I've just been through a trying experience with my first drone (HS710). Actually it was my son in law's drone, but he told me I knew more than he does about electronics so he wanted me to read the manual and test it first. I did 2 short successful test flights then invited him over to "train" him on what I learned. We hovered at 5 feet then throttled it up to about 30 ft. At that point we lost control of the drone and it began circling the house. RTH would not bring it back. I pressed RTH repeatedly with no success. The circling got wider and it eventually crashed, breaking two of the arms.
I contacted HS who offered to send two replacement arms under warranty. I accepted because I have had career long experience with electronics repair. I did not know what I was in for. This was like trying to repair the electronics in a cellular phone. They provided a link to a video on how to completely disassemble the drone. The video is only a couple of minutes long, but in REAL TIME, it took hours. One of the wires from the arm is actually a very thin coaxial cable (for the antenna) and it terminates in a connector at the very bottom of the drone fuselage, so virtually every wire inside the drone had to be de-soldered and re-soldered and these were perhaps #28 or #30 AWG wire. I did not have a high degree of confidence that my re-soldering did not bridge a gap somewhere on the main PC board. Tucking the wires back inside the fuselage to put the chassis back together was also a challenge. I probably had about 3+ hours in the repair.
The good news is that it all worked! There is a video I found on YouTube on replacing arms for a model 720 (not the 710). That model is much easier to repair because the antenna wire terminates at the pivot of the arm and you can just push it out of the way while replacing the arm. I recognized that the 710 is not built that way and if you just snip and try to splice the thin coaxial cable that extends into the arm, you will be SOL. That is why I had to completely disassemble.
I bought my son-in-law a NEW HS710, and I've kept this one for myself, since it has a lot of my soldering and splices created during the repair. IF he had asked me what to buy originally, I probably would have recommended something with a gimble mount and stability control.
After the repair, I realized that I was nowhere near ready to fly this drone when I did the first flights originally. Newbie users really need to spend a lot of time with the manual and do some very low and slow test flights, before attempting the more complex maneuvers. Based on the questions customer service was asking me about settings and parameters after the accident, I realized I had not done adequate homework.
Finally, a tip for new users: I was using an iPhone SE. Turn off Cellular Data for the Ophelia GO app, or better yet, completely turn off Cellular Data in the phone's SETTINGS when operating the drone. You don't want that app trying to connect to cellular data when it needs to stay connected to the drone's network. I know this bit me a few times with unexplained disconnection during flight.
I contacted HS who offered to send two replacement arms under warranty. I accepted because I have had career long experience with electronics repair. I did not know what I was in for. This was like trying to repair the electronics in a cellular phone. They provided a link to a video on how to completely disassemble the drone. The video is only a couple of minutes long, but in REAL TIME, it took hours. One of the wires from the arm is actually a very thin coaxial cable (for the antenna) and it terminates in a connector at the very bottom of the drone fuselage, so virtually every wire inside the drone had to be de-soldered and re-soldered and these were perhaps #28 or #30 AWG wire. I did not have a high degree of confidence that my re-soldering did not bridge a gap somewhere on the main PC board. Tucking the wires back inside the fuselage to put the chassis back together was also a challenge. I probably had about 3+ hours in the repair.
The good news is that it all worked! There is a video I found on YouTube on replacing arms for a model 720 (not the 710). That model is much easier to repair because the antenna wire terminates at the pivot of the arm and you can just push it out of the way while replacing the arm. I recognized that the 710 is not built that way and if you just snip and try to splice the thin coaxial cable that extends into the arm, you will be SOL. That is why I had to completely disassemble.
I bought my son-in-law a NEW HS710, and I've kept this one for myself, since it has a lot of my soldering and splices created during the repair. IF he had asked me what to buy originally, I probably would have recommended something with a gimble mount and stability control.
After the repair, I realized that I was nowhere near ready to fly this drone when I did the first flights originally. Newbie users really need to spend a lot of time with the manual and do some very low and slow test flights, before attempting the more complex maneuvers. Based on the questions customer service was asking me about settings and parameters after the accident, I realized I had not done adequate homework.
Finally, a tip for new users: I was using an iPhone SE. Turn off Cellular Data for the Ophelia GO app, or better yet, completely turn off Cellular Data in the phone's SETTINGS when operating the drone. You don't want that app trying to connect to cellular data when it needs to stay connected to the drone's network. I know this bit me a few times with unexplained disconnection during flight.
