Wingsland S6 and DJI Spark size

Posted on 9th July 2018 by graz27

What was very surprising to me  is when you actually see a DJI Spark up close, its smaller than I expected in real life.

The Spark does look bigger when the Spark props on and stretched out, and DJI fatter and heavier.

But compared to S6 , it flys around 12 mins ish as with the S6 it seems normally around 5:30 mins or maybe more if weather is right.

Batteries cost about the same for both, although dji lipo is a 3 cell one.

and of course Spark has a mechanical 2 axis gimbal and better app and firmware and also to me what is a BIG BONUS is you can tinker with the file system, as the experts out that have worked out how to root it and upgrade and downgrade firmware and many other things.

There is no contest really between these two.

But….. The DJI Spark are expensive to buy , far far more expensive than what you can pick a Wingsland S6 up for now.

The S6 still looks great and its so well packaged…

But…… Wingsland dont bother with it anymore, no firmware updates since last year and a under developed app (Especially on ios)

So if you decide to pick a S6 up at the prices they are almost giving these away now, bear in mind you buying a quad with bugs and almost certainly no more updates to fix bugs and missing features.

Still think its a shame about the S6, such a good looking quad and great hardware, but totally let down by the software and poor battery.

They could have a much better selling quad and far better reviews, if only they actually supported it and made a upgraded battery….

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DJI Spark repairs

Posted on 9th July 2018 by graz27

Well picked up a cheap broken Spark to see if it was worth fixing.

This one had a broken arm, badly broken gimbal and some other faults.

After stripping it down and checking it all over, I found the front sensor camera case had broken away and that was a simple fix with some glue as the camera sensor was still okay and just the plastic lens housing broken away from the board.

Glued the broken arm back into place and then reinforced it with some fiberglass resin.

No point in getting a new body until I know whether it worth it or not.

one of the wires had snapped away from the motor esc, so that was fixed and needed a new led cover.

after gluing back the arm and what was left of the gimbal, I tried a test flight.

This had to be done with a third party wired lipo as again not worth buying a battery yet.

Be careful you check where you are soldering, if you going do this battery mod.

Had to cut a small hole in top casing, but as I know I will end up getting a new case at some stage, this was not a big deal to me.

Had to use the DJI assistant version 1.2 to get access to debug mode and enable third party battery option.

With this set you can use a different battery. But…. no feedback on what voltage is etc.

As you can see from pic below the camera gimbal is totally out of focus.

And after taking the gimbal apart again, and examining the actual lens and sensor it was obvious the sensor took damage and is non repairable.

Problem there is a new gimbal assembly is almost half the price of a new Spark.

The motors in the gimbal worked fine, but was smashed so sadly not really usable that bit either as too much of casing was missing.

So had a look around and got a cheap second hand one that had a fault, but camera was fine and motors were not.

Lucky that you can get the motors and housing bit very cheap from china from Aliexpress,

I tested the camera on the second hand one and that worked fine, but with gimbal overload. New housing with motors should cure that.

Also using the ios app, I was getting downward vision sensor errors.

This seems to be the ribbon has slightly broken at plug where it plugs in on top of main board.

So yet again Aliexpress to the rescue with a replacement ribbon and bottom sensor assembly.

So hopefully once these parts turn up, it should work ok?.

 

But real question is….. Is it worth it??????

I guess if one can pick up a damaged Spark, and the main board and motors still work and not too much other damage. (Especially the gimbal camera part)

Some parts are cheap, but others like main board and the camera gimbal assy are expensive!

Steer clear from water damaged ones, especially ones that have landed in the sea.

Crash on land ones if not too badly smashed might be worth a go, but as you can see it can end up with a lot of parts need to be changed out and you need to get parts from china or it definitely wont be worth it!

 

So thank god for places like Aliexpress!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in DJI Spark, Radio Control Models | Leave a comment

WingSland S6 Charger mod

Posted on 9th July 2018 by graz27

To make it easier to keep a better eye on the battery condition in the S6 , i split apart the usb charger and added a balance cable.

It is not plastic welded together luckly enough, so one can gently prise it apart with something like a plastic splatter.

There is however one screw that needs to be undone which is under the label.

I also drilled out a small hole so the balance and power cable could pass out of the case.

Of course doing all this voids the warranty, but that prob does not matter these days as it seems the S6 is not supported anymore anyways.

That way I can plug it into my imax B6 and check it far more easier that the temp balance cable I made up.

Also still be able to charge by normal usb if needed.

 

 

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Wingsland S6 battery tests

Posted on 9th May 2018 by graz27

Being that this quad has very short flight times, I used my first one to test out some different batteries.

I made up a lead to go from inside the quad to some outside connectors.

Using a Turnigy 2s 1600Mah normal 4.2 per cell pack I got about 7 mins.

Could just about fit this in the battery compartment , although was a very tight fit.

 

Next test was getting hold of some LiHV cells.

The way I done this was to get a 4s 1400 LiHV pack and split the cells.

One has to be REALLY CAREFULL doing this!!

So if you try this and it goes wrong you have been warned ! Dont do it unless you know what you are doing.

 

New cells slightly heavier above

Original cells above

 

New cells soldered into original case….

 

Flight times were on my first flight I got 6 mins 50 secs and second flight was 7 mins 7 secs before auto low voltage landing.

So one can get a tad more flight time with upgraded cells.

Not tried normal flight yet, and would expect this to be better.

 

Voltages at end were 3.67 per cell.

Charge put back in was 1270mah @ 1amp 1:24:29 secs

So using almost 90% of battery in those 7+ mins.

After second run of these cells I put charge put back in of 1105 mah @1 amp 1:12:22 secs

 

I am beginning to think the only way to get this up anywhere near 10 mins is probably finding better props and or better efficiency motors.

As fitting a bigger battery going to be problematical.

Unless something changes on cell density in the future and allows about the same size cells…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2nd Banggood Wingsland S6

Posted on 9th May 2018 by graz27

Well, being that my first Wingsland S6 had issues with camera where it would only show a blank screen on app, I ordered another S6 from Banggood.

Although ironically after downgrading the camera firmware on my first S6 after putting it back together after the tear down I done , it now works about 8 times out of ten.

So maybe was a connection or the older firmware that has improved it.

So the one on the right is the new one and the camera works on that every time!

The battery with the new one also came with higher resistance on the cells that I would normally expect, but a tad lower than the first battery.

Anyways, with a hover test. Was about the same almost 6 mins with new battery and with first battery I also got about almost 6 mins.

So it definitely seems normal hover flight time on a battery will be between 5-6 mins and would expect a bit more when flying around normally.

Will test this when I get a chance.

Would still like to try this out with the proper R6 controller, but still cant find these for sale anywhere.

So yup, I was just unlucky with the first one Banggood sent me and the second one works fine.

Although a interesting thing was on the first one there was NO led light hardware inside the quad.

But on the second one I can clearly see this one has the led hardware inside.

Bit irrelevant as thats another feature now removed from the app. I dare say flight time was bad enough without trying to run a led light too 😉

Next post will be some battery tests 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

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