DJI Inspire 1 repair tutorials

supasympa · Feb 21, 2015

Hi,

Today I bought a damaged Inspire 1 to take apart, try to repair and put back together -or try at least. If not I'm hoping to use it as as spares and or sell spare parts etc all the while creating some video and blog posts to share any knowledge. I just need to know that there is enough interest in this to do edits and make it worth the effort!

Some of the existing shots are here on my Twitter feed ...
https://twitter.com/SupaSympa

(and attached)

If you're interested, please follow me on Twitter & Instagram and tell me you're keen and get in contact via my blog :

Twitter & Instagram : @supasympa
http://blog.supasympa.com

Thanks

lrwskyfilms · Feb 21, 2015

Thx for sharing, personally I'll leave to the professionals, I'm good at mechanics and electronics but would crap myself every time I flew if I rebuilt a quad.

Tahoe Ed · Feb 21, 2015

I cannot get your link to work.

supasympa · Feb 21, 2015

@Tahoe Ed - I updated the link to my Twitter feed there's a couple of images on there.

supasympa · Feb 21, 2015

@lrwskyfilms - I understand completely. I'm dismantling it mostly for knowledge and unless I'm completely happy with it I'll never fly the one I'm taking apart again. I do hope however that for anything outside of electronics this should be straight forward mechanics, glue screws and bolts!

*DISCLAIMER - I AM NOT RECCOMENDING ANYONE TAKE APART AND ATTEMPT TO REPAIR AN INSPIRE1 YOU'LL LIKELY VOID YOUR WARRANTY*

... but if you're stuck or you'd like to know what's going on inside the aircraft - I'm hoping I can help!

lrwskyfilms · Feb 21, 2015

Agree, respect and thanks for doing it. You're a better person than me.

turbodronepilot · Feb 21, 2015

That's great supasympa ...
Im not on twitter, are you going to post your work on you tube? ?

supasympa · Feb 21, 2015

@turbodronepilot - yes absolutely. As long as there is enough motivation to do the video edits.

huppe · Feb 21, 2015

Yes you can count me in on this.
Very interesting to see this.Gives a better understanding of the Inspire.
I'm not on twitter or whatever,so any photo or video is ok.

Mazz · Feb 21, 2015

I also am a fan of this. Keep it up. Down to the bones!!

Kilrah · Feb 22, 2015

I'll be following for sure.

I'm an engineer and pretty much everything I own has been at least taken apart out of curiosity when not modded, even expensive stuff... the Inspire being THE notable exception. And I'd love seeing the details... but for once can't get up to it.

gogowanda · Feb 22, 2015

I'll be very interested in learning your build process. We're taking our I1 apart next week to get the carbon parts digitized.
The problem w/ I1 is the bodyweight will put a lot of leverage on the legs and joints, even a 5~6 ft drop on dirt. but if we make the legs too rigid, the leverage will transfer impact energy onto the body and cause damages that's harder to repair.

koavog · Feb 22, 2015

Supasympa, I just followed you on Twitter. YES, very interested in repair videos. Thanks!

Gogowanda: Are you going to digitize the props as well? Or, is that not possible?...

PB30X · Feb 22, 2015

supasympa said:
Hi,

Today I bought a damaged Inspire 1 to take apart, try to repair and put back together -or try at least. If not I'm hoping to use it as as spares and or sell spare parts etc all the while creating some video and blog posts to share any knowledge. I just need to know that there is enough interest in this to do edits and make it worth the effort!

Some of the existing shots are here on my Twitter feed ...
https://twitter.com/SupaSympa

(and attached)

If you're interested, please follow me on Twitter & Instagram and tell me you're keen and get in contact via my blog :

Twitter & Instagram : @supasympa
http://blog.supasympa.com

Thanks

Right there with Ya!! Not ready to do any dismantling and tweaks voiding the warranty not just yet.. But like the phantom I think it's safe to say, we live and we learn.. Mods, tweaks, and of course curiosity lol... Bought and Paid for, the rest will follow lol... Looking forward to your input[emoji6]!!

johnmont250 · Feb 22, 2015

yes, thanks. i have a hard time sending anything mechanical to someone else to be fixed, thank you!

inspiration · Feb 22, 2015

supasympa said:
Hi,

Today I bought a damaged Inspire 1 to take apart, try to repair and put back together -or try at least. If not I'm hoping to use it as as spares and or sell spare parts etc all the while creating some video and blog posts to share any knowledge. I just need to know that there is enough interest in this to do edits and make it worth the effort!

