Matthew Dobrski
Second Officer
Flight distance : 1831050 ft
Canada
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Among avid hobbyists the issue of propeller balancing is a must, a ritual carried out with almost religious attitude. This is, however, not the case with DJI products, targeting customers not always familiar with such chores. Modern mold injecting technology is fully capable to deliver perfectly balanced propellers for our quadcopters.
Yet - occasionally - some pilots are reporting excessive frame vibrations. Some are blaming infamous propellers rattle/looseness, plaguing early batches of Inspire 2. Others are convinced about propellers itself as being off balance.
To get to the bottom of this issue I decided to perform balancing of all Inspire propellers I've got in my barn. To do so, custom balancing shaft had to be manufactured to snugly fit 5 mm hole at the bottom of propeller mount assembly. The mount must be used since there's no other way to install the propellers on balancing shaft. The shaft was manufactured to the highest accuracy standards modern machining can deliver. Pretty much staple and reliable Dubro rig was used to perform balancing procedure ...
The verdict? After several hours of tidious work and double checks I can conclude beyond any doubts that all 16 Inspire 1 and 2 propellers at my disposal are perfectly in balance.
That said, inevitable qestion remains ... Assuming perfectly intact propellers, what other issues may cause sporadic airframe vibrations? Well, the only other suspects are the un-balanced motor(s). This is relatively easy to confirm or deny. Remove all propellers, start the machine and spin the motors pushing the throttle stick up slowly. With one hand on aircraft arms you'll be able to detect excessive vibrations build-up. If that's the case, motor replacement is the best way to eradicate the annoyance.
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