Broken body: better to repair or replace?

duboisj · Nov 15, 2016

I am a brand-new Solo owner and I crashed mine fairly hard on first flight - my fault. One arm of the shell is broken about halfway through. That's the most visible damage other than busted propellers. I bought a replacement shell already.

Question: should I go straight to replacing the shell or should I try to repair the existing one first? I'm wondering whether fiberglass fabric + adhesive / epoxy etc. might distribute the stress well enough. The bottom half of the arm is still intact, but the top is cracked all the way through.

The online video made it look like replacing a shell is fairly involved and has some risk of damage. In particular you have to cut through glue to remove the antenna. I am not that hesitant to do it but I'm also not an experienced at it, so I figure the risk of damage from a body replacement is significant.

Does anyone have experience with trying to repair a broken shell? Is fiberglass + <some kind of adhesive or epoxy> a reasonable option to explore? And would a solo fly with a little bit of unexpected weight from that type of repair, or will that throw it all the way off?

Edit: pictures of broken arm uploaded.

Jeffer · Nov 16, 2016

You should post up some pictures of the damage...

duboisj · Nov 16, 2016

Jeffer said:
You should post up some pictures of the damage...

Good idea! Original post edited with photos uploaded.

Hyper · Nov 16, 2016

I have not attempted a repair for the body of the solo yet, but there are products used in the auto body repair industry that would hold up I'm sure. With that said I would replace this one as it looks to be broken clean through the arm. There are to many variables to contend with to take a chance on the results.

Just my point of view I'm sure others will speak up

H-

Dash Hewes · Nov 16, 2016

Not worth the hassle of repair, I would replace. I believe the added weight and integrity would be compromised.

Jeffer · Nov 16, 2016

Best solution is probably to buy a BestBuy Solo and save yours for parts.

I can say I have never repaired plastic on a drone that has to fly, but personally the two best plastic repair remedies I have had great success with in general are Loctite plastic 2-part epoxy and Plastex (Google that one, I think it's only available direct. It is a powder and liquid mix). Same comments, no idea about weight adds and durability, though. This would be a last option!

Maddog · Nov 16, 2016

I don't think you should repair it. You have no way to tell what kind of stresses are on there when flying which might cause your repair to fail.
The extra weight will also alter the balance to some degree which might alter the flight characteristics.

Dash Hewes · Nov 16, 2016

Exactly...
Solo Shell Replacement from 3DR on Vimeo

duboisj · Nov 17, 2016

Interesting. Thanks for the replies! The shell replacement video is exactly what made me hesitate to go that route, because it involves cutting parts off the main board with an exacto knife and re-gluing them. I'll see what happens.

Jeffer · Nov 17, 2016

you can do what the rest of us are probably thinking of doing, and watching Black Friday and Cyber Monday for deals on Solos, that will become our parts bins...

mike243 · Nov 21, 2016

Might I ask where you got your replacement shell. Best Buy and Amazon no longer have them.
Mike

duboisj · Nov 21, 2016

I ended up getting mine on eBay.

Mountain Flyer · Nov 22, 2016

If you are careful you can take the entire guts out of solo and only unplug the gps, compass leg and the gimbal. The antenna you are worried about is taped to the inside of the shell and you can leave it attached to the board. I have had mine apart a few times and have never disconnected any antennas. Just be careful with them and have a long narrow pliers or something to guide them back into position on reinstall.

duboisj · Nov 25, 2016

Although I do have a shell now, I ended up attempting a repair! I saw advice elsewhere to use Loctite superglue on the inside of the break and Bondic on the outside. (Bondic is some kind of liquid plastic which is activated by a small UV light which they sell along with the plastic.) I also laid down a few strands of fiber of the sort used in fiberglass.

Some parts were more successful than others. Early on I was getting poor adhesion, so I let things cure for 48 hours now. I tried laying the fiberglass fibers perpendicular to the break. Laying the strands under Bondic worked OK. I also tried supergluing some fibers and that just made a big mess. In some places the adhesion seems like it was bad, in others the strips look fairly clean.

I've tried applying some pressure to the arm now that it's cured and it seems to hold OK. I haven't flown yet. It's a risk I suppose because if the repair fails in flight that's going to be bad. I'm mostly interested in programming the drone as opposed to stunt flying or taking photos, so I'm hopeful that if I do crash it will be in a somewhat controlled environment and won't be too catastrophic. Photos attached. I'll post back with my experiences flying and say whether it worked.

