Crash Next Steps

[CaptOrr]

Pilots,
looking for some advice on the best course of action. Flying my relatively new Q500+ yesterday. I was about half way through a large radius Watch Me circle at low speed when the Q500 tumbled from the sky. The circle I was flying was half over freshly mowed field and half over heavy gravel roadbed under construction. You can guess which surface I was over when I had an unplanned landing from 125'.

I thought to kill the motors on the way down, but I don't think they had time to stop spinning since all props shattered on impact. All, that is, but the one that fluttered to earth not far from the crash site. As part of pre-flight ritual, I install all props & then triple-check each of them for tightness. I have no idea how this happened considering the motors spin opposite the thread direction & there was only a small side load & no downward load at the time. Wind speed was almost dead calm.

My immediate concern is finding the quickest & most cost-effective path back to flying. The Q500 has a number of cracks in the bottom of the airframe. The top is badly scratched but the damage on the top is all cosmetic. The battery door clip is broken, but the battery stayed inside & wasn't damaged.
Motor #1 has a bit of an angle coming out of the airframe and there are some plastic scuff marks where it rubbed against the frame. Motor 4, which is the one that lost the prop, has some chewed up threads.

I plugged it into the GUI, all systems checkout out & all ESCs tested "green".

The CG02+ camera has a crack in its cover that doesn't look too serious. The rear arm of the gimbal yoke is bent, but may be salvageable. One of the leads on the camera cable was yanked out. One of the tracks on the mounting plate broke off.

So, what do I do? Send it back to Yunnec or buy parts & put it back together myself? I was able to find all the parts I think I need for the Q500. I can't find just the gimbal yoke anywhere. If the only option there is to replace the whole gimbal, straightening the original may be an option.

So, cost & turnaround, Yuneec professional techs doing the job right. What would you do?

 

[NRRTRAINS]

hi

• the amount of damage to your Q is way above the cost of a new Q+ , the camera alone is costly to repair , unless your Q is still under warrantee , if you send it back too Yuneec it is going to cost you big bucks . you can go on line and buy a new Q500 4K for about $700 and then you can part out your old Q and recoup some of your cost . the turnaround for the fix , you mite see it in a few months . if it were me that is the route i would go also you upgrade to a better Q . this is just my option .

 

[Steve Carr]

Pilots,
looking for some advice on the best course of action. Flying my relatively new Q500+ yesterday. I was about half way through a large radius Follow Me circle at low speed when the Q500 tumbled from the sky. The circle I was flying was half over freshly mowed field and half over heavy gravel roadbed under construction. You can guess which surface I was over when I had an unplanned landing from 125'.

I thought to kill the motors on the way down, but I don't think they had time to stop spinning since all props shattered on impact. All, that is, but the one that fluttered to earth not far from the crash site. As part of pre-flight ritual, I install all props & then triple-check each of them for tightness. I have no idea how this happened considering the motors spin opposite the thread direction & there was only a small side load & no downward load at the time. Wind speed was almost dead calm.

My immediate concern is finding the quickest & most cost-effective path back to flying. The Q500 has a number of cracks in the bottom of the airframe. The top is badly scratched but the damage on the top is all cosmetic. The battery door clip is broken, but the battery stayed inside & wasn't damaged.
Motor #1 has a bit of an angle coming out of the airframe and there are some plastic scuff marks where it rubbed against the frame. Motor 4, which is the one that lost the prop, has some chewed up threads.

I plugged it into the GUI, all systems checkout out & all ESCs tested "green".

The CG02+ camera has a crack in its cover that doesn't look too serious. The rear arm of the gimbal yoke is bent, but may be salvageable. One of the leads on the camera cable was yanked out. One of the tracks on the mounting plate broke off.

So, what do I do? Send it back to Yunnec or buy parts & put it back together myself? I was able to find all the parts I think I need for the Q500. I can't find just the gimbal yoke anywhere. If the only option there is to replace the whole gimbal, straightening the original may be an option.

So, cost & turnaround, Yuneec professional techs doing the job right. What would you do?

It depends on your soldering skills. You need a 90 watt iron to remove the wires on the ESC's. The airframe is around $63 and you need one new motor. There are about 63 screws in the airframe and you need 1.5mm, 2.0mm and 2.5mm long shaft hex drivers. It took me about 6 hours to replace the airframe. I took pics with my phone at each step and labeled the wire bundles on each arm.

You should send the camera to Yuneec after you get an RMA. I found their repair cost to be very reasonable.

Regarding the prop...........the o-ring under the prop provides friction to prevent the prop from coming off. When you install props you should turn them by hand another 1-1/2 turns past the point where the prop touches the o-ring. During flight the ESC will apply braking action to certain props during maneuvers or when coming to a stop. That is what will cause a prop to unscrew.

 

[KBflyer]

Do what Nrrtrains said. Way cheaper and you will have spare parts

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk

 

[CaptOrr]

Thanks for the replies, I think it's a project I could take on myself, but decided after talking to CS to send it in. They've been great; quick responses so far. I'll let you know how I fare.

 

[CaptOrr]

Epilogue: Yuneec covered this as a warranty. Shipping both ways & rebuild were done at no charge. That covered my "cost-effective" criteria perfectly. As for my "quickest" criteria; not so much. I shipped to Yuneec on 9/6 & got my Q500+ back on 10/24. The customer service folks I talked to, & finally had to nag for updates, were great. Technical support, who did the rebuild, was a black hole for weeks. I haven't been able to fly since I got it back due to weather so the final verdict is out. The test check-list looks like they did a pretty comprehensive QA pass before sending it back.

The zero charge invoice showed $520 in parts & labor confirming NRRTRAINS diagnosis that the Q500+ was totaled & best used for parts if I was paying, but luckily in this case, I wasn't. The camera was OK, but the gimbal replacement was the big ticket item @ $250. The also replaced all 4 motors although I think 3 were probably OK.

Thanks again for the advice & benefit all your experience.

 

[Rayray]

Thanks again for the advice & benefit all your experience.

Epilogue: Yuneec covered this as a warranty.

Cap, aside from the long disappearance into the repair black hole, I think this is quite amazing. You said it was fairly new, fell from the sky, yet you (and we) did not mention warranty.

All's well that ends well, so please follow up with flight info.