4k Typhoon meets tree

[Tim Lewis]

I've had my Typhoon since Jan. 29th. I've put around 75 flights on it, taking videos and pics on each adventure. I have 5 battery packs, and 4 chargers, which can keep you pretty busy. I was videoing my neighbors property for them the other day, and the ST10+ started frantically beeping. I kept looking at the touch screen when it would beep, but the message that would appear in a big red box, would only stay on for a split second. Not enough time to read what it was stating. So, I landed quickly, on the rabbit setting, coming down next to a tree. It looked like I was about 8ft from the tree, but was right next to it. The left-side props started chopping at tree branches, and it fell on it's side to the ground, about 12ft down. On impact, the battery came out, and the camera/gimbal shot off about 10ft away. It was amazing how it seemed to crumple, and looked like a totally destroyed pile of mangled plastic. Surprisingly, the only things that broke, were the housing for one of the motors, and the battery door latch. After waiting a few hours, I put another battery in the drone, and turned it on, to see if everything still lit up and functioned. Everything did! The lights all did their blinking, and the rear light gave me the solid purple GPS tracking o.k., and the camera connected as usual, with a normal, level display. I bought a new body, and thought swapping the guts and motors from one body to the other would go fast. I was so WRONG! So many tiny screws, and so much solder to undo, and redo for each each motor. After about 3 hours of using the solder gun today, I now have all the guts in the bottom half of the new body. Tomorrow, I'll start placing the top half in place, with the close to 60 screws. What I'd suggest, if you crash, and you replace the body, cut the necessary wires (5 for each motor) place the motors in the new body, then splice the wires back together. I might be wrong, but it seems like that would speed up the repair quite a bit, with A LOT less soldering to do.