[SOLVED] Broken one of the arms

[toastbrot]

jup. i did fix it almost the same way and i've seen the post. but this is not a real solution! its a fix! there are 3 other arms that will break and even the fixed one could break nearer to the pcb-center where you wont be able to fix it with a tiny pipe! the product is not finished and to expensive as to break with second flight-test...
and to my "trolly stuff": it is my feeling about that product and it depends what you expect from it. i did expect a product that is quite mature (and stable) and in my opinion it is not, so i personally do not recommend it to others as long there is no solution to the problem, that arms break at the same spot. you can accept it or not... possibly the white thing just needs to be longer or snap completely around the whole pcb, or whatever. but now its not mature and so i can not recommend it. and time will tell how many crazyflies will break the exact same way...

[tobias]

Hi toastbrot,

We are really sorry you feel this way! We will however do our best to support you in fixing it and making it fly well again. Do you feel you have the skills/tools to fix it as described in the troubleshooting page?

[tobias]

there are 3 other arms that will break and even the fixed one could break nearer to the pcb-center where you wont be able to fix it with a tiny pipe!

I think you where very unlucky, and that is one of the risks with flying things. They can crash and break. If you buy an R/C air plane and it crashes you will most likely end up with it in a lot of pieces, that is a drawback with the hobby (but also a fun thing as it makes it exiting to not make it crash). We have had a guy dropping his Crazyflie from a 25 stories building without breaking it and another one where a tractor ran it over so there are some good stories as well.

I think we first try to assist you in fixing it, and if it breaks easily after that we can work something out with you to make you happy again. How does that sound?

[toastbrot]

thank you tobias. but usually if i'm "very unlucky" with a product i buy in a store, i can refund/return/exchange it! but anyway, we'll see what happens with mine and i dont think i'll be the only one that is not so "happy" ...

[foosel]

but usually if i'm "very unlucky" with a product i buy in a store, i can refund/return/exchange it!

Try that with an R/C heli you crash and break in the process...

That aside though I can assure you, breaking arms on that thing are very very uncommon from what we have seen here so far, and after flying my CF now since early May I can at least attest from my personal point of view that this thing takes a serious beating, way more than any other commercial R/C "toy" I've had the opportunity to test over the last couple of years. To be honest, I can't even imagine how I would be able to manage breaking one of the arms, I guess it really takes the combination of several unlucky parameters to happen (high speed + hard edged surface + right angle of impact is my current guess).

[toastbrot]

here it happend like this: i connected everything and just touched the gamepad to test the engines for short. the thing went full power to the ceiling and broke the arm at the flat ceiling... thats it. nothing special. it just broke... (ah almost forgot: i've seen some connection errors then...)

[TheFrog4u]

I understand your frustration, but from my experience you sadly seem to be just very unlucky with your cf. As hundreds of others I also had very violent crashes, that would have destroyed most other rc-flying vehicles, without any damage.
Personaly I would greatly recommend to you to fix it, and I am sure u will still have great fun with your flie and forget about the broken arm quickly once you get used to it.

[tobias]

There is a possibility that there is a HW issue with your Crazyflie. If you want, you could send it to us an we can investigate it and if it is an HW issue we will arrange with Seeedstudio to replace/refund you. Before that it might be good to test it more your self as you could probably judge that as well. In the end we want you to have fun with you Crazyflie whether it is developing flying skills, learning electronics, learning software, developing on it, you name it!

[DesTinY]

Some times the price of learning is high but never in vain. I have also need to learn hardly to check things twice, trust only with carefull and RTFM!
The support and obligingness of the Bitcraze Team is great! You hardly find it somewhere else.
And don't forget you bought a development kit that flies NOT a toy. Although you can have the same or even MORE fun as a toy with it!

BTW: How would our world look like today, if Isaac Newton just felled of headache and frustration the apple tree! G=~10?!

[toastbrot]

come on DesTinY, your point is ridiculous!
have you ever spent 180$ for a thing (put in what you like: toy, open platform, beta-product, development platform, experimental kit, ...) that breaks 15min after you put it together? and then were you happy? would you want to return such a product? would you recommend such a product to anyone?
and i spent more time to get stuff to fix it and do the fix itself, than flying with it! and i dont know if it survives the next real crash.
honestly, i have not found any offical return/refund/exchange policy yet? is there one?