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Best strategy? Buying backup copies of one quad, or different types? Or buying spare parts separately?

Frisbee

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When I first started flying, I bought a Eachine Wizard X220, and I quickly (in 10 minutes!) learned that quads break and need to be repaired. After that I decided to buy a second Wizard X220 so that I could cannibalize parts from one quad to repair the other. At this point I am now flying three sizes of quads; large (Wizard X220), medium (Larva X), and small (Mobula6).

I still have plenty of parts to continue repairing and flying my Wizard, but I want to keep flying my LarvaX and Mobula6, requiring having a backup available (or the parts necessary) to make repairs and keep flying. Is it still a good strategy to buy an additional LarvaX and Mobula6 to cannibalize parts from one to repair the other?

What are your thoughts, and how do you strategise your buying to keep flying?
 
Hmm, it seems a little expensive to me to keep buying $200 worth of equipment just to replace a few parts at a time. Might it be more worth your money to build something from scratch using affordable but good parts so that you only buy and replace what's broken? I broke two motors recently and I couldn't imagine buying a whole new quad just to replace those two parts.
 
I would agree that buying parts as needed would be cheaper. The downside would be the time you have to wait for the parts to arrive. Thats where having a handful of quads helps to keep flying while one is being repaired. The iFlight CineBee was my first whoop purchase and have built all my own since then. The stack finally went bad in it so I pulled it apart and am using the R-SXR in another build... The motors and Caddx Turtle v2 are still good and will be used somewhere.
 
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I’ve only bought parts (outside of the normal consumables) as required. Shipping times vary but usually within a week is fine as I usually have a spare quad to smack around while waiting. Having said that, I bought a spare wizard for $50.00 as the owner couldn’t set it up and gave up on it. Absolute bargain but those opportunities are rare.
Although given the recent covid19 issues with both supply and freight, spares are getting harder to come by and one of my suppliers told me that he was selling complete quads to get people out of strife with their various builds.
 
When I first started Banggood had a company 19th anniversary sale and I picked up 3 Wizard X220 for $99 a piece, got 3 XSR receivers for $14.99 each (no R-XSR or XM series at that time), so I had 3 quads in the air for less than $350. I still have them today and my youngest grandson is starting to fly with me so they are now his first quads. Almost everything in our quads is generic and can be replaced with newer and better components when the need arises (motors, ESC's, FC's, Cams, vTX's) but the one thing that can go missing over time is the carbon frame components, for that reason I watched for any sale and grabbed an extra set of arms and a couple top and bottom plates, and a set of motors. That was a great strategy for me since I had 3 of the same quad and when one broke (usually a blown ESC's or a bent motor bell) I would grab the next one and it essentially flew the exact same, the experts recommend 3 of the same so you can keep consistency while getting better at flying. Just last week my grandson flew into a tree at speed and the top plate turned into 3 separate pieces ? , so out comes a new top plate and he is right back in business. The Eachine Wizard X220 has gotten more people into this hobby than any other quad in history (Arris 220 is number 2 in that list). So I say look at what is unique to a particular quad, and only get what parts could be hard to come by as it ages, and do not stock up on too many things that will be superseded by better parts quickly in this hobby. IMHO


Fleet2.jpg
 
I bought a used Wizard X220 and I am watching eBay for used ones selling for parts. I think that ones like that that are selling cheap is the way to go.
 

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