Hi all,

I have been reading the postings about the cracks resulting in structural failures of the airframe of the P4P.  Is there anyone that makes a replacement shell say out of carbon fiber as a way to upgrade our units?

Mark

structural failures happens when they fly and land too hard. NO I havent seen any carbon fibre bodies, that would be nice what about the weight issue?

You can either order a new shell or find someone  with a 3d scanner and printer they can print you a new one

This has been an ongoing problem for some time with all of the phantoms in my opinion. I do believe the phantom 4 series is better than the phantom 3's. Some might disagree and say the cracks are just from hard landings, and aggressive flying, which certainly will add to the problem. But I feel the materials used in these shells are a little short on strength. It is too bad someone hasn't come up with a thicker shell or like you mentioned a carbon fiber one for replacement. My guess would be to tool-up for making these would be very expensive, and your cost would certainly be more than $50-$60 for a shell, and really doubt if the market would be there for it. And with the phantom 3 series basically discontinued, I don't think you'll see anything for these. I do think if you fly in colder weather it takes its toll too. The material gets more brittle for sure. I have replaced a lot of phantom 3 shells only to have them crack shortly after, and then some go for quite a while. While I haven't replaced any of the phantom 4 shells yet, but I now take a new phantom 3 replacement shell and use a little dab of 2-part epoxy around all the motor mounting bolts inside the lower shell. I also now use the motor reinforcements (metal or plastic) when changing the shell out too. This has totally eliminated the cracking for me and a least 6 of the ones I have worked on for friends. I have 6-9 months on several of them and to this day no cracks are visible. A little extra work but not really anything when you are replacing a shell anyway. Too bad DJI couldn't put a little effort into this to help us all out, but I'm sure there are happy to sell shells.

RicardoGray Posted at 2018-1-3 06:01
This has been an ongoing problem for some time with all of the phantoms in my opinion. I do believe the phantom 4 series is better than the phantom 3's. Some might disagree and say the cracks are just from hard landings, and aggressive flying, which certainly will add to the problem. But I feel the materials used in these shells are a little short on strength. It is too bad someone hasn't come up with a thicker shell or like you mentioned a carbon fiber one for replacement. My guess would be to tool-up for making these would be very expensive, and your cost would certainly be more than $50-$60 for a shell, and really doubt if the market would be there for it. And with the phantom 3 series basically discontinued, I don't think you'll see anything for these. I do think if you fly in colder weather it takes its toll too. The material gets more brittle for sure. I have replaced a lot of phantom 3 shells only to have them crack shortly after, and then some go for quite a while. While I haven't replaced any of the phantom 4 shells yet, but I now take a new phantom 3 replacement shell and use a little dab of 2-part epoxy around all the motor mounting bolts inside the lower shell. I also now use the motor reinforcements (metal or plastic) when changing the shell out too. This has totally eliminated the cracking for me and a least 6 of the ones I have worked on for friends. I have 6-9 months on several of them and to this day no cracks are visible. A little extra work but not really anything when you are replacing a shell anyway. Too bad DJI couldn't put a little effort into this to help us all out, but I'm sure there are happy to sell shells.

Of course they are happy by selling us more shells, they promoted  the high speed of the P4P on sports mode and when a cracks appears, the first thing you get is "where you flying at high speed?". This is clearly a poor material choice but they are not standing by their consumers with this.

CM17X Posted at 2018-1-4 11:11
Of course they are happy by selling us more shells, they promoted  the high speed of the P4P on sports mode and when a cracks appears, the first thing you get is "where you flying at high speed?". This is clearly a poor material choice but they are not standing by their consumers with this.

Totally agree! And with that being said, I for one believe that most companies don't want to make a product that will last forever. Doesn't matter whether it is cars, boats, planes......you name it. It is part of the business that they sell parts and depend on that to make money. I understand that too. It just seems DJI obviously has the major market share on the drone market a least at this time, and there probably isn't much incentive to improve existing products. My guess they are working on future models. Anyway, DJI does make us some great products, and I am happy for that. It would be nice if they would communicate to all of us a little better, instead of not addressing the issue other than send it in and we'll fix it. It is what it is and we all know it..........this subject has run it's course. Good bye. LOL

RicardoGray Posted at 2018-1-3 06:01
This has been an ongoing problem for some time with all of the phantoms in my opinion. I do believe the phantom 4 series is better than the phantom 3's. Some might disagree and say the cracks are just from hard landings, and aggressive flying, which certainly will add to the problem. But I feel the materials used in these shells are a little short on strength. It is too bad someone hasn't come up with a thicker shell or like you mentioned a carbon fiber one for replacement. My guess would be to tool-up for making these would be very expensive, and your cost would certainly be more than $50-$60 for a shell, and really doubt if the market would be there for it. And with the phantom 3 series basically discontinued, I don't think you'll see anything for these. I do think if you fly in colder weather it takes its toll too. The material gets more brittle for sure. I have replaced a lot of phantom 3 shells only to have them crack shortly after, and then some go for quite a while. While I haven't replaced any of the phantom 4 shells yet, but I now take a new phantom 3 replacement shell and use a little dab of 2-part epoxy around all the motor mounting bolts inside the lower shell. I also now use the motor reinforcements (metal or plastic) when changing the shell out too. This has totally eliminated the cracking for me and a least 6 of the ones I have worked on for friends. I have 6-9 months on several of them and to this day no cracks are visible. A little extra work but not really anything when you are replacing a shell anyway. Too bad DJI couldn't put a little effort into this to help us all out, but I'm sure there are happy to sell shells.

I agree you with.   In my opinion the p4p bodies have inherent design flaws.  I had a p4p for about 3 or 4 months and noticed a crack by the motor exhaust vent.  It had nothing to do with hard flying  or hard landings. Mine was replaced by DJI and it wasn't as part of the  $149 warranty