Scheduled Maintenance

MapMaker53 · Aug 22, 2014

Has there been any established or recommended maintenance schedule for the Phantoms? I'm particularly concerned about the hard working prop motors. It seems to me that inevitably one will have a mechanical failure, and it's only going to fail while flying -- which most likely means goodbye drone. Have these been out long enough to know when/how often the motors should be swapped out for new ones? Do owners do that as a precaution, say, every 2 years if they fly a lot? Just wondering.

cahutch · Aug 22, 2014

MapMaker53 said:
Has there been any established or recommended maintenance schedule for the Phantoms? I'm particularly concerned about the hard working prop motors. It seems to me that inevitably one will have a mechanical failure, and it's only going to fail while flying -- which most likely means goodbye drone. Have these been out long enough to know when/how often the motors should be swapped out for new ones? Do owners do that as a precaution, say, every 2 years if they fly a lot? Just wondering.

The motors spin on sealed bearings, so there's not much to do to them.

You will probably need to replace the bearings after some number of hours but it's hard to say how long.
You can get bearing kits so there's no need to replace the whole motor. The bearings are the only part that should exhibit any wear.

You should regularly check for wobble or play in the motor shaft and pull to check that the e-clip hasn't come loose.
IIRC, the e-clip sits on top of a brass spacer which rides on the inside portion of the bottom bearing so the e-clip and spacer spin with the shaft.

There's not much that can go wrong on a brushless motor really. It's more likely you'll have an ESC failure and since it's solid state, there's nothing you can do for preventative maintenance.