I'll start with I'm not exactly a drone "enthusiast". My uses are very moderate.
Many years ago my wife bought me a Parrot Bebop 2 with the skytroller 1 as a gift. I messed about with it a bit but never used it for much of anything besides a little backyard flying. It seemed pretty "full featured" at the time: gps, one button takeoff/landing battery monitor, auto return, follow me, very long range, etc.
I primarily use it to look at the eaves-troughs, blow off pine needles/maple seeds/etc, check the solar array on the roof and maybe a quick once over of the roof shingles after a storm.
The parrot camera doesn't do the best image streaming at 1080p nd low bit rate, but it gets the job done. The Skytroller is nice and easy to fly (I used to fly RC so it feels familiar) and that it can hold an ipad makes for a nice large picture.
The other day, I was checking the eaves-trough and the display came up with some odd fault (flashed quickly, didn't see what it was), the drone basically turned off in mid air, bounced off the roof, ricocheted off the eaves-trough and ended up in a japanese maple by the house. Recovered it and the front left motor was hanging by it's wires. The blades were dented but not torn. Tried powering it up and sure enough: motor fault.
The blade I was able to work back to "undamaged" appearance so that's good to go.
Took it apart and the wiring from the connector to the motor is stretched and tweaked. The prop hit the strut and the motor twisted the wiring when it came loose from the strut. The screws holding the motor appear to have backed off and let the motor go adrift. The screws go back into the motor mount and tighten up just fine, so they didn't strip out.
Open up the wires and yeah, twisted off and broken right at the motor coils. I solder the wires back on to what's left of the motor coil leads and fire the drone up. Motor fault is gone. So the drone is OK except for that wiring.
So that brings me to the point of do I replace the motor or do I replace the drone?
The motor is going to cost me somewhere between 100-150 to replace (I'm in Canada, prices and shipping is high). I'm not sure I trust the soldered wire to keep the thing in flight reliably, so I'd like to replace it. The original battery packs are swelling (ie: need replaced) which is going to cost me another 80-120 CAD. So somewhere around 200-250 to get it back up and running and I'll still have the somewhat low resolution Bebop 1080P streaming video.
I see drones on amazon for anywhere from 50-300 bucks, but most of the names I don't recognize or are highly priced DJI models. Obviously, my use don't warrant an expensive drone, but I'd like something of decent quality and video images.
Should I repair or replace? And if replace, with what? Keeping in mind my modest use and budget....
Many years ago my wife bought me a Parrot Bebop 2 with the skytroller 1 as a gift. I messed about with it a bit but never used it for much of anything besides a little backyard flying. It seemed pretty "full featured" at the time: gps, one button takeoff/landing battery monitor, auto return, follow me, very long range, etc.
I primarily use it to look at the eaves-troughs, blow off pine needles/maple seeds/etc, check the solar array on the roof and maybe a quick once over of the roof shingles after a storm.
The parrot camera doesn't do the best image streaming at 1080p nd low bit rate, but it gets the job done. The Skytroller is nice and easy to fly (I used to fly RC so it feels familiar) and that it can hold an ipad makes for a nice large picture.
The other day, I was checking the eaves-trough and the display came up with some odd fault (flashed quickly, didn't see what it was), the drone basically turned off in mid air, bounced off the roof, ricocheted off the eaves-trough and ended up in a japanese maple by the house. Recovered it and the front left motor was hanging by it's wires. The blades were dented but not torn. Tried powering it up and sure enough: motor fault.
The blade I was able to work back to "undamaged" appearance so that's good to go.
Took it apart and the wiring from the connector to the motor is stretched and tweaked. The prop hit the strut and the motor twisted the wiring when it came loose from the strut. The screws holding the motor appear to have backed off and let the motor go adrift. The screws go back into the motor mount and tighten up just fine, so they didn't strip out.
Open up the wires and yeah, twisted off and broken right at the motor coils. I solder the wires back on to what's left of the motor coil leads and fire the drone up. Motor fault is gone. So the drone is OK except for that wiring.
So that brings me to the point of do I replace the motor or do I replace the drone?
The motor is going to cost me somewhere between 100-150 to replace (I'm in Canada, prices and shipping is high). I'm not sure I trust the soldered wire to keep the thing in flight reliably, so I'd like to replace it. The original battery packs are swelling (ie: need replaced) which is going to cost me another 80-120 CAD. So somewhere around 200-250 to get it back up and running and I'll still have the somewhat low resolution Bebop 1080P streaming video.
I see drones on amazon for anywhere from 50-300 bucks, but most of the names I don't recognize or are highly priced DJI models. Obviously, my use don't warrant an expensive drone, but I'd like something of decent quality and video images.
Should I repair or replace? And if replace, with what? Keeping in mind my modest use and budget....
Last edited:
