gregg1r Posted at 2015-7-11 06:54
I'm somewhat anal about things I build for me. I do lots of research and have a heavy materials ba ...

Long story.  You had me at Hello.

The purpose of tightening the standoff screws is to get the two shell pieces tight at the seems.   Not make contact with the standoff and the opposite shell.  That's why I explained that the key is to get the middle screw in the arm tight to make the two shells intimate.

InspirelessAggi Posted at 2015-7-11 07:02
Long story.  You had me at Hello.

The purpose of tightening the standoff screws is to get the two ...

If you don't have the stand offs touching, you have an intermittent load path.

The P2 was designed to carry the load using only the fasteners. With the P3, they added the tabs for additional structural rigidity.

The standoffs are supposed to act as I beams to carry and transfer the load. The shell halves making contact does little to carry the load due to shear.

The cracking around the body mounting holes has a couple of causes. The shell is too thin due to tooling mismatch in the injection process. The holes appear to be produced by the tooling used to make the shells not a secondary drilling operation. The attachment of the motor to the lower shell only, twists the shell under acceleration and deceleration causing the motor hole plastics to crack.

gregg1r Posted at 2015-7-11 06:54
I'm somewhat anal about things I build for me. I do lots of research and have a heavy materials ba ...

Most anal's have cracks don't they Gregg.

mtnmaddman Posted at 2015-7-11 07:40
Most anal's have cracks don't they Gregg.

Butts have cracks, anal's have holes.

Agree, but of you tighten the shells together with the middle screw, the shells will not move against each other and reduce shell twist.  You can reduce the cracking by joining the shells tighter with the screw in the middle of the arm.  And maybe with zip ties until, hopefully, better shells come along.  Which I doubt.  Probably too expensive to retool now and they will just keep making shells with weak stand offs

I'm just basing this off my own experiment.  My arms are a lot more rigid now and torque very little

InspirelessAggi Posted at 2015-7-11 07:43
Agree, but of you tighten the shells together with the middle screw, the shells will not move agains ...

Tape the body seams using a high tack nylon adhesive tape. If you want to use cable ties close to the motor, that's fine. You can make them snug, but don't crush the shell using the installation pliers sold as the generate point load.

Later this summer, I'll be pulling my Phantom down and installing these parts to deal with the cracking around the motor and shell attachment holes. I'd love to be able to just purchase a second shell and work on that, but given that Phantom parts are almost non-existant, I'll have to reqork my own.

The standoffs will be drilled oversized and the knurled insert glued in. The fastener holes will be filled and reamed to fit the shoulder bolts.There will be only a few thousanths gap between the upper and lower shell halves.

gregg1r Posted at 2015-7-11 08:39
Tape the body seams using a high tack nylon adhesive tape. If you want to use cable ties close to t ...

I don't think you need the knurled inserts. They are metal and already installed in the upper shell.   Note in the left part of the photo at 9 o'clock, the metal inserts that the T8 screws mount to.  Sorry, best pick I have of the upper


Photo borrowed from the internets

InspirelessAggi Posted at 2015-7-11 07:02
Long story.  You had me at Hello.

The purpose of tightening the standoff screws is to get the two ...

I thought you should loosen the shell screws? Do you mean the deep screw you dont have access to unless you remove the landing gear?

Daninho Posted at 2015-7-11 23:46
I thought you should loosen the shell screws? Do you mean the deep screw you dont have access to u ...

Loosen and retighten screws at the end of the arm.  Tighten screws at mid arm until the arm feels firm from rotational force

InspirelessAggi Posted at 2015-7-11 23:54
Loosen and retighten screws at the end of the arm.  Tighten screws at mid arm until the arm feels  ...

with mid arm you mean all three screws ? Or just the one near the landing gear? DO you also retight the motor screws?

Daninho Posted at 2015-7-12 00:26
with mid arm you mean all three screws ? Or just the one near the landing gear? DO you also retigh ...

All of them.

I just inspected three of my p3's. One has aobvious crack and I'm going to keep a close eye on the other two as it appears there is some discoloration similar to the photos in this thread . Never crashed any of them and always hand catch. I only have 21 flights on the one with the crack and 16 and 22 on the other two....so for me 1 out of 3 or 33% is close to the poll results.

Guys,

I can see that % on voting is around 28 for users with cracs,
from what I understand this should affect most of P3 units ... cannot see reason why not.
as now I can only see small white mark and 2 mm crack in one place I will monitor status and kick off warranty when crack will be bigger.

question is ... what should we do to force DJI to introduce some improvements?

any ideas?

musman1978 Posted at 2015-7-13 01:42
Guys,

I can see that % on voting is around 28 for users with cracs,

You are seeing 28 users of over 100,000 in the world.  That is not a significant number.  We have asked those affected to call DJI.  If you choose not to do that, we cannot help you.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-7-13 02:00
You are seeing 28 users of over 100,000 in the world.  That is not a significant number.  We have  ...

sorry I cannot believe what you are writing,
this is not even profesional.

you have probe here of users on this forum ... check on other places over the world,
this is know issue now and what you are saying is silly and naive.

YOU HAVE problem with P3 design and you cannot say this is not true,
I expect you will confirm this ...
I will start escalations now as I cannot accept this.
P.S. I'm not saying I will not contact support ... I Will but later as now my crack is less than 2mm only in one place,
but I know that after fix new shell will also be affected ... be realistic ... read some physics books to see how forces are working ;)
I also know that those cracks are not critical for unit ... you can fly and actually nothing will happen but cmon this is 1000 USD drone and should not crack after 20 nice and smooth flights

musman1978 Posted at 2015-7-13 02:06
sorry I cannot believe what you are writing,
this is not even profesional.

I am not sure why you have an issue with my comments.  We have had users here state that over 25% of the Phantoms are affected.  That is not true.  I have stated as well as DJI that if you have the issue call us and we will take care of it.  The issue will be resolved.  This horse has been beaten to death and beyond.

The probe here is about 145 users. 145 users is a representation of 100 000 users.
27% of 145 have issue so you can asssume about 27 000 of users have issue and then, You have a problem.

This is common knowledge about statistic mate. There is a good random probe.
My advice is - correct design of the shell and call users for service action like a cars of airplanes manufacturers do.  Customers need to be informed about hull fail and possibility od crack.

Good, you are replacing the shells, but you have a problem with design of it. Replacing will not resolve this, because they are faulty designed. You need correct them or develop a method of forcing that you are produced and then replace then.

I am crack free at now, but i am sure it is only a matter of time. If i send my Phantom to You, or even i buy another shell to replace it by myself i need to be sure this will be a new designed and crack free.

Please take a look from our side and consider our concerns.

Kyokushin, keep in mind that most people only visit this forum when they have a problem with their Phantom and/or need help with something. That said, those 145 people are not really a good representation of the average Phantom owner. If the number of affected Phantom owners was really as high as you said, then Phantom forums all across the Internet would be flooded with pictures of cracked shells. I follow almost all Phantom Facebook groups and forums -- and, I haven't seen too many people reporting this problem.

---

www.PhantomHelp.com
Find the latest must-haves, fixes, mods, how-tos, guides, and accessories for your Phantom.
Phantoms in stock and ready to ship! (see availability)

And German, Polish, French, forum's of RC/FPV enthusiast's, facebook owners group are hot of this. People asking about that. Many of users are not aware cracks because they are not inspecting their drone after each flight and only after reading about this issue they inspecting their drones.

Kyokushin Posted at 2015-7-13 03:13
And German, Polish French, forum's of RC/FPV enthusiast's, facebook owners group are hot of this. Pe ...

If you guys are members of other forums, ask them to come to this post and speak about their findings

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-7-13 02:52
I am not sure why you have an issue with my comments.  We have had users here state that over 25%  ...

you have no hard facts to prove that this is not true,
can you share official statement from DJI confirming this?

not all users are comming here ...
some of users are not even aware about cracks as they don't care ...

don't get me wrong,
I'm very happy with my P3 ...
but customer service is on very low level here ... this reflects also to FW updates and issues like FPV lag etc,
also check google ;) https://www.google.pl/webhp?hl=p ... tom+3+stress+cracks

let's see where this will go,
hope my crack will not be bigger so I can enyoj flying and not wating for fix without P3 for month or more ...

Phantom Help Posted at 2015-7-13 03:08
Kyokushin, keep in mind that most people only visit this forum when they have a problem with their P ...

OMG ... so you are blind mate,

https://www.google.pl/webhp?hl=pl#hl=pl&q=Phantom+3+stress+cracks

FYI other countries are not using English ;)

musman1978 Posted at 2015-7-13 03:29
OMG ... so you are bling mate,

https://www.google.pl/webhp?hl=pl#hl=pl&q=Phantom+3+stress+cracks

Your Google search results above are a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Shouldn't we be seeing far more results in Google if 27,000 people really have this problem?

---

www.PhantomHelp.com
Find the latest must-haves, fixes, mods, how-tos, guides, and accessories for your Phantom.
Phantoms in stock and ready to ship! (see availability)

As musman said, this is a probe of english language people. And this is not entire world, but only a slice. There are more countries than US in world, belive me ;)
And I am sure the number of users with crack will grow. Now is almost 40, yesterday was a bit above 20.

Kyokushin, right -- and, that's a great point. This survey is pretty much worthless unless we either get all Phantom owners to take it OR we randomly select 100 Phantom owners (for example) to take it. I suppose that's the beauty of surveys though. They are usually skewed.

