Hard landing snapped the right front landing gear arm. With no other damage to the Inspire, I'm not excited about shipping from Canada to the States for what will likely be a lengthy repair process.

Does anyone know anywhere CF struts/arms can be purchased, or if these are parts that only DJI has? The parts lists for the Inspire at all the vendors I can see online have a few airframe components, but none have anything for the landing gear assembly.

If no parts are available, are there any experienced RCers (or plastic/CF experts) who can advise whether repair of the damaged component is a possibility?

If I can't buy a replacement arm, I'm seriously thinking of just acquiring another Inspire and using my current one for spare parts; it would be nice to have extra motors, gimbal/camera, and all the other pieces I would need to do any type of repair myself.

I see "generic" carbon fiber tubes from numerous suppliers...but nothing specifically for the Inspire, or other DJI products for that matter. The tubes look to be 7mm diameter, but will need to dig out a micrometer to determine the wall thickness. Once I've removed the snapped piece, we'll see how easy it would be to replace with a piece the same size.

Anyone here replaced any of the CF on their Inspire? Sure would be nice to have a parts catalogue and parts/assembly cutaways to go along with the maintenance schedule.

Very interested in your findings. I lost a prop today and broke mine in the  same spot.

Hi gcurnew,

Hope i don't ruin your day

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=8585

This is a difficult repair as plastic parts on each end of the carbon pipes are glued with some kind
of epoxy/raisin.

How "hard" does one have to land for something like this to happen !?

Thanks for the link dundee...will pore over Supa Sympa's repair blog this morning. Didn't ruin my day lol...on the contrary, good info is always welcome. Good info with photos is priceless ;-)

w1der, the "landing" resulted from a prop glancing off a metal railing while the craft was hovering at about 5 feet...she augured in and flipped on her back. In addition the the broken CF piece, the camera/gimbal came loose from half its rubber grommets, and the 2 board connector cables popped off. After reassembly and testing, the gimbal and camera functions all work.

gcurnew Posted at 2015-4-4 21:41
Thanks for the link dundee...will pore over Supa Sympa's repair blog this morning. Didn't ruin my da ...

Hey! So mine deiced to fly away with no control into a tree. it was pulling left constantly. Even after i re calibrated everything and re installed the app, running the latest firmware. Regardless, I am in the same situation as you. What did you end up doing?

I've sent it to the LA repair facility. Decided that I'd rather do other work while it's getting fixed instead of spending 20 or 30 hours tackling it myself, and voiding the remaining 11 months of warranty on the rest of the aircraft in the process.

i think sending to dJi is wise during warrantee. i was wondering if repairing by wrapping fiberglass around the arm would work?
  there could be a weight imbalance though although not much.

thumpinhard Posted at 2015-4-17 12:26
i think sending to dJi is wise during warrantee. i was wondering if repairing by wrapping fiberglass ...

Hi all, first post! I'm in Australia and have the same issue.

Bird went sideways unexpectedly, clipped a tree and came down hard.

Took me a month and a half and 10 or so emails to even get action out of DJI and they want me to send back to China. NOT happy!!

Anyways, I wrapped fibreglass around the break (2 x layers) and she flies good as gold. Looks to be the same break as shown above.

I've had no issues with weight distribution etc or video jitter.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!!!

building01@iclo Posted at 2015-4-17 19:20
Hi all, first post! I'm in Australia and have the same issue.

Bird went sideways unexpectedly, cl ...

Hi I was just wondering if you could tell me which type of Fiberglas tape you used? I had a hard landing similar you what you described and it cracked the one tube. I've actually flown it 3 times before I noticed the crack and would like to reinforce it just to be safe. I was in LA and wanted to take it over to DJI, but was informed they do not accept walk ins.

jsmorse@ca.rr.c Posted at 2015-4-4 15:04
Very interested in your findings. I lost a prop today and broke mine in the  same spot.

May I ask why a prop came off and were you using the QR props?

building01@iclo Posted at 2015-4-17 19:20
Hi all, first post! I'm in Australia and have the same issue.

Bird went sideways unexpectedly, cl ...

You don't have any pictures and info about the tape do you?

Did it brak badly or did it merely crack?

mine just crashed less than a week old.  Broke the front landing leg off at the exact same place nothing else was affectted but a broken prop.  There's a scratch on the gimbal amd the motor makes a noise when moving.

I"m in Australia as well, how do I retrieve the logs off the aircraft?  And where is the memory chip stored for flight records?

Update:

I took mine to CR Kenney who is the authorized dealer I bought it from and the DJI Tech was able to get a new tube and make repairs to the camera gimbal as it makes a noise when turning so he is going to repair it himself and it won't void the remaining warranty as it's being repaired by an authorized tech.  I feel better and hope to have it back soon.

It was a stupid mistake, I took it out at 1am to try and film it so I had a controller in 1 hand and a camcorder in the other and it was only less than 1 meter off the ground and drifted into the garage.  I shat msyelf and i'm still kicking myself for being so stupid....I hope the tech can get it flying as new and the camera isn't affected.  I plan on upgrading to a X5 soon anyway.

It's going to cost $500AUD to fix but the biggest loss was the loss of pride and stupidity.  Don't try to fly and do something else at the same time, concentrate on flying at all times.  Don't fly at night and don't make bad decisions....

Airflix Posted at 2015-10-15 16:08
Update:

I took mine to CR Kenney who is the authorized dealer I bought it from and the DJI Tech wa ...

Or don't get it to land safely at home site 300mts away then leave the controller where you are standing, walk over change the battery, walk back to the controller 300mts away and decide to fire up and commence a dramatic flight towards you at full tilt.....
and realise you turned it around when changing the battery and it flies away from you into the toilet block behind it...didn't check camera and couldn't see green or red light..
hence same break..plus 3 props and camera has become away from the wires.
looks likes a simple fix for camera as everything else works ok and I will fibre glass leg..
no way going to send off to DJI and be without toy for months or maybe ill to your guys in brissy
cheers for the advice gold coast steve

Update, I found out from the repair tech that the damage is not repairable and I need to replace it.

Oli Snark Posted at 2015-7-24 07:17
You don't have any pictures and info about the tape do you?

Did it brak badly or did it merely c ...

Sorry no pics - Changed phones since then.

The arm was completely broken - flopping around.

I cleaned the break area and gave the surrounds a light sand. Then used a bit of super glue to try and at least keep the parts together while I glassed. You'll have to hold it for a bit.

I purchased some resin and some 'thin gauge' fibreglass from Mitre 10. Hobby shops will prob have similar.

I wet and wrapped one layer around (make sure you remove air bubbles)... 24 hrs later I repeated the same.

When it all dried it flew good as gold!!

Since the break I found a place Locally in Vic that will sell you a whole arm (inc wiring) for about $500. Drone Central if anyone is interested. I'm not affiliated with them but they provide good honest service.

Hope this helps

I believe these guys may be able to help helivideopros.com located in Burnaby, BC. Mind you if you live on the east coast this may not help. I believe there is another DJI distributor in Calgary as well.