Jeffer · Nov 26, 2016

I can honestly say (and I mean this is the nicest way), that is one fugly-looking Solo!
Good news is that the repair in on top, and hopefully it'll fly high, so you don't have to look at it!
We need to all chip in and get you a good decal to cover that surgery scar...

Maddog · Nov 26, 2016

duboisj said:
Although I do have a shell now, I ended up attempting a repair! I saw advice elsewhere to use Loctite superglue on the inside of the break and Bondic on the outside. (Bondic is some kind of liquid plastic which is activated by a small UV light which they sell along with the plastic.) I also laid down a few strands of fiber of the sort used in fiberglass.

Some parts were more successful than others. Early on I was getting poor adhesion, so I let things cure for 48 hours now. I tried laying the fiberglass fibers perpendicular to the break. Laying the strands under Bondic worked OK. I also tried supergluing some fibers and that just made a big mess. In some places the adhesion seems like it was bad, in others the strips look fairly clean.

I've tried applying some pressure to the arm now that it's cured and it seems to hold OK. I haven't flown yet. It's a risk I suppose because if the repair fails in flight that's going to be bad. I'm mostly interested in programming the drone as opposed to stunt flying or taking photos, so I'm hopeful that if I do crash it will be in a somewhat controlled environment and won't be too catastrophic. Photos attached. I'll post back with my experiences flying and say whether it worked.

I sent your pics to my nephew who is a mechanical engineer. He said from what he can see, your repair will hold the arm on but it will do nothing to overcome the aerodynamic stresses that will be applied in flight. There's no way to calculate what it can handle so it will probably fold up "like a cheap card table". Then again it might fly for awhile. If it does fail, it will be "sudden and catastrophic".
The problem is now it is a test vehicle- you have no idea if or when it will fail, so it can't be "trusted" to be safe.

duboisj · Nov 26, 2016

Update: I took this out for its maiden flight (other than the brief one in my living room, which crashed it in the first place), and it flew! I just tooled it around for a few minutes, mostly to see whether the repair would fail immediately. It held up so far - no visible change in the repaired joint after flight.

Maddog said:
.. There's no way to calculate what it can handle so it will probably fold up "like a cheap card table". Then again it might fly for awhile. If it does fail, it will be "sudden and catastrophic".
The problem is now it is a test vehicle- you have no idea if or when it will fail, so it can't be "trusted" to be safe.

Yes, that sounds about right. It definitely can't be trusted, and I expect that failure would indeed likely be catastrophic (even if the arm held on but started to develop much flex in flight, I expect the drone would crash). I'm interested in programming the thing so I'm hoping to do pretty controlled flights generally. For now I'll keep it and see - a risk I know.

It would be nice to be able to get better adhesion with plastic or epoxy to the plastic that the body is made of. Fiberglass is pretty strong stuff - I feel like if I could get a full solid bond of epoxy and use fully woven fiber (instead of just the hokey little strands I've got in there), that you could almost trust that as much as a brand-new body. But maybe this will hold a while for now.

william35 · Nov 29, 2016

duboisj said:
I am a brand-new Solo owner and I crashed mine fairly hard on first flight - my fault. One arm of the shell is broken about halfway through. That's the most visible damage other than busted propellers. I bought a replacement shell already.

Question: should I go straight to replacing the shell or should I try to repair the existing one first? I'm wondering whether fiberglass fabric + adhesive / epoxy etc. might distribute the stress well enough. The bottom half of the arm is still intact, but the top is cracked all the way through.

The online video made it look like replacing a shell is fairly involved and has some risk of damage. In particular you have to cut through glue to remove the antenna. I am not that hesitant to do it but I'm also not an experienced at it, so I figure the risk of damage from a body replacement is significant.

Does anyone have experience with trying to repair a broken shell? Is fiberglass + <some kind of adhesive or epoxy> a reasonable option to explore? And would a solo fly with a little bit of unexpected weight from that type of repair, or will that throw it all the way off?

Edit: pictures of broken arm uploaded.

I think it's funny you're solo broke like that because mine is almost identical