---

www.PhantomHelp.com
Find the latest must-haves, fixes, mods, how-tos, guides, and accessories for your Phantom.
Phantoms in stock and ready to ship! (see availability)

This is random probe, and always random probe will be good representation. Even it is only english, and this is random, or even it is on this forum it will be good when it is random.
And here we have random users on dji forum, so we can assume it is our representation. And even the our error is 100 or 200% the number of users with issue will be thousands and more.

The majority of people who come to this forum have a problem with their Phantom -- whether it be a true defect, problem with a setting, or a misunderstanding of how something works. Whatever the case, we have a very small targeted group of Phantom owners here who have some kind of problem. That in itself means the sampling is not random. A true random sampling would be randomly selecting 100 Phantom owners and calling them on the phone.

---

www.PhantomHelp.com
Find the latest must-haves, fixes, mods, how-tos, guides, and accessories for your Phantom.
Phantoms in stock and ready to ship! (see availability)

Phantom Help Posted at 2015-7-13 04:08
The majority of people who come to this forum have a problem with their Phantom -- whether it be a t ...

good idea,
DJI should use registered users emails and send question to even all of them,
with step by step explanation and sample pictures what they should check.

Phone call is no a good solution here,I can see stress crack on my P3 but when showing this to my wife f.e. she was not able to see that,
so only email with examples of big cracks and one that I have that is almost not visible,



Tahoe_Ed,
can this be done?

Br,

Phantom Help Posted at 2015-7-13 03:39
Your Google search results above are a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Shouldn't we be  ...

regarding google search,
P3 is 2 months on market now,
it is loud about cracks for last 2 weeks ... goodle needs to index other sites / forums etc.

Kyokushin Posted at 2015-7-13 03:57
This is random probe, and always random probe will be good representation. Even it is only english,  ...

yes correct,
so saying we have only 28 examples ... I don't know how to comment on this ...

actually we have 39 + 1 as I was voting one day where crack was not visible yet ;) out of 142 of total. still around 28% on this probe

Phantom Help Posted at 2015-7-13 03:08
Kyokushin, keep in mind that most people only visit this forum when they have a problem with their P ...

I refuse to use social media.

Since you are the Facebook guru, post pictures and a request for the users that post there to inspect their Phantoms for cracking around the screw holes.

Most people don't bother looking over their quads either before of after flight. If you ask them to inspect the locations and show them pictures of the area of concern, I can assure you that the number of cases is going to rise.

Sort of like years back when Firestone had tire problems on the Explorer. If you aren't looking, you don't have a problem.

Mine cracked at 24 flights. Never crashed any phantom.

gregg1r Posted at 2015-7-13 04:54
I refuse to use social media.

Since you are the Facebook guru, post pictures and a request for the ...

yeap nothing to add

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-7-13 02:52
I am not sure why you have an issue with my comments.  We have had users here state that over 25%  ...

Haha. But remember Ed, it's only been beaten to death by "28 people out of 100,000 people" - I find it interesting THAT seems to irritate you.

TBH, we hear your point of view loud and clear on the cracks and you are just rubbing salt in to the wounds of the people that are genuinely concerned by unexpected cracks in the structure near the motors.

Your approach and feedback has not gone unnoticed by those monitoring the forums deciding if they want to purchase a P3; but hey they are only a handful of the 7.3 billion people in the world who have yet to purchase a phantom. So no biggy, I imagine.

musman1978 Posted at 2015-7-13 05:20
yeap nothing to add

Not sure what your comment is supposed to mean. Please explain?

gregg1r Posted at 2015-7-13 05:55
Not sure what your comment is supposed to mean. Please explain?

that I fully agree and have nothing to add,

I can already see on all Polish P3 (UAV) discussion groups / forums that this topic is hot,

and again waiting what DJI will do ...

musman1978 Posted at 2015-7-13 05:58
that I fully agree and have nothing to add,

I can already see on all Polish P3 (UAV) discussion g ...

Thank you for the explanation.

Sometimes with language differences things get misconstrued.

Look at this vote from other side. I viewed this Subject 5 days ago and Voted as "3.  My shell is clean". But yesterday, after next flight, I checked body of Phantom and have found 2 cracks in exact places as described here. I can't revote.

I also don't know what to do, because I am in Russia. Can I continue flying? What need I do? Using a glue or what?

lev Posted at 2015-7-13 16:10
Look at this vote from other side. I viewed this Subject 5 days ago and Voted as "3.  My shell is cl ...

don't fix this by yourself,
open ticket with DJI and use warranty.

cannot answer if you can fly as cannot see your cracks  - can you please post pictures here?

Br,

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-7-13 02:52
I am not sure why you have an issue with my comments.  We have had users here state that over 25%  ...

Ed can you tell me if this is covered under warranty? Some people over at the phantom pilots are saying This is not covered under warranty.