and the force of the impact, it is almost unbelievable that this Spark is flying again a day later.
I hope this information is useful to other Spark pilots.
Happy New Year to you all!
My Spark suffered a serious crash yesterday, when hovering at 40m height, I was looking at the phone when I heard a sudden change in the motors noise, it was as it was struggling against a strong wind, but it was calm, when I looked up to I saw the Spark falling down like the proverbial piano, it fell thru a small tree and onto the grass. The first clip in this video is the one cached in the phone and it shows the moment of the crash.
My hypothesis is that one of the propellers experienced a fatal failure, cause I could not find one half of it and the central part that attaches to the motor is split in half.
Damages are evident on the video, but after much checking and thinking I decided that I would try to repair it myself, I started by removing the white top of the Spark (six small Allen screws in the bottom), that allowed me to straighten up the frame that was slightly cracked, when I reattached the top the frame looked quite solid again. Then I concentrated on the broken motor mount, I removed the LED cover and the ring that retains the ESC to the bottom of the motor (two very little Torx screws) then I could re-solder the detached cable, then used cyano-acrylate to glue the broken mount to the leg, re-installed ESC retaining ring and LED cover. Then I decided that would feel much more comfortable reinforcing the area repaired using the propeller guards that came in the Fly More Combo, I just saw off the guard itself keeping the central part that attaches to the motor and the leg. To maintain weight distribution I did the same on the other three motors.
When I turned on the Spark again I could verify that everything else (gimbal, camera, sensors, motors, etc) was working fine, so I installed a new set of propellers and went outside to try it, it flew flawlessly, I flew for ten minutes and everything seems to be holding up. Last clip of these video if from that flight of today, after the repair job.
Considering the height of the fall and the force of the impact, it is almost unbelievable that this Spark is flying again a day later.
I hope this information is useful to other Spark pilots.
Happy New Year to you all!