Some of the existing shots are here on my Twitter feed ...
https://twitter.com/SupaSympa

(and attached)

If you're interested, please follow me on Twitter & Instagram and tell me you're keen and get in contact via my blog :

Twitter & Instagram : @supasympa
http://blog.supasympa.com

Thanks

where did you buy the damaged inspire? I would like to do some similar experimenting as well.

supasympa · Feb 23, 2015

Hi,

So from the limited dismantling of the frame I did over the weekend, here are a couple of (surprising) things I've learned:

* The carbon fibre arms (legs / booms - whatever) are single pieces of CF with holes in the middle to feed the wires from the CF lever arms that lift them.
* The plastic mounts at the end of the arm are bonded to the carbon fibre with what I'm guessing is epoxy or CA.
* The shock absorbers that are formed as part of the Inspire 1 feet are bonded to the plastic - effectively creating a single sealed part (again I expect that is bonded with CA)

What does this mean? I have a list of spares that DJI are offering for the Inspire 1 and neither the landing gear feet, frame arms or shocks are on that list.

If you have a rough landing, or worse still a crash, and damage any of these things it's going to be VERY difficult to fix this without returning the whole aircraft to DJI or (I'm guessing) an approved dealer. I understand several reasons for this, from a safety perspective but ultimately I think this is a business decision on the part of DJI.

I think that it might be useful for us Inspire Pilots to setup a virtual scrap yard on here so that we might be able to trade parts!

more to follow ...

supasympa · Feb 23, 2015

gogowanda said:
I'll be very interested in learning your build process. We're taking our I1 apart next week to get the carbon parts digitized.
The problem w/ I1 is the bodyweight will put a lot of leverage on the legs and joints, even a 5~6 ft drop on dirt. but if we make the legs too rigid, the leverage will transfer impact energy onto the body and cause damages that's harder to repair.

@gogowanda - Good luck with your dismantling - I'd watch out for the bonded parts! I think stripping the aircraft down can only go so far without having to replace the plastic parts.

If anyone can shed any light on how it might be possible to "unbind" the plastic from the CF non destructively I'm very keen to hear!

Paul Hannell · Feb 23, 2015

supasympa said:
@gogowanda - Good luck with your dismantling - I'd watch out for the bonded parts! I think stripping the aircraft down can only go so far without having to replace the plastic parts.

If anyone can shed any light on how it might be possible to "unbind" the plastic from the CF non destructively I'm very keen to hear!

You can get CA debonder - it works well, but can take quite a bit of time to work through the bond as you can imagine. I have found it can take several hours just to debond small items (of just a few mm), so larger items are going to take longer & require a lot of debonder - but it does work !

http://www.hobbyking.co.uk/hobbyking/store/__8458__Un_Cure_CA_Debonder_1_oz.html

supasympa · Feb 23, 2015

Paul Hannell said:
You can get CA debonder - it works well, but can take quite a bit of time to work through the bond as you can imagine. I have found it can take several hours just to debond small items (of just a few mm), so larger items are going to take longer & require a lot of debonder - but it does work !

http://www.hobbyking.co.uk/hobbyking/store/__8458__Un_Cure_CA_Debonder_1_oz.html

Thanks Paul - I've got some Acetone - which I'm hoping will work. I need to figure out if this is epoxy or CA first - if it's epoxy I'm not even sure it would be possible to remove the CF arm without doing something like grinding / sanding it down - which really sucks.

On the S1000 & S900 the replacement arms look like they are riveted to the plastic parts.