Repairing my X8. Upd.

Previously I Crashed my X8 due to bad power module soldering. 

Fuselage  nose was broken and needs some attention to be repaired.

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I'm going to put together all pieces that came off during a crash.

After that I'm gonna add some 0.15mm fiberglass to the front side of the  fuselage to protect it from the minor dents due to hard landings, for example on the ice.

In the same way I'm going to reinforce elevons, as they are strongly bent at maximum deviationthat negatively affects the handling.

According to my estimates used dry fiberglass weighs about 80 grams, so with the resin, the total weight of the aircraft will increase by approximately 160 grams.

A lot, but is there a better choice?

Next I'll post some photos of the processes

Above: Crashed plane on a tree itself. Duct tape was added for rough landings. Didn't help, ha :)

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Camera place was knocked out by the main battery

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Here you can see a particular point of impact. Piece of the foam was strongly bent inside and almost came off...

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Here is it after disassembling all the electronics. Three main parts have to be put together and couple of small cracks have to be glued too.

I used kleiberit pur 501.

It sticks to the foam very well, It turns into foam for 30 minutes and can be sanded in a couple of hours depending on the humidity in the room (the adhesive is cured by water from the air).

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First I glued the camera place and most of cracks. The last piece was bent so I decided to make it fit when the fuselage will not be as flimsy.

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After all it all was in it's place. Toothpicks were removed later. 

Update.

Next few pictures after the plane was covered with fiberglass.
As a result, weight increased by 120 grams.

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Comments

  • Carl, I'm sure that bad soldering caused crash becauce engine stoped, failsafe didn't work ( plane ardupilot didn't go into "circle" mode). It just continued flying with both roll and pitch it had then engine stoped.

  • Are you sure it was the wire falling off that caused the crash? or did the wire come off as a result of the crash?

    I agree the wires where poorly soldered on to the connector . But from the crash photo it looks like the plane had the motor running when it went into the tree and and not just free falling up against it . I have experienced  both situations . It looks like a lot of damage for a free fall. Any how Good job on the repair a lot of times the rebuilt plane is stronger than when it was new. That wing has a lot of lift  don't worry about the extra weight from the repair if any thing it will penetrate the wind better . Do a center of gravity check fore and aft  also check it side to side to see if one wing is heavier than the other . On my radian pro one wing was heavier right out of the box I had to put 6 thumb tacks in the right wing 3/4 of the way out on the right wing for it to be level. God Luck with the build and Have a Great Day. "Hey if you haven't crashed from time to time you haven't flown".

  • Oh nice trick with the reshaping. Sorry to hear about your electronics getting soaked. My ublox has seen a massive amout of impact, and still works. There are pieces of chips broken off lol, but the thing still works perfectly!!

    I'm going to be putting my electronics in a radio shack project enclosure box, insulated with foam. And plenty of holes for the BARO (and wires) 

  • Nice Job, I crashed mine worse than that and repaired it with epoxy and hot glue. Got into the dreaded spin, and crashed in the middle of a prison....took two hours to get it back, but the guards were cool about picking up every piece of the middle fuselage. 

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