Servicing and Maintaining Solo

Shaund · Jun 13, 2016

Hi,

Having recently purchased a Solo I was wondering what visual checks should be made of the Solo before and after each flight, i obviously check props and gimbal connection, gps etc but is this enough?

Is there maintenance / servicing that should be applied after x amount of flying time. If anyone has seen any links or has any advice, it would be appreciated.

Regards

Shaun

Anthony Horrigan · Jun 13, 2016

You should always check the propellers are damage free and the motors spin freely before each flight (as per the user manual).
I put a drop of high quality oil after every 10 hours. Check the temperature of the motor after landing, all the motor should be the same.

Solo Maintenance Walkthrough and How to/Why Replace Screws with m3 Hex Hardware

The motors should be good for 150+ hours, but this dependant on some many external factors - environment, dust / dirt.

Be safe and happy landing................

PdxSteve · Jun 13, 2016

There's info for maintenance in the User Guide under "downloads" on this page (view the full pdf manual). I linked to this main page as the info updates occasionally and there is a LOT of good info in there. Read the manual cover to cover - you will learn some not so obvious things: Solo Support | 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology

Replace motor pods after every 150 hours of flight or when they can no longer turn smoothly.

However, they did run a solo tethered for 42 days, 24 hours a day straight (over 1,000 hours!) without landing and only landed it because they had to pack up and take it to NAB. So, ymmv. Pay attention to how the motors feel and sound when rotating the shafts by hand. They should all be very similar. Oiling the bearings is a good thing. Personally I think 10 hours is a little too frequently unless they are noisy or something. These particular bearings seem to get very noisy at about 40 hours of flight without it. You'll definitely hear the high pitched whining. Not too much though - don't want it dripping down the arms onto the esc and further down onto the control board. Triflow using a pinpoint applicator is probably the best and easiest route Tri-Flow Lubricant, Pin Point TFBC20027 | Zoro.com