Props

[R.Perry]

I started putting the Inspire together, I always take a quick look at each prop before mounting it. To my surprise I had a hairline crack in one of the props. I know the Inspire hasn't hit anything unless it was a large bug, and I seen no sign of impact damage. The last flight showed no indication of anything wrong , it flew just fine.
I bent the prop a little attempting to see if the crack would widen and it did, but very little. Needless to say it went into the garbage but I'm just curious if anyone else has had issues with props cracking.

 

[shooter]

O

I started putting the Inspire together, I always take a quick look at each prop before mounting it. To my surprise I had a hairline crack in one of the props. I know the Inspire hasn't hit anything unless it was a large bug, and I seen no sign of impact damage. The last flight showed no indication of anything wrong , it flew just fine.
I bent the prop a little attempting to see if the crack would widen and it did, but very little. Needless to say it went into the garbage but I'm just curious if anyone else has had issues with props cracking.

OEM props?

 

[R.Perry]

You say OEM props but I haven't heard or experienced any prop issues with my P4 or the Inspire until now. The Inspire has about 94 hours of total flight time, I'm wondering if maybe props should be replaced at set intervals?

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

You say OEM props but I haven't heard or experienced any prop issues with my P4 or the Inspire until now. The Inspire has about 94 hours of total flight time, I'm wondering if maybe props should be replaced at set intervals?

You do not mention Inspire 1 or 2, but either way 97 hours on a plastic prop is a lot of time. We have seen many people replace the stock OEM props between 25 and 50 hours. Everyone should have a set time for replacement of critical components, including motors/bearings, props, center sections depending on the environment you operate in.

 

[R.Perry]

You do not mention Inspire 1 or 2, but either way 97 hours on a plastic prop is a lot of time. We have seen many people replace the stock OEM props between 25 and 50 hours. Everyone should have a set time for replacement of critical components, including motors/bearings, props, center sections depending on the environment you operate in.

It is the Inspire 2. It now has a new set of props. So you mentioned motors, how many hours are these motor suppose to be good for? The other issue I have is batteries, I'm not happy at all with the Inspire 2 batteries, we have had too many premature failures. I do a cell evaluation on each set of batteries each month. Our branch has three Inspire 2 and eight sets of batteries for each, that gets expensive.

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Agreed, that is a lot of batteries. What is your practice or policy on discharge timing? Are the failures due to the cells becoming too far out of balance?

 

[R.Perry]

I currently try not to discharge below 20%, normally it is between 25 and 30. Since I don't use all eight pair any given day I rotate them so I'm using the full set each week. I recharge on Sundays so they are freshly charged Monday morning. I do a battery status report each month, would be happy to post the last one, it's on Excell worksheet. The batteries I've replaced are due to one or two cells becoming weak, normally close to a full volt difference. I don't worry about a .05 variation but when I have seen that it normally increases with each charging, maybe only .01 or .02 but you can see the decrease continuing.

 

[R.Perry]

I guess I can't upload an Excell file so here is the it in a txt file.

Inspire 2 Batteries Status
Bat Date Charg Status Cell 1 Cell 2 Cell 3 Cel l4 Cell 5 Cell 6 Voltage
1A 4/15/18 28 99.0% 4.30 4.31 4.31 4.30 4.30 4.30 25.82
1B 4/15/18 28 99.0% 4.30 4.31 4.31 4.32 4.29 4.31 25.84
2A 4/15/18 24 64.0% 3.97 3.97 3.97 3.96 3.96 3.96 23.79
2B 4/15/18 24 64.0% 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 3.96 23.76
3A 4/15/18 25 99.0% 4.30 4.31 4.31 4.30 4.31 4.30 25.83
3B 4/15/18 25 98.0% 4.29 4.29 4.29 4.29 4.26 4.29 25.71
4A 4/15/18 25 98.0% 4.29 4.29 4.29 4.29 4.26 4.29 25.71
4B 4/15/18 24 98.0% 4.32 4.33 4.32 4.32 4.32 4.32 25.93
5A 4/15/18 29 99.0% 4.29 4.32 4.30 4.29 4.30 4.30 25.80
5B 4/15/18 29 99.0% 4.28 4.29 4.30 4.31 4.31 4.30 25.79
6A 4/15/18 24 99.0% 4.31 4.31 4.31 4.31 4.31 4.31 25.86
6B 4/15/18 23 100.0% 4.32 4.31 4.32 4.31 4.31 4.31 25.88
7A 4/15/18 20 100.0% 4.31 4.32 4.32 4.33 4.32 4.32 25.92
7B 4/15/18 20 99.0% 4.32 4.32 4.31 4.31 4.32 4.32 25.90
8A 4/15/18 15 99.0% 4.32 4.31 4.32 4.32 4.31 4.32 25.90
8B 4/15/18 15 99.0% 4.31 4.32 4.32 4.31 4.32 4.32 25